You Will Know Me(89)

And the minute she’d forced her way out, kicking spastically at all corners, been sucked out by the grappling hands of that handsome boy, she hadn’t known what to do, how to live in this world. Everything had been too much.

She hadn’t learned, no one had taught her—Katie and Eric hadn’t taught her—that the things you want, you never get them. And if you do, they’re not what you thought they’d be. But you’d still do anything to keep them. Because you’d wanted them for so long.





V

I could hear thousands of eyes watching us.

—Nadia Comaneci, Letters to a Young Gymnast





Chapter Twenty-Two



There were three things Devon would never tell her mother.



The first was what Mrs. Weaver had said before she left Lacey’s birthday party that night. Sneaking out of one of the half dozen bedrooms, Devon felt a hand on her shoulder. There was Mrs. Weaver, and Devon knew she’d heard her on the phone with Ryan. Had heard everything.

For a second, Devon thought it was all over, and in some way she was relieved. That everyone would know and it wouldn’t be hers anymore.

But instead, Mrs. Weaver just shook her head and said, in the iciest of voices, “I hope your mother never has to know this.”



The second thing she’d never tell her mother was what happened after, when she saw Ryan on Ash Road that night.

Driving, hardly breathing at all but almost flying, she thought: My life is ending, my life is over.

Once Ryan had asked her if she ever thought about him when she was on the floor, the beam. Of course she never did, and never would. It was a place she would never let him in. (Single-mindedness, Coach T. always told her, is the greatest of your great gifts.) But that was when she’d known she’d never feel for him what he felt for her.

There was not enough space in her heart.

Her heart was different.

She was different.

This is what she knew: you win or lose everything with a flick of the wrist, a turn of the ankle, not enough lift, a slipped hand on the beam.

And everything changes, everything goes dark, and is gone.

What if we just tell everyone, won’t it be wonderful, he’d said, even as he knew she was pulling away. Because he knew she was pulling away.

She’d turned on the high beams.

All the dust and sand and road salt glittering up into the air.

The hot yellow of the center line, like an arrow straight to him.

Headlight-struck, face like blasted marble and eyes filled with love.

He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

Her hands on the wheel, for a second she thought, Forget what Dad said, what Mrs. Weaver said, what anyone thinks. He was so beautiful. What did anything else matter?

Strange that it was in that moment that she did it.

The moment she made the turn and saw him waiting for her, waving to her, seeing him so rapturously handsome, lit by her headlights, that great golden flame of a face.

Standing at the fog line, his feet planted on the shoulder

Waving to her, slowly waving, his arm swaying

That that was the moment she—

You must be in control of your landing, that’s what Coach always said.

Bounding down the vault runway, feet hit springboard, hands hit table, the push— —flying through the air, soaring, a spinning weightlessness, arrowing down, the surge of feet to ground, body electric.

Thump, thwack, smack, and she felt it, down there:

The ancient throb in her foot, that foot, blood surging, pressing down on the gas.

There’s a hundred ways sex can ruin you. The words came to her in that moment, a thunderclap in her head.

Her mouth made a funny noise, and she felt a twinge over her heart. But not enough to stop her. At least not in time.

Her arms jerked, the wheel seized, he was there in front of her, waving and smiling.

For a second, the white tail of his shirt, like a bird flying, and she shut her eyes.

Her right foot throbbing, she plunged it downward onto the pedal.

He was there, and then he was gone.



Then there was the third thing she’d never tell.

Which is how it really began, with Ryan. What had started it, for her.



It was back in January, the night after regionals, a big booster party. Tiki torches. Some of the girls sneaking sips of coconut rum from white bottles smooth as milk.

Her head doing starbursts when she closed her eyes.

Air, air, air, she thought.

I am, I am, I am. Which is what she always said when she was on the vault runaway. It cleared her.

The flowers tickled her neck and smelled like the inside of Mrs. Weaver’s car.

The all-around gold medal beneath it, cold against her hot chest, her hand pressed there.

You made us so proud, her dad told her. But you always do, kissing the top of her head.

And a song came on through the popping speakers, something about a girl with a blister on her hand, that felt like it was just for her. A girl and her brother and her mother. And I think she likes me…

It will be like this forever, she was saying in her head, I will feel this way forever.

That’s when she saw it. The dance floor crushed and impossible and in a far corner, by the swinging doors to the kitchen, a ponytailed woman with her hand on a man’s hip.