“Cash from where?You're as broke as I am.”
“I have some.”Not much emergency fund left, after paying for that last MRI himself, but a little.“For damned sure I don't want you driving something with defective brakes.After the Olympics I should have some real money coming in.”He knocked his knuckles on the coffee table to avoid jinxing himself.“So I can loan you out of my rainy-day fund, if it would help you get a vacation.I want to.”Fuck knew he wouldn’t be here without Eli, the last two years.
Eli looked up at him and for a moment there was something warm and sweet between them.But then Eli's eyes grew remote.“Nope.I don't want you giving me money you can only get back by staying in the gym.Thanks, but no.”
Tyler slammed into his room with his bad mood fully restored.He sat on the bed and reached for his drawer.The letter from the doctor was buried underneath other odds and ends where he’d stuffed it the last time, as if hiding the letter would make the threat disappear.He dug the page out of the envelope and ran it through his fingers for the umpteenth time, adding to its battered creases.He didn't need to look at the words to remember what it said.
He'd paid cash for everything including the MRI, so there was nothing on his insurance record.He’d had to wait a while for an appointment, so it had been only a month before the Trials when he'd sat in that little exam room and waited for the doctor's verdict.
Dr.Krestman had been younger than he'd expected, and brusquer.He'd sat in his chair and given Tyler a cool look.
“So I gather you're not that attached to walking.”
“Huh?”
“You granted me access to your records.I'm not the first physician to tell you abusing your body with competitive gymnastics is a bad idea.I read a lot of kindly, thoughtful patient communications you clearly have blown off.Do I need to go through those again?”
Tyler had looked down.“No.But I was hoping...”
“What?For some kind of miracle pill?The real miracle is that you're still walking around on two functioning legs, especially after the reinjury in '09.Look, for most people with thoracolumbar instability the issue is pain, sometimes lots of unbearable pain.But when I read your file I see “numbness in the left leg, weakness in the left foot, groin pain, leg pain, loss of sensation...”You have nerve root signs and what may be cord compression signs.And the imaging shows a lot of unstable movement and disc protrusion.”
Tyler raised his gaze as far as the doctor's mouth.The man was still talking but the words made no sense.He had a nice mouth though, almost as nice as Eli's although his lower lip wasn't as full.
“Tyler.”The doctor sighed.“God, I have a love-hate relationship with people like you.”
Tyler jerked his gaze away from the man's lips.Gay?Am I that obvious?
He must have looked startled because the doctor clarified, “Athletes.You work really hard and you do the rehab despite the pain, but you take 'go slow' as a space-filler and 'complete rest' to mean three days at half-speed.Your body is talking to you loud and clear when you get those shooting pains.Your spine wants you to stop abusing it.All that motion in your back is causing degenerative changes, and the more you train, the worse it's going to get.”
“But I can probably make it a couple of months right now?”
“Maybe.Or you could twist the wrong way tomorrow and blow a disk or cause a shearing injury.My advice to you would be to cut back to a sane level of exercise, with back precautions, and to consider stabilization surgery.”
“What's the recovery time from that?”Tyler asked slowly.“Maybe after the Games.”
The doctor just shook his head.“I'll send you a written report with some articles on surgical options.When you decide you want a functional back more than you want a medal on a string, call me.”
So now Tyler sat here on his bed, twisting that report between his hands.Eventually he stuffed the envelope in the inner pocket of his gym bag.He'd made it this far, through the Trials and into training.All he needed was three more weeks.And for people to fucking believe in me instead of calling me crazy.
He had another long, painful night, moving from lying flat out to standing to pacing when the catch in his back got bad.And then in the morning he dragged himself into the gym and convinced the physiotherapist and everyone else he was fine.He tried not to think about Eli, not about Eli's fatigue or his words, or how it would feel when Eli walked out the door.But occasionally over the next two days, when he really needed a lift, he let himself remember that one soft moment…Eli's eyes gold with affection.Maybe someday soon...
***
In the end, he wasn’t even doing a difficult skill, just a simple front-full that a level-seven kid could probably do.He got a nice punch and some height, his body remained arrow-straight through the single rotation, and he stuck the landing, already thinking about the next move.But when his feet hit the floor there was just a little roll, a tweak, and that damned pain shot from his spine down his hip and his whole left foot went as numb as a block of wood.Instead of a rebound takeoff into his front one-and-a-half he staggered sideways and fell.For a moment he sat there, his palms flat on the blue carpet, his mind frozen in shock.
“What the hell?”Assistant Coach Gregory was at his side in a moment.“Bannichek, I swear to God, what is with you?”The coach's face turned thundercloud dark.“Everyone else on this team is stepping it up and you're just getting more erratic.One minute you're flying like you did at Trials, the next you're chickening out of a move a little girl could do.How many times did you open up your bar dismount yesterday?”
Tyler stared at the floor.Three times.Three times he'd opened the triple to a double, to make sure he stuck the landing.The pain of remembering was as bad as the fire in his groin and thigh.The coach was right.He was fucking up.He didn't belong on this team with these guys.Not anymore.
“There's no time for this!”the coach went on.“This isn't just about you anymore.When you get to London, you're carrying this whole team's hopes with you.You screw up like that, and every one of these guys goes down with you.I don't know what your problem is, but get your head out of your fucking ass and fix it!This is the best team I've ever coached, hell, maybe the best team I've ever seen.We have a shot at the gold.But we need you giving it a hundred percent, all the time.You hear me?”He peered at Tyler's leg and frowned.“Jesus, bleed all over the floor, why don't you?”
Bleed?Tyler looked down.Sure enough he'd reopened a half-healed split on his big toe and blood welled up, turning a spot on the floor dark purple.
The coach shook his head and handed him a tissue.“Go put tape on that and get your ass back here.While you’re at it, get your head in the game.You've got twelve seconds.”
Tyler wrapped the tissue around his toe and pushed to his feet.For a second, he wondered if his leg would support him.He felt nothing.Not the split toe, not the floor under his foot, nothing.But when he took a step his leg moved the way it should and with a second step the familiar prickling of returning sensation began in his heel.
Five steps took him to his water bottle and rip kit on the sidelines.His pulse pounded in his ears so loudly he thought everyone must hear it.Another shock of pain ran from his buttock down his thigh, and he staggered before redistributing his weight.The pins and needles in his foot hadn't yet subsided like they should.Tyler stood watching his blood ooze red into the white tissue, staring at his foot that looked so normal—well, battered gymnast normal—and felt so wrong.He had styptic and tape in the kit, but instead of opening it, he scooped up his things and kept going.
