Last Chance

5 - The Better Evans

**ASPEN POV**

I ran hard, jumped on the springboard and did what I was supposed to. It was all natural to my body, it knew what to do. I landed but it was wobbly.

"AGAIN!" Estelle snapped and I groaned.

"Can't I just have like a 5 second break?" I asked.

"You break as you walk back to the start." Estelle said and I rolled my eyes.

Estelle Monroe was the best trainer out there and I was lucky to have her and have her stick with me even through my injury. Estelle was from the Ukraine and sometimes that accent came out and when she yelled or got angry it really came out, she was the best though.

I took a deep breath as I got back to the start.

"You aren't lining up and taking your time! Give yourself a minute to visualize." Estelle said. The same knowledge she had been giving me since I started today. I wasn't landing perfectly off these vaults.

I closed my eyes, took a deep couple of breaths, and ran towards the springboard. I stayed calm and did what I needed to do. I stuck the landing! I looked at Estelle with a huge smile on my face.

"Now prove you can do it again." Was all she said and I sighed.

As I was standing there calming myself getting the same mindset, I was in the last time the gym door opened and I turned to see Scott walking in with a bag of food and I smiled.

"Lunch is here." Scott said.

"She can't eat yet." Estelle said.

"What?!" I asked.

"Not until you stick it 3 more times." Estelle said and I sighed. I looked at Scott and he held his hands up in defense.

"Whatever Estelle says goes. So, stick the damn landings." Scott said and I groaned.

I started to relax again, I was hungry, and I knew all I had to eat was a salad, but it was worth it.

After 2 perfect vaults I looked at Estelle when my stomach growled.

"Can that count, and I eat please? I'm starving." I groaned.

"That's what you get for not eating all of your breakfast. You keep complaining you have to do more than just one more." Estelle said and I practically stomped all the way back to the start.

"You know she is getting angry..." Scott whispered to Estelle.

"I know and when she is angry, she works harder and pushes more. I need her to get that fire in her. Do you know what has taken it away?" Estelle asked and Scott sighed.

"Probably her and Chris taking a break. She misses him and he misses her, but he doesn't support her." Scott explained.

"Well, we need to use this to our advantage somehow." Estelle said.

I ran the final vault, stuck the landing.

"Perfect 10!" Scott yelled.

"9.1 at best." Estelle said, "But I will let it slide, go eat lunch. After lunch you decide what we do." Estelle said and I nodded as she walked away. Scott and I sat next to Bruno who was lying on the floor and Scott handed me my salad with some grilled chicken in it. I started mixing my salad and Scott looked at me.

"I kind of want to tell you where I was before here but I don't know if you want to hear." Scott spoke up.

I groaned, "You can tell me you were with Chris, I don't care."

"Well, I was but it wasn't just that I was with Chris, it was what he was doing." Scott said and my heart sank.

"Scott, was he with someone else?" I asked.

"What?! No! God no! He was watching all of your routines on YouTube, and he saw the routine you got hurt on." Scott said and I just looked at my salad in the container.

"Oh...he finally watched." I said and Scott nodded.

"Yeah, he said he never watched even after he met you and he wanted to see you in action." Scott said and I just half nodded and stabbed some salad on to my fork.

"Well, what was his reaction?" I asked.

"He wanted to call you and yell at you to stop. He isn't happy I told him to drop it." Scott said.

"I like that he thinks he can still try and tell me what to do, he isn't the boss of me, he never was." I said and Scott sighed.

"Well, he did say one thing that concerned me." Scott said.

"What?" I asked.

"They showed your mom and dad in stands and he asked who they were Aspen. He said you never showed him or wanted to put up pictures of them around his place. Why?" Scott asked and I groaned.

"Because it's a bad reminder and I can't even look at them without feeling a slight twinge of guilt." I said.

"What are you talking about?" Scott asked.

"If I hadn't fallen off the beam, I wouldn't have gotten hurt which means they wouldn't have been rushing to get to my final post-surgery appointment so they could be there with me to hear the news. This was a big appointment. This was going to lead to all the physical therapy, and I needed them there. I can't deal with that guilt." I said and Scott wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into a small hug as Bruno laid his head in my lap and I smiled at both of them.

"You are my best two guys right now..." I said and leaned my head on Scott's shoulder. We continued to eat and as I ate something kept my attention and Scott noticed, "You going to get up on the beam today?"

"What? No." I said.

"Aspen, as the saying goes, you need to get back up on the horse." Scott said.

"Unfortunately, that horse causes me so much PTSD when I look at it." I said.

"How can the beam cause you PTSD?" Scott scoffed.

"Okay you know how I went down right?"

Scott nodded, "Yes and no..."

"Okay well when I fell, we all know I hit my shoulder on the beam and twisted my knee as I fell. Well, I was just doing a simple dismount when it happened. Not that I was being cocky knowing that I basically had it in the bag, but I didn't want to take a chance of hurting myself bad enough to take me out of the running for the Olympics. Well, I thought about it all too much and I slipped. I hurt my shoulder, twisted my knee tearing my ACL and that was that. The Olympic dream was over." I explained.

Scott just sat in silence taking everything I said in.

"So, I don't want to get back up on the beam until I know I can conquer my fears and do it..." I trailed off.

"I won't force it, but I want you on there soon Aspen, conquer the damn fear and make the beam your bitch." Scott said and I laughed hysterically.

"God, I love you, thank you for being here and being my support system. You may not be the Evans who I thought would be here but you're the better one." I said and Scott smiled and kissed the side of my head.

"Always here for you sweetie." Scott said and I smiled at him.