“No, but we all deal with things differently, and I shouldn’t have made you feel bad for how you were dealing with it. I was taking out my frustrations about some other stuff on you, and that wasn’t fair.”
“Like having to stay away from Leo Adams?”
I blink at her. “How did you know?”
“God, Rey, we might have been fighting, but I still know you better than anyone else in the world.”
“It wasn’t just that, though.”
“I know,” she says. “Me too.”
I don’t know what she means, but I don’t get a chance to ask.
“We’re here!” two voices ring out from the common area. Together, we leap up and nearly collide at the door before laughingly spilling through it. Sarah and Brooke are here, the final two pieces of the USA women’s gymnastics team, dragging their suitcases behind them. They’re already hugging Dani and Chels, and then they turn to us.
“So, what did we miss?” Sarah asks, pulling me into a hug.
Emma looks at me, and then I look over to Dani and Chelsea. Then Dani breaks into giggles followed by a serious laughing fit. It’s contagious, and we’re all laughing our heads off, with our two new arrivals staring at us like we’ve lost our minds.
This is it.
We’re all together, finally, and now the Olympics can start.
chapter sixteen
The opening ceremonies were tonight, but we weren’t able to make it.
Instead of marching into the Olympic stadium with our fellow athletes, we marched into the Ariake Gymnastics Centre, with its old-school cedar roof and wood bench seating. After almost a week practicing in a training gym, it was time for the real thing. It’s not the biggest venue I’ve ever been in, but definitely the most important, and my pulse thumped just a little bit harder as we rotated through all four events. The twelve thousand seats were mostly empty today, just the media and a few of the other teams there to observe our podium training rotations.
That might sound like we practiced standing on the medal podium, waving to the crowd, but it actually means we performed on the raised podiums where the vault, bars, beam, and floor have been set up to make the competition easier to see from the stands. It’s something we’re pretty used to. All our main competitions in the US are done on podiums, and every world championship has them too, but it’s always nice to have a chance to practice in the arena and get a feel for the equipment, especially since being on a podium can make everything a little bouncier, and thus that much more difficult to control.
To be honest, I would trade a million opening ceremonies for the podium training we had. It was perfection. We’re a well-oiled machine at this point, and we have Janet to thank for it. For all the one-session-per-day practices that I rebelled against when we first got to Coronado, I’m here at the Games, I’m healthy—relatively speaking—and that’s what matters.
We’re led out of the arena by an Olympic volunteer holding a sign withUSAscrawled across it, through a poorly lit tunnel, back toward the training gym and locker rooms.
“Excellent job, ladies,” a voice echoes against the concrete walls of the tunnel. Stepping out of the shadows, Mrs. Jackson smiles at us, a chic white tracksuit withUSAon her lapel and matching white sneakers taking the place of her usual skirt suit and stilettos. That she’s here now is yet another sign that the last week of practice has been just that: practice. Things are about to get very real.
“Can I steal Dani and Audrey for a moment?” she asks.
“We have a press conference in ten,” Janet reminds her.
“They’ll be right behind you,” Mrs. Jackson promises.
“What’s up?” I ask, stepping out of the line as the other girls follow Janet out of the tunnel for our first meeting with the media since arriving in Tokyo.
“I wanted to warn you both. I can’t control the international media the way I would be able to back home, and I’ve heard rumblings that our alternates have been talking to the press. Dani, we’ve asked them to be delicate about your circumstances, but there isn’t much we can do beyond asking.”
“It’s okay,” Dani says, but her answering smile is a little shaky. I reach out and take her hand, squeezing it gently.
“I’ve got your back.”
“Thanks, Cap.”
Mrs. Jackson raises her eyebrows at us and then focuses her attention on me.
“Audrey, remember when I told you to stay away from Leo Adams?”
I crinkle my nose, bracing myself for whatever she’s about to say next. “Yes.”
