“Do you guys think it’s true?” Emma asks. I blink at her. Gibby was arrested right in front of her face. She has doubts? My surprise must be written on my face. “I mean, did anyone ever see him acting weird with her? Like—”
“No,” Sierra gripes. “None of us saw anything because nothing was going on.”
“Sierra,” Jaime warns. That’s a switch. Usually, Sierra is the one bossing Jaime around.
“No, I’m not going to sit here and pretend like we don’t know exactly what’s going on. That bitch is screwing with our gold medals.”
“You mean Dani,” I say.
“She failed a drug test and now she’s all,My coach raped me and everyone should feel sorry for me.”
Seriously? How did she even come up with that?
C’mon, Audrey, you’re a smart girl, think about it.Would Dani do something like that? Would she take drugs to get an edge and then accuse Gibby of raping her when she got caught? That makes evenlesssense than what the article claimed. Way less sense. So that’s it, then. Gibby was abusing Dani and … maybe she told him no? Maybe she threatened to come forward? Whatever it was doesn’t matter—he freaked out and tried to discredit her and take her dreams away in one fell swoop.
My stomach twists in revulsion thinking about this so coldly, so analytically, but I don’t know if I can really let myself think about it any other way. It’s too hard.
“Look, it says it right here.” Sierra holds out her phone, showing an article from one of those news sites my dad rants about for the crap they publish. The headline makes me cringe.
BREAKING: Gymnast Alleges Affair with Coach after Positive Drug Test
Dani’s picture is below it—not the official NGC picture that the other article used, but one she posted earlier in the summer of her in a bikini at the beach. It’s so gross. Not the picture, but what they’re trying to say about Dani with it. They’re trying to act like she’s the kind of person who’d do something like what Sierra is saying.
Chelsea is nearly shaking when she knocks Sierra’s outstretched arm away and steps closer to her. “You’re just pissed because she’s going to take her spot back.”
Now, that—that I can believe. If Dani didn’t cheat, she’s probably going to come back, and that means Sierra becomes an alternate again, right?
Sierra points her finger straight into Chelsea’s face. “I’m pissed because that bitch cheated, and Iearnedthat spot.”
No, she didn’t.
“You earned shit,” Chelsea says, echoing my thoughts, her eyes blazing and her fist clenching at her side.
They move even closer, just inches apart.
“Oh my God, get out, everyone,” I snap, standing up. They turn and stare at me, but I’m not going to back down. “You will not throw down in here. You’re going to get hurt or hurt someone else. Get. Out.”
Chelsea nods and steps away, but Sierra holds her ground, still breathing hard, staring at Chelsea’s back as she leaves. Then after a moment, Jaime drags Sierra away, and it’s just me and Emma.
“Do you want me to sleep in here?” Emma asks, eyeing the other bed. I feel like maybe she’s asking for the both of us.
“Yeah.”
Barely a minute later, she’s dragging her suitcase across the hall and then sliding into the bed opposite me.
“We just need to sleep,” she says. “We’ll take a nap and eat dinner and then just sleep. A good night’s sleep and we’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “We’ll be ready to go.”
I amsonot ready to go. For once my body is okay—at least the parts of me that do gymnastics—but my head is pounding. Maybe it’s the stress or maybe it’s a side effect of the cortisone or maybe it’s both. We took a nap, ate dinner, and got a good night’s sleep, but I still woke up feeling like I landed a vault on my head.
Now I stand in the lineup, my eyes watering at the bright lights from the training gym’s ceiling. I keep my eyes half-closed against the intense lighting and try to focus my attention on Maybe-Liz, whose name I still haven’t confirmed.
“We all have to stick together and present a united front to the world in the face of the accusations that have been leveled at Coach Gibson and this team,” she says with her hands behind her back and us at attention like she’s a general addressing a squad of soldiers. Our coaches are lined up behind her.
Wait, the team? What does the team have to do with it? We didn’t do anything wrong. I risk a glance over at Emma beside me and her eyes have narrowed and next to her, so have Chelsea’s. It feels like last night our coaches came to some kind of agreement to, what, just carry on like nothing happened? How do they think that’s possible?
C’mon, Audrey. Stop it. Focus. If that’s what they decided, then that’s what you have to do.
