Impulse Control (ON HOLD)

Chapter 18

Sierra's p.o.v.

The first pink streaks of dawn invade my eyes, and I open them reluctantly, blinking to adjust to the brightness of day.

I had a terrible dream last night. I dreamed that I was in the uneven bar finals in the Olympics, but I fell on my pak salto and got a horrendously low score.

Rising from the sand, I find Cleo, who's already awake. She's staring off into the distance, with her feet in the water. Gently, I touch her shoulder, and she jerks around to look at me. Forcing a small smile, she says, "Hi." "Hi," I say, and proceed to tell her about my dream.

"What's a pak salto?" Cleo asks. "It's where you're on the low bar facing in the opposite direction of the high bar, and you transition to the high bar by twisting your body completely and grabbing on to the bar at the last second. It's a very hard skill and only the advanced, Olympic-ready gymnasts can do it."

"Can you do it?" Cleo asks. "No," I answer. "If I hadn't quit I might've been able to." Then, quietly, I say, "That's what made quitting so hard. If I hadn't quit, in a month or so, I would've been eligible to compete in the Olympic trials." The truth is, the biggest and only dream I have is to get an Olympic gold medal. An individual gold medal.

"Do you ever wish you could defy your mother and go back to gymnastics?" Cleo asks, startling me. Unbeknownst to her, she's just made voice to what I've wanted to do ever since I quit, especially when I watch the Olympic gymnastics teams compete.

I look at her and I say, "Yeah. I do want to. But I've never gotten up the courage to actually do it." Cleo turns from her position facing the lake to look at me. "I can help you." I stare at her. "How can you help me get back to gymnastics?" She looks straight into my eyes and says, "Support."

Something blooms inside of me, an old hope and dream rekindled. Determination floods through my veins like liquid fire, and a fierce pull to do what I love overrides my mother's wishes. 

"Do you really think I could?" I ask, excitement and hope lacing my words. "Could what? Could stand up to your mother or could go behind her back?" "I don't know," I admit. "Mom wouldn't let me go back, and she certainly wouldn't pay for it." "Do you work?" Cleo asks. "Yeah," I answer. "Then you could pay for it yourself."

I consider that. I do have a job in the fall. I work at our town's diner as an assistant manager, and that makes pretty good money. It's supposed to go towards the law school my mother wants to enroll me in, but it could just as easily pay for secret gymnastics lessons. The idea of being in the gym three hundred days a year makes my face stretch into a smile. Many other people would hate working out at the gym for so many days per year, but it sounds great to me: I'd be doing what I love.

So I turn to face Cleo and say, "Give me some time, okay? I'll think about it." She smiles and walks over to put a hand on my shoulder as if to say, "You can do this." I give her a grateful smile and then I ask her, "The Olympic gymnastics event finals are on tonight. Want to come over and watch them with me?"

She hesitates, and a flicker of an unknown emotion crosses her face, clouding her deep blue eyes. She lets out a long, deep sigh, like she's letting go of something. It confuses me, but I know better than to ask.

When Cleo finally looks back up at me, a look of steely resolve is printed across her features. A sweet, pine-scented breeze tousles her hair, and I tuck the loose strands behind her ear. And, just like that, the look of resolve and fierce determination crumbles. It slides off of her face, and raw pain flashes across her eyes. I'm dying to know what's going on in that mind of hers, but I still don't ask. I don't want to push her. Besides, I'd rather see her share her secrets of her own accord.

Cleo sighs again and says, in a soft, defeated tone, "Yes." I smile and pat her shoulder, happy she'll be there to watch me as I try to imitate the gymnasts' moves. That's how I've stayed in shape and kept remembering my moves. After I left the gym, I saved my money for a long time until I had enough to buy materials to make my own balance beam, vault, and uneven bars. Coupled with that, I also bought lots and lots of mats to use and a big set of mats with red "out-of-bounds" markings on them for floor exercise.

I would keep my secret gymnastics apparatuses downstairs in the basement. Mom never ventures down there because of the cobwebs. Our basement is just big enough for me to be able to practice one event, put the materials away, and then practice another. Best of all, our basement has a thick ceiling that contains all noise, so Mom never hears me thumping around down there.

I practiced once per day for years on end. And when the Olympics came around, I set up my materials and tried to imitate all of the gymnasts' moves. There were some that I couldn't do, but it still helped me, because then I could incorporate the ones I couldn't do into my daily routine.

Every time the USA got a gold medal, tingles rushed through me. I've always wanted to be the one up on that podium. There were times when I could almost hear the audience clapping in the background, see the number of my score increase by the second, feel the cool weight of a medal dangling from my neck.

It was a dream that I had a fighting determination to get.

No matter how hopeless it was, I was not giving up until I was on that podium with an Olympic gold medal hanging from my neck.