Hiding From Truth(being edited)

Chapter 7

"Tighter. Go again," Coach Megan commands. I hobble off the mats and walk slowly down the vault runway. I stop at the marker of my distance and take off. When I reach the spring board, I do my Yurchenko into a two and a half twist. I land hard on the mat, wincing when I roll my ankle a bit.

"You hurt your ankle because you came crashing down in a lost mess. Now again, Carmen. And stop closing your eyes when you do gymnastics," Coach Megan corrects. Walking down the runway, I imagine myself going for the vault with perfect form. My body is tight, and I land perfectly.

"Let's see it," Megan says. I take off, sprinting, my body a solid muscle. I push off the vault table with force that propels me into my flips. I think about my knees together, head in, and toes pointed.

"Good," Coach Megan claps one staccato beat when I land, "I want to see that again."

"I think when we get home from the ranch, we need to sneak ice cream," Jordyn says, flopping onto her bunk.

"Same. It's been too long," I agree.

"If you get ice cream, get smalls, girls," Coach Megan says, walking unexpectedly into the cabin, "And not too many toppings or chocolate. Go for low fat vanilla. You know how much I love ice cream so I will allow you to get it. But just this once." Our coach gives us a soft wink like we're part of some big secret.

"Thanks, Coach," Jordyn says sarcastically.

"You're welcome. Okay, tomorrow, Jordyn, you're going to be working a lot on floor and vault with me. Carmen, you're on bars and beam with Coach Dave. Got it?" Megan always told us what events we'd be mainly working on the next day so we could prepare our mindsets.

"Yup. Thanks. Jordyn let's go walk around," I say, dragging my friend out of the cabin.

"Ugh, it's hot," She complains, taking the bottom of her tank top and waving it slightly to get the sweat off her stomach.

"I know. But we can't really complain. Only two more days of this before we have to go back to New Jersey. Then we'll be complaining about the cold," I tell her.

"Probably true. Come on, let's go to the smoothie shack," Jordyn and I try to run over to the smoothies, but are bodies are both so wiped of energy, we must look like hobbling old men.

"That was worth the odd run," I say, sipping my low sugar strawberry smoothie.

"Meh. I could go for a milkshake over these," Jordyn says, cringing at hers.

"You shouldn't have gotten the healthy vegetable one," I tell her, "Those are gross and are not worth the run." We sit down on a bench and sip lazily on our drinks.

"TDWR gym version?" Jordyn asks. I smile. TDWR is a game a bunch of my old gymnastics teammates made up when we were bored on flights or when icing. The T and D stand for "truth or dare" and the W and R are for "would you rather."

"WR," I say.

"Would you rather do a Kovacs on bars and probably fall-this is at a big meet- or do your old level 5 routine?" Jordyn asks.

"That's really hard. Probably the Kovacs because I could amp up my points by doing my usual routine and when I go for my second release move, you know the half?- I could do the Kovacs. Granted, I suck at it and have only done it when I was over the pit, and even then my hands slipped. Level 5 routines are just pitiful," I answer.