“And I know how you feel, Rey—you want it all to be perfect— but haven’t you learned by now that it’s impossible?”
I send her a side-eye and mutter to myself.
“What’s that?”
“You know me too well,” I repeat, louder this time.
Our phones buzz simultaneously. It’s the group chat we’ve got with all the other girls. Sierra sent a video of her bars routine.
I click out of the clip before it even ends.
“She’s just trying to psych you out,” Emma says, shrugging.
“I know, and I refuse to take her seriously. She’s not better than me on bars.”
“It’s Sierra—like, what do you expect?”
“I expect myteammateto stop passive-aggressively hinting that she’s going to beat me out for a spot in the bars final.”
“Well, it’s the only event final she has a shot to make, you know?”
“Yeah, just that and the all-around,” I shoot back, trying not to sound bitter. With Dani out, Sierra is the next-best all-around gymnast we have, and while I’ve resigned myself to the fact that an all-around medal probably isn’t in my future, it still hurts to think about.
“Excuse me?” a little voice asks from beside Emma’s chair. The woman doing Emma’s nails tries to shoo her away, but Emma shakes her head.
“Hi,” she says, smiling down at a little girl, probably, like, seven or eight, with a piece of paper and pen in her hand.
“Can I have your autograph and will you take a picture with me?”
“Sure!” Emma says just as the pedicurist finishes the last stroke of polish on her pinkie toe. She gingerly gets down from the raised chair, signs the paper for the little girl, and then poses for a picture. The girl’s mom takes a few shots with her phone before she quickly draws her daughter away.
“You’re so famous,” I tease as we head over to the dryers to lock in the polish for at least a few days before training completely destroys it.
“It’s so weird,” she says. “Like, a few people recognized me after worlds, but now, after those commercials launched …” She trails off. Emma is the new spokes-athlete for Nike. There are a bunch of billboards around the city with her face on them and a whole series of commercials airing during the lead-up to the Games.
“My best friend is a star, so it’s my duty to give you crap about it.”
“I expect nothing less,” she says, and we dissolve into giggles.
Emma snorts and checks her phone. “Did your parents look over the proposal Steve sent?”
“Yeah, and they’re good with it.”
“Wait, what? You’re going to sign with him? Why didn’t you say anything today?”
I shrug helplessly. “I don’t know. It’s cool, but it’s only, like, during the Games. You need individual success to really get people interested.”
Steve is going to represent me too. Obviously, since I’m distinctlynotthe national or world champion andnotfavored to win the all-around in Tokyo, no one’s exactly banging down the doors to put me on billboards, but there are a few companies who’d like to sponsor me.
“Maybe I should justletyou win bars.”
My eyes flash to her. “Don’t say things like that. It’s bad luck.”
She groans. “Jeez, I waskidding.”
An awkward twisting in my gut doesn’t let me drop the subject. “Okay, look, it’s fine to joke about competing against each other, and maybe it’s a little bit goody-goody of me, but, like, after what happened with Dani, I don’t want anything else tainting this experience. That’s the whole point of the Olympics, isn’t it? To go out there, do our best, and see who comes out on top.”
Emma stares at me for a good five seconds in silence, and then she nods.
