Page 8 of It’s All in How You Fall
It’s a single answer to all of it. I believe her.
Olga scoots up the length of the bed toward where I’m propped up on pillows and grabs my hand in hers—warm, comforting, strong. “Caroline, you will always have a place with me at Balan’s. Once you’re sixteen, I’ll hire you to coach mini-gym, work the front desk—I can pay you more than Nat makes at that stupid country club.” The offer would be funny if it weren’t so screwed up: old enough to retire, too young to be a paid employee. “You know I’d love to nurture a career in coaching—you would be fantastic.Fantastic.” A big fat tear leaps my lower lashes and plows down my cheek. Olga wipes it away with her free hand. “I want you in my gym.Always.But no, I will not watch you self-destruct.”
With each deep breath to find the words, my back cries out in pain until my lungs give up. And so do I. When I speak, my voice is barely above a whisper. “I’m not self-destructing.I’m living.”
Olga’s mouth falls open and then closes. She squeezes my hand and stands, pushing her bangs out of her eyes. They glisten in the unforgiving light as she exchanges something wordless with Dad. Olga is crying. I’ve known her for ten years and have never seen her cry except out of absolute happiness—for the team, for her gymnasts, when all the hard work finally pays off.
Not when all the hard work costs us something great.
There’s a banging outside the glass and Nat appears, sunglasses sliding down his nose. He balances a protein shake, fabric grocery bag, and basketball over a sweat-stained tank and shorts. “They were out of cookie dough Quest bars, so I got you s’mores and cookies & cream. Hope your taste buds can lower their standards, Caro.”
He tosses the grocery bag in my general direction. My back hurts too much to catch it, though, and it sort of bounces off my stomach and onto the bed, protein bar wrappers crinkling against each other. Nat takes a sip of his shake, finally cataloging our faces—my trembling lips, Dad’s flushed cheeks, Olga’s glistening eyes. “What?”
Olga stands and snags the ball straight out of Nat’s hands. “Hi. Outside now, yes?”
It’s phrased as a question but it’s not. Nat’s usually one to argue but blessedly doesn’t, allowing Olga to escort him into the hum of the rest of the ER. The door slides closed with a soft pneumatic click. That whisper of dread I felt in the gym is now wailing louder than my back. That fat tear has become a flood, the lump in my windpipe wrenched open by a sob I can’t smother. My shoulders shake, which makes my back seize up. But I can’t stop it.
Dad leans in, cradling an arm around my neck, an awkward balance of providing comfort while not applying pressure because it’ll make everything that much worse. The flash of anger from earlier is gone, his overarching calm resolute.
“Itisyour body, Caroline, you’re right, and it should be your decision. And after Dr. Kennedy’s recommendation today, I was ready to make it your choice. Olga and I talked through the options—a short sabbatical, maybe a handshake decision that this would be your last season, or just playing wait and see after the cortisone shot took effect.” He shakes his head and gestures to the scans. “But this—this is something else entirely.”
Even though his voice is level, there’s a sadness within it that nearly matches what’s swelling within me. “Further damage will affect more than your season and your gymnastics career—it’ll affect the rest of your life.”
“Dad…”
“You accomplished so much, and I am so very proud of you for what you’ve achieved and all the hard work you put toward being the best for ten years. But I can’t watch this. I can’t pay for this. I can’t drive you to the gym five days a week knowing you’ll harm yourself in a way that even surgery might not fix.”
“Dad, please.”
He stands. Hands on hips. Red in the face, trying to sniff away the fact that his own tears have begun.
“There will be other sports, other passions, Caroline. But no more gymnastics.”
4
My life is over. Not literally, but it might as well be.
Dad tells me not to mope. Mom texts a “thumbs-up” in “support” from Beijing. Nat offers to help me get a spot at the country club where he’s working as a groundskeeper, pretending that he’d be happy to have his baby sister around a job he does with a half dozen other guys from the Northland High basketball team. Which is… nice. If a little misguided because I’m probably too young to be employed there. And I don’t need money. I needmeback.
The me I am at the gymisthe normal me.
Still, because I always at leasttry, I go through the motions of what I think summer might look like to a normal teen.
I sleep later than I ever have (hello, eight o’clock hour!).
I walk to Starbucks and order my cold brew just the way I like it in all its super-caffeinated, growth-stunting glory.
I blaze through all the suggested summer reading for sophomores at Northland (Lord of the Flies,The Call of the Wild, and a bunch of other work by dead white guys).
I fry my shoulders and the tops of my feet in an attempt at lying out—this me and previous me have the same iridescent pale skin tone, so that was an idiot move no matter how grumpy I am. And honestly, the pool’s too loud and lonely and swimsuits are too much like leotards.
I hit the movie theater with Peregrine and Sunny every Sunday afternoon. It started with a showing of that Marvel offering the weekend of my fall and subsequent quitter’s intervention by Dad and Olga, and has spiraled into a way we’re staying connected. It’s like dipping a toe into my old life, if only for a millisecond. What’s weird is that I barely talk to Peregrine and Sunny during the week. Somehow, if we interact Monday through Friday, it just reminds me of where they are without me.
By the last week in June, our movie showing is literally the only thing I’m looking forward to. Otherwise, I’m struggling to find anything to fill my time that also fits my attitude.
I must look rough, because Nat tried to convince me to play basketball with him and his buds at the park an hour ago. But that would’ve required me looking like an idiot around older boys, so, um, no, never. My brother’s not big on rejection, so he didn’t ask twice and just left, the ball echoing into nothing as he walked to the court. While I used to fill my time with the same sport every active hour, Nat is like a shark—he can’t stop moving, and he doesn’t care what he does to pass the time. He even joined the cheer squad as a freshman when they needed dudes to lift up the smaller girls. Heclaimshe sticks with it because he enjoys it, not because it requires him to stare up girls’ skirts.
Meanwhile, though I’m not supposed todogymnastics, I can do other stuff. Sort of. My lumbar strain has healed and my regular doctor—I refuse to go back to Dr. Kennedy—says I don’t need surgery at the moment for the stenosis. I just need to be “kind” to myself, whatever the hell that means. I’m trying to take it seriously, though, so I spend hours on end stretching.
