CONGRATS!!
SEE YOU IN TOKYO!!
I shudder and pocket my phone. Congratulations don’t feel right. Nothing feels right.
The tips of my fingers start to tingle, and my heart rate ticks up, my breathing coming short as the world closes in around me. I’ve only ever felt like this one other time: when Dr. Gupta first diagnosed my back pain as chronic and said I might have to give up gymnastics entirely.
Everything is catching up to me all at once, and I need to just not be here, to not have to go back in that house and face Dani or Emma or anyone. I take off, across the front yard and onto the sidewalk, sprinting as fast as I can down the street. I run like something is chasing me, but it’s nothing I can outpace, no matter how long my stride or how quick my feet.
I have no idea where I’m going. The only thing I’m familiar with is the walk from the house to the gym, and I flew past the gym without thinking, but I hear the roar of the waves in the distance and head in that direction. I run until the pounding in my temples and the burning in my chest are too much to take, and I skid to a halt at the edge of the beach, the sun just beginning to set in the distance.
Bending over at the waist, I try to catch my breath, but it’s impossible. My throat tightens, the bile rising out of my stomach, and I can’t control the spams pushing the vomit up and out onto the sidewalk.
There’s barely anything in my stomach, so it doesn’t last long, but I stay bent over, trying to even out my breathing like Janet taught me.
“Audrey?” a voice asks, laced with concern and a whole lot of questions.
It’s Leo.
It’s super embarrassing, but there’s nothing I can do. I hold up a hand, keeping him at a distance for a second while I shakily wipe the involuntary tears that leaked out of my eyes and then run my forearm over my mouth. I stand up gingerly, inhaling and then exhaling, letting out the breath with deliberate slowness.
When I turn to face him, he’s in his board shorts and a T-shirt, an old backpack slung over one shoulder and a surfboard under his other arm. His hair is still wet, tiny rivulets running down his neck and soaking the collar of his shirt.
“Hey,” I say finally, knowing there’s no sense in playing it cool.
He digs into his bag and comes away with a water bottle. I take it without a word, swishing the water around in my mouth then spitting it out. Another sip, and this time I swallow it down, soothing my burning throat.
“Are you okay?” he asks when I hand it back.
“I think … I think maybe I’m not,” I say, feeling my heart rate tick up again.
He studies me carefully for a moment and then another. “C’mon,” he says, nodding over his shoulder toward the beach.
I don’t even hesitate. I just follow. When he reaches for my hand, I take it and let myself lean into him, our shoulders brushing, and he shifts his palm against mine, the pads of his fingers catching against my hard-earned calluses before he twines them together and squeezes gently, pulling me just a little bit closer as we walk.
I’ve missed him, which is dumb because I never actually had him to begin with, but that’s what it feels like: like I’ve found something I lost.
There’s a gate up ahead, and when we reach it, Leo nods to the guy beside it, who opens it up for us. They slap hands quickly, snapping them apart the way boys do sometimes, and then he closes it behind us, turning to face the street again.
“Smooth,” I whisper, half giggling, and that feels normal. Like I didn’t just find out that I might have been the next victim of a serial sexual abuser, like I’m just hanging out at the beach with a guy. Like it’s all good.
Good enough to risk your spot on the team, Audrey?
I push away that thought. No one knows we’re here; my hair is down, and I’m not in a leotard. I’m virtually unrecognizable. Besides, what good is having a spot on the team if I’m an emotional wreck? I need to breathe, even for just a little while, and being around Leo helps.
“It’s the Del’s beach,” he says, nodding toward the huge white building, the Hotel del Coronado, looming next to us, the spires of its red roof blending in with the early evening sky, outlined by white lights, twinkling in the distance.
There are a few people milling around, mostly couples wandering near the shore, and there’s a family a few yards away with a fire going making s’mores, but when Leo sets down his surfboard and then lays out the towel from around his shoulders onto the sand, it feels entirely private, like the little patch of beach is ours alone.
Kicking off my sandals, I sit, looking out onto the water, the waves rolling in seemingly from nowhere.
“You want to talk about it?” he asks, settling beside me.
“They asked me to testify at the trial, I guess, eventually. I told them I would.”
“Okay,” he says, clearly not sure what that means, but he doesn’t push. I could kiss him for it.
“They think maybe … that maybe he was grooming me as his next victim or something. They said that his behavior matched what he’s done before.”
