Shaforostop It (2015)

Chapter 35 - An Utter Lack Of Patience.

I stepped out of the shower, still dripping wet. "Leda." Denis said from the other side of the door.

"One minute." I said softly. I dried off quickly and wrapped a towel around myself before opening the thin bathroom door. "Yes?"

"Come," he took my hand and pulled me down the hall to the room I shared with Cameron. Now she was in Kyle's room, and Kyle was on the couch. Denis had made a nest out of pillows on the bed, like I always did. Candles set around the nightstands, and the lamps set low, glowing warm across the room. He shut the door and I changed into my PJs before we both climbed into the small bird-nest-fort. "I'm so sorry." He whispered as he pulled me close to his torso. I inhaled his sweet scent.

"Don't be." I whispered back. I pulled my wet hair out of the way and onto the pillow behind me.

"No, I am. And I should be. I left. You, the guys, I just left. I left you alone when you needed me most, and I am so so sorry, Leda." I sighed deeply and closed my eyes.

"It's okay." I breathed, trying to stay calm. "I forgive you. I always will, you know that." He kissed the top of my head and we lay like that in each other's arms until we fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(next morning)

Waking up in the morning and leaving Denis was hard. I didn't ever want to be away from him again, but that always happened when left. I got up at 6am, knowing he likely wouldn't be up until at least 2pm, made my breakfast, and got in the car I had rented for while we were in Rio. No one else was up at the house, but I knew Roger was already at the gym waiting for me.

"Late." He said harshly as I dropped my bag at the side of a mat in the gym. It was absolutely massive, with designated corners for different things. Floor. Beam. And bars. I sighed as I pulled off my track pants to reveal thin spandex shorts.

"Not late. You're always early. You could just go when I go, you know." I unzipped my sweater and put all my clothes in my bag before taking off my shoes and walking over to the corner of the room that was all flat mats, Roger in tow.

"Mushy. Too many feelings when Stoff is around." He shrived up his nose as if the idea were a bad smell.

"He just got here." I looked at him, confused.

"Yeah, still. Why do you have so many feelings?" I laughed slightly.

"Sorry I'm not some Russian robot." I said sarcastically.

"Warm-up. Now." Roger commanded. Anything we did in the gym in Rio, was twelve times worse than anything we could do at home. The warmups were hard. The training was harder. My warm-up was stretching, running on a treadmill for two hours, and then conditioning for as long as Roger decided I needed. Though he was a dick, so that was usually about two hours. By the time we were finished with the warm-up, my muscles ached. "Oh come, baby. You're child." I glared up at Roger while I basically died on the floor.

"Fuck you. I wanna watch you do all this."

"Sucks for you. I'm not the one competing."

"Yeah, you're too old." I muttered as I made my way to the floor fx corner. Each gymnast had only three hours a day to practise their skills, in the proper gym. The rest was to be done on your own time. I decided three hours was enough practise, with another set of conditioning at the end for good measure. I did my routine three times, each time Roger shouting at me about form, or a slip, or something as stupid and small as my facial expression. 'Look like youre having fucking fun' he shouted for all the gym to hear. I heard a few girls laugh, and promptly laughed louder and more obnoxiously, to echo throughout the whole room. They looked at me like I was mental, and I was content. I did my routine ten more times before Roger got so fed up he told me to go work on uneven bars. I had a routine for it, as I was actually in the event, but I was sure that I wasn't going to make finals with it, and didn't really care. I hated bars, and I was afraid of beam, and really only wanted to floor. Roger said that made me a bad athlete. I hopped up on the bar and did a couple of simple flips, not turning or switching bars.