How he saved me.

Prologue

June 2015

My entire life I had grown up around one sport.  When it got taken away from sixteen years later, it sucked.

My earliest memory is when I was walking across the balance beam by myself for the first time at eighteen months old.

I started 'Mommy and Me' classes when I turned one because by then I had been walking for three months and my parents were tired of me rolling around the house.

At four years old I competed as a level one for the first time.

In two months I'll be going into my senior year of high school.  Like most gymnasts, my dream was to go to the Olympics.  Unlike most gymnasts, mine was actually coming true. 

People actually knew my name, and if everything goes right, I'll make it to the Olympic trials in one year.  I'm out of this world excited.

I am turning seventeen in August.  I'm most probably the youngest in my grade due to my late birthday but it doesn't matter.  I would also be entering my third year as a level ten.  It would've been my fourth year but I had gotten an knee injury in level eight and had to repeat the level because I was behind.

All of that brings me to where I am now: standing in front of the uneven bars getting ready to perform a new bar routine.

I jump off the mat into a straddle glide kip.

The first half of the bar routine goes okay.  It's the second half I am nervous about.

Giant, giant, release move, catch the bar.  Kip, cast to handstand, front giant, pirouette.  Giant, giant, double back dismount.

I can immediately tell there is something wrong.  I could hear my coach say "Oh god." Before all I could feel was pain and everything went black.

***
Beep.  Beep.  Beep.

My eyes were glued shut, or at least that's how it felt.  The annoying beeping sound was driving me crazy and I just wanted it to go away.  It registered as soon as I thought where am I? Obviously a hospital.  It smelled like a hospital and the beeping sound was coming from the heart rate monitor.

Finally, after quite a lot of work I opened my eyes to reveal a blurred mess.  A minute later everything was finally clear and I was looking at the wall of my hospital room with the television playing softly from the wall.

"Hello Dylan, half to see you've woken up," a voice says startlingly me.  I look to the side and a sharp pain goes through my neck and I cry out.

"No, no.  Do not move your neck. Sorry for scaring you," the voice says coming into my line of vision.

"I'm Amanda, you're nurse.  I'm here to answer any questions you may have," she says in a soft voice.

"C-can I have some water?" I ask hoarsely once I realize my throat is extremely dry.

She gets me water in a manner of minutes and I drink it before asking any questions.  The one on the top of mind is: Why am I here?

"You are because you had a severe accident at your summer gymnastics practice, Dylan."  The nurse answers.  I asked that out loud? Great.

"What happened?"

"You were doing a double back dismount off the uneven bars and you hit your head on the second flip very hard, knocking you out.  Then you landed weird, shattering your knee caps and breaking your left ankle, which I was informed that's your good ankle," she says reading off of a clip board and I nod my head when she looks up for affirmation.

"You also broke your left wrist and hurt your neck.  You had surgeries on your knees and we did several MRI's.  You've been out for five days." She says and then reads something off the clipboard that makes her go pale.

"You've been a gymnast since you were...?" She trails off and looks at me.

"Since I was one."

"You've competed for...?"

"I'm going into my thirteenth competition year."

"You've been in gymnastics how many years?"

"Sixteen."

"Your parents names are?"

"Marie and Matthew."

"You're siblings names are?"

"I have an older brother who lives in New York named Christopher."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen on August second. I was born in 1999."

"You live in...?"

"Dallas, Texas."

"Very good.  You're memory seems to be great.  There is one thing that I do need to tell you."

"What is it?"

"Due to the injuries in your neck and knees.  You can no longer do gymnastics because you could further damage the injuries that will take a while to heal." She says before leaving the room leaving me shocked to tears.

One dismount cost me the sport I love.

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Thank you for reading this!!! There is a bunch of gymnastics vocab in there that you will have to look up if you want to know what it looks like because it is hard for me to explain.

I promise that there won't be a lot of gymnastics words in this book. That should be the most there is at all.

Comment and vote because it would mean the world to me!!

I still love the silent readers though.

By the way, my name is Brianna and I'm new to Wattpad.

I love everyone who reads this!!!

I'll see you in chapter one.❤️❤️

~Brianna~