Page 2 of Salto
Consistent.
Sometimes I didn’t want to be the consistent one. Sometimes I wanted to be the wild card. The one taking risks and winning us big points for our team.
“Laney, if you do this and nail it, we could score much higher,” I reminded her. She'd had a particularly rough start to the season with a bad case of the twisties and had only recently gotten past it. I knew she could do it. But that was the thing about gymnastics: it was oftentimes not our bodies holding us back, but our minds.
“I know, but if I screw it up, I pretty much mess us over.” Laney bit her lip and tucked a stray brown curl behind her ear.
“Bigger risk, bigger reward,” Mia reminded. “You can do this. I believe in you.” She touched Laney’s shoulder, using the “motivational voice” she always used when trying to get one of us to perk up.
Mia was our sunshine person. No matter how badly practice went, she somehow found a way to make everything feel less catastrophic.
If we were the stars of an animal cartoon, Mia would be an adorable, energetic bunny rabbit, Laney would be an untrusting calico cat, and I'd probably be a stubborn goat. You know those stupid mountain goats that try to climb mountains sideways thousands of feet in the air. That would be me.
I was a stupid, stubborn mountain goat.
“I guess so,” Laney shrugged.
“Look, I’ll step in if you really need me to,” I finally relented as I swung my bag over my shoulder. “But you got this.”
“Thanks, Scar,” Laney said, her brow still furrowed. I could try to convince her longer, but it was something she would have to come to terms with on her own. I just hoped she found the courage once Saturday rolled around.
“See you both at the meet!” I yelled out.
Their goodbyes faded behind me as I walked out of the gym and headed toward the back of the parking lot, where my beat-up 2005 Toyota Corolla was waiting for me. When I got inside, I immediately plugged my phone into the auxiliary cable and turned on my music.
Rap was my go-to. It was noisy, fast-paced, and "slightly obnoxious," according to my friends. But somehow it calmed me. As Agust D played over my speakers, I drove away from UCLA, weaving through Westwood toward my apartment, just a few minutes from campus.
After I parked and had a brief wrestle with my janky deadbolt, I entered the apartment and found my roommate, Jenny, studying at our kitchen table.
"Hey, Scar," she said without even looking up from her anatomy textbook. She sat cross-legged, wearing a pair of oversized pajamas with teddy bears on them. Her short black hair was pulled up into a claw clip in an impressive twisted contraption to keep it out of her face. And there was even a pencil stuck in the mix. She snatched the number 2 pencil from her hair and scribbled something in the margin of her book.
Jenny was studying for medical school, and most days when I came home from the gym, she was sitting in the exact same spot that I left her.
“How’s studying?” I asked as I plopped my gym bag in our mudroom and headed toward the kitchen.
“Oh, you know,” she said, not even looking up.
I nodded and reached into the fridge. “Want a sparkling water?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Sure, thanks.”
I grabbed her a can and went to carefully set it down amidst her mess of papers and books. Finding an open spot that wouldn’t cause condensation damage to her note pages proved harder than expected. After pushing aside a mountain of papers detailing DNA replication, I finally uncovered the faded oak of our dining table and set the can down.
“How was practice?” she asked on autopilot, still completely absorbed in her studying.
I took a sip of my water, then bit my lip, fighting a smile.
“Oh, you know, I fell and broke a few bones today on the beam. Nothing major.”
“That’s good,” she said, her bloodshot eyes still glued to the pages.
I chuckled and started toward my room.
“Don’t stay up too late. You need rest.” The older sister in me rose to the surface without my consent.
“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled.
I shook my head, a smile still on the edge of my lips as I slipped into my room.
