Out of Bounds (The Summer Games #2)(84)

On her fourth routine, she gained momentum, spun faster and faster around the bar, and then released up into the air in a tight ball, completing two full turns before her feet hit the ground. No step. Perfect landing.

“Good,” I said, stepping off the mat. “You look ready.”

She brushed the chalk off her grips and nodded, no hint of a smile on her full lips.

After we gathered our things in silence, I caught a cab and guided her in first. She shoved her gym bag at her feet and pulled her jacket tighter around her, crossing her arms over her chest to keep it in place. Her gaze was focused out on the world and the deep lines marring her forehead proved how far she was from focusing on the competition the next day.

I stared down at my phone, trying to scroll through emails and give her the privacy she so desperately desired, but then her small voice filled the silent cab.

“Gold medals come with a $25,000 check. Did you know that?”

I glanced up, surprised by her voice. “Yes.”

She kept her gaze out the window. “I have six chances to place first. That’s $150,000 up for grabs—not to mention if I come in first that many times, companies will be knocking down my door and…well, I would finally be in a position to help my mom.”

She sounded determined.

“But if I come in last, if I fall or stutter in the next few days, I go home a nobody…and my mom will have sacrificed her life for nothing.”

“Brie—”

She shook her head, defiant. “I don’t expect you to understand. You hate your family, your father.”

I reared back, shocked that she would bring him up. “For good reason. He loved a son who could compete in the Olympics. When I was no longer capable of that, I wasn’t worth his time.”

She glanced back to me, her eyes so full of sadness I had to look away.

“Erik…”

The cab pulled up in front of the athlete complex. I paid the driver and hopped out after Brie, content to walk the rest of the way home.

She rounded the back of the car and tried to catch my eye.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Brie deserved to know the truth, or at the least the start of it.

“When I was seventeen, I injured my shoulder, and instead of giving me time to rest it before the Olympics, my father gave me opioids,” I said, turning to Brie. “For months, he filled illegal prescriptions for an injury he didn’t have so he could pass on the pills to me. At the height of my addiction, I was taking twice the max dose per day.” Her tiny gasp forced me to glance back at her. There was horror in her eyes, sheer sadness. “He thought he was doing what was best for me. When I told him I wanted to quit, he flew off the rails.”

I told her everything, not sugarcoating the gritty details.

The same day I tried to buy drugs at 12th and Chicon, I stumbled back into my childhood home and found my mother standing behind the kitchen island, chopping vegetables for dinner.

“I’m quitting gymnastics,” I said.

Her knife clattered to the counter, but she recovered quickly and shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Go freshen up. Dinner will be ready soon.”

She didn’t look up long enough to see the bruising on my body. She was always good at self-censoring the truth. She didn’t know about the pain pills; my father and I had kept it a secret from her.

“No. I’m done.”

She shook her head. “Erik, everyone has hard days in the gym. Just go fresh—”

“It’s not that. I’m done. I want a different life.”

“What are you talking about?”

She was so confused, so out of the loop. She didn’t know about my depression or my addiction. I stepped toward the counter and tried to tell her a condensed version: how my shoulder injury had led to a pill addiction, how meaningless my life had become, how little control I had over my present and how little care I had for my own future. I wanted to shake her, make her see past my strong exterior. To the world, I looked like a man on top of the world. Inside, I wanted to die.

She was shaking by the end of it—out of fear or sadness, I’ll never know. She stared down at the cutting board, assessing the vegetables in front of her like they would tell her how to proceed. Finally, she glanced up and leveled me with a calm stare. “When your father gets home, I…I’ll tell him. I think you should be out of the house.”

That gesture was the first genuine act of love from a parent I’d felt in years.

I grabbed a backpack and stuffed it full of clothes for a few days. My cell phone, and toothbrush were all I cared to add on top. She kissed me on the cheek on the way out and shoved money in my hand.

“For a hotel,” she said, and I didn’t argue.

There was nowhere else to go. She knew I had no friends and the only family I had was my grandfather, but he was a million miles away in Sweden.

I checked into a Motel 6 a few miles away from the house and sat there on the bed, trying to piece my life together. I had a high school degree; I could go to college. I could study to become an aerospace engineer like my grandfather, or maybe something different. I’d always loved the stars. I could study astronomy and focus my attention on something bigger than this damn earth and the greedy people inhabiting it.

For two days, I stewed in that room, waiting for a call from my mom. I alternated between sweating in bed with brain-crushing nausea and vomiting incessantly from withdrawals. When the cold flashes would hit, I’d fill up the tiny tub with warm water and collapse onto the chipped enamel surface, using all my strength to stay above the surface of the water. I didn’t sleep for almost 60 hours, and when I finally closed my eyes on the third day, my shrill cellphone began to ring.