The things we can't control

Chapter six

It was now early November and Evie and I have started spending a lot of time together since our dinner. Today she invited me for a walk, not knowing that it is my birthday. I liked the idea of spending my day with Evie, even if she didn't know about my birthday. I never celebrate it that much anyway, as we've always celebrated Adoption Day way more.

Although my brother is a gymnast, I've never been into the Stanford gym. As I stood in front of the building I wondered what it looked like on the inside. The door was open, which allowed me to just walk in. I thought it would be loud, considering how wild our soccer practise gets sometimes. Especially towards the end. But it was extremely quiet, the only thing that could be heard was a rhythmic tapping. I continued my walk in the direction of the noise and got to a door that allowed me to step into the gym.

It was completely empty, except for one girl who was doing leg lifts at the wall bars at an extremely fast pace. Evie's eyes were closed and her face was scrunched up first in concentration and later in pain, every time she lifted her legs. But she didn't stop and did one after another without a brake. After at least twenty leg lifts, her pace started to slow down and as she tried to do more her legs began to shake. She hoped off the wall bars and laid down on the floor, breathing heavy.

I walked over to her, wanting to see if she was alright. She didn't even notice me as she held her stomach and tried to regulate her breathing. "Are you alright?" I asked her, crouching down next to her. She opened her eyes in shock and moved the hand from her stomach to her heart.

"You can't do that to people. I nearly had a heart attack." She complained, realising it was just me. A new look of shock crossed her face. "Oh shit, what time is it? I am so sorry, I didn't realize it was already this late." She was still trying to catch her breath and didn't sit up, so I just laid down next to her.

It was incredibly impressive how hard she pushed herself and on the same time somehow concerning. Especially because I noticed that she was extremely controlling about her eating and never ate anything too high in calories. So the fact that she was putting her body under such extreme strain on its low nutritional basis was quite worrying.

"Why are you alone?" I asked her and she turned onto her side. "I am allowed to use the gym at any time of the day, to complete my training plan from home." I looked at her in concern. "So you train even more than you have to?" She shook her head. "No, I train the exact amount that I should as an olympic athlete. My coach from home says that I must not let up if I want to make another olympic team. He didn't like the idea of college to begin with, so I had to promise him that I would continue my usual training."

"But he isn't here. He can't supervise how your body is reacting to the amount of work and he also can't adjust the plan to your needs." She gave me a half smile and sat up, looking down at me. "Trust me Grace, I know what I'm doing." I wasn't quit convinced if that was really true but it is her life and she has the final say in it.

"Could you show me something cool?" I asked, trying to lift the mood and awake Evie's goofy side. She helped me up and we walked to the bars that are over the pit. "I will teach you a simple dismount." Next she showed me what she wanted to teach me.

She climbed onto the low bar and did some wired kip thingy onto the high bar. After that everything was a little too fast for my brain and I barely registered a back flip. "There's no way I'll be able to do that." I said, laughing. "Yes you will." She protested. "Come on now, hop on." She said, pointing to the bars. Somehow I made it to the high bar and hung there like a dead fish. Suddenly Evie stood next to me on the spotting platform and slapped my butt.

Yes, you heard right, sweet, shy, innocent Evie slapped my butt.

"A little body tension would be nice." She said and I really tried not to look like a dying swan.

"Okay, firstly we need to swing a little." She said, giving me a little push. I tried to remember how Jackson explained it to me when we were children and did this on our high bar in the garden.

"That's actually not bad." Evie complimented me and I felt extremely proud of myself. "Now we keep swinging and you bring your knees to your chest at the highest point on the front swing." I did exactly that and Evie was happy. "Now let go." She said and pulled on my arm, once I reached the highest point on my front swing and had my knees at my chest. I somehow did a backflip and landed in an upright position in the pit, without dying.

"I did it!" I screamed and threw my hands in the air, climbing out of the pit, which by the way was exhausting. I looked at my hands that hurt quit a bit, while Evie also jumped down and asked me what was up. She then locked at my hands and saw the blister that was on my left hand.

She just took my hand and without warning, quickly ripped the dead skin off. "Ow!" I exclaimed, pulling my hand away. "Pfft, stopp fusing. It's just a little ripp and it didn't even bleed." She said and started giggling. I joined her after realising that she was right and it didn't even hurt that much.

"You are mean, Evelyn Hansen." She just shrugged her shoulders and gave me a smirk. "That's my birthday present to you." She said and I looked at he in shock. "How do you know?"

"Jackson told me and I saw it on snapchat. But all jokes aside, happy birthday. I actually have a real present for you." She called over her shoulder as she walked to her bag.

A few moments later she handed me a small gift that was cleanly wrapped. I always wished I could wrap presents this collerful because mine always look like shit. Once I carefully removed the wrapping paper I held a beautiful pair of shin pads that looked pretty unique. They were withe with little sunflowers drawn all other them. "Aww, did you drew these yourself?" I asked Evie, looking at the little flowers.

She shyly nodded her head. "Yeah, Sunflowers are my lucky charms, so I thought they could also help you on the pitch." My heart started to beat faster and I felt all fuzzy, realizing that she had put so much thought into the present.

I pulled her into a tight hug and thanked her. Every time we hugged over the last weeks, they lasted longer. It seems like no one wants to let go.

When we finally did let go I couldn't resist myself from kissing her on the cheek and a little blush covered her cheeks.

"If you want to make me another present, even though I love this one, you could come to a party with me tonight. Lilly forced me to go and it would definitely help, if you were there."

She looked a little hesitant but nodded. "Why not." She said and I happily clapped my hand. "Yay, thank you."

"But then we have to postpone our walk because I still need to study a bit." I nodded and we agreed to meet up later.

On the way back to my dorm room, I realised, that I was in deep shit. I had a crush on my straight friend. Way to go, Grace.