Return to Us (2 page)

“Hey…” she says.

I’m not sure where we stand right now. I screwed up. TJ didn’t come out and say those exact words, but I know he thinks I should have helped her more. “Hey… are you okay?”

She glances around, taking in all the watching eyes, then takes my hand and leads me down the path, toward the gym.

“If you want me to do something about TJ—”

“I don’t want to talk about TJ,” she interrupts, then draws in a breath and turns to face me. “This weekend. That’s what I want to talk about.”

My forehead wrinkles. “This weekend?”

“You said you would take me camping and Nina’s flying to Houston for a couple days to check on the training center and your dad will be here Sunday, so I figure it’s this weekend or never, right?”

Maybe this is a trick question? She wants me to take her camping? She’s speaking to me without yelling or looking pissed off. What changed? “Camping. Right.” I nod. “Do you want to invite some of the staff or—”

She shakes her head. “Nope. Just us.”

Even though I probably didn’t earn the right to smile at her again, I do it anyway. And then I shuffle my feet a little closer to hers. I reach for her hand and lace my fingers in hers. “Just us.”

Karen moves slowly, but she’s obviously dropped that wall we’ve had up for a week. I stand perfectly still as she leans in and rests her cheek against my T-shirt. But before I can get my arms around her, she steps away and turns her back to me.

“I better get some sleep so I’m not a zombie at practice in a few hours,” she calls over her shoulder, after walking several steps away.

Okay, that was weird.

I’m not even sure what to make of that conversation and I sink into heavy analytical mode during the walk back to my cabin. The night’s drama left me wide awake and the fact that TJ isn’t in our cabin made me suddenly aware that I’m not in the mood to be around him right now. I grab my guitar from under the bottom bunk, a notebook and pen from my bag, and head back out the door toward the lake.

The night air is a little chilly but the view of the completely still lake and the moonlight is worth any discomfort I might feel being out here in just a T-shirt and shorts. It’s been awhile since I’ve had this strong an urge to write a new song and I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m about to do. If only to sort through the thoughts overflowing my head.

Somewhere over the course of the last couple years and even more so in the last six months, I catch myself doing this thing where I walk away from a conversation and then I sit alone and replay it over and over again. And not just on repeat, but going through a systematic formula where I listen first to the words and then analyze the tonal qualities, breaking them apart and playing them at higher and lower keys inside my head, trying to form the most accurate conclusion of the significance of the conversation.

This is how I know for sure, even though I hate to admit it, that my dad really does care about me. But when I’m standing there in front of him, tossing words back and forth, I’m always distracted in the moment by things like impassive body language, lack of eye contact, and past memories, and I’m unable to truly hear what he’s saying between his words and what his tone actually conveys.

I think this whole exercise is more proof of guys’ inability to talk about their feelings. I’d rather stay up all night rolling dozens of theories around in my head than ask Tony, for example, how he’s feeling today. But whatever. It is what it is.

Plus, it isn’t always about things I’m too afraid to ask.

Sometimes, I replay conversations from years ago with my mom or sister and I can see brand new meaning to them. Like a foretelling of things we’d talk about when I got older. But they’re gone and all I have is this replay button.

“Is that your new concert piece?” Eloise asked Mom. “I like it. It sounds complicated.”

“It is complicated, but I like the challenge,” Mom said. “What do you think, Jordy?”

My fingers drifted over the strings of my guitar, trying to feel my way through the notes Mom had just played. The piece was too many levels above mine and then on top of that, trying to transfer cello to guitar…

“It’s loud,” I said finally after thinking it over. “But also kinda boring—well, not like boring boring,” I covered quickly after anticipating Mom’s hurt tone. “Like sleepy music. I mean, music you listen to before falling asleep. Which is odd because it’s so loud.”

“I think you’re talking about dynamics, love,” Mom said. “The volume represents more than sound; it’s density and layered emotion.”

“Wow.” Eloise had that impressed and intrigued quality to her tone. “That’s brilliantly deep, Jordy. Perhaps you’ll grow up to be a sensitive man, writing love poems to all the girls.”

At sixteen, Eloise was all about the teen angst and at ten, I wanted nothing to do with it and hated her constant complaints about boys at school and her predictions regarding what kind of boy I’d be at her age.

My face flamed and I jumped up and dropped my guitar onto the couch. “I am not deep! All I said was that it’s loud. Mom said all that other rubbish, not me.”

Mom exchanged glances with Eloise, silent words floating in the space between them, and both were now suppressing laughter, but Mom attempted to defend me. “Quit making your brother into a sensitive soul when he is obviously dead set against it.”

Eloise waved off Mom’s half-assed scolding. “Ten-year-old boys are so one-dimensional.”

I glared at both of them, trying to think of something clever to say, but eventually settled on, “I’m going outside to play.”

Even though I made great efforts to tune them out as I stormed through the living room and out the front door, there was no mistaking the burst of laughter that followed my departure.

I’d liked music at ten years old, I’d even go as far as to say that I’d already learned to love it by then, but I hadn’t wanted to think about it—like really think about what it meant even when a song or a piece was powerful enough to make me feel something. I just wanted to like it and not have to say why. My mom always wanted to talk about why. Even Eloise, who didn’t inherit the musical gene from our mother like I did, loved the discussion part. She had that artistic sensitivity and that constant craving to dig through the ugly to find beauty.

And still, to this day, I don’t really want to think about the meaning behind music. If I’m affected, then so be it, but otherwise, it feels ridiculous to create drama behind music for the sake of creating drama. This is probably a big reason I have little desire to study music in college. I imagine that major would be packed full of angsty artistic interpretation in the form of twenty-page papers. But the technical aspect of music theory does appeal to me in a way that I’m afraid to admit. The mathematical breakdown of tones and notes and then tying that into an emotional connection between the composer and the piece—it’s exactly what I’m doing right now with that conversation between Mom, Eloise, and ten-year-old me. And the weird chat I just had with Karen.

It’s gotten so easy for me to see past Karen’s body language—her twisting hands or arms folded across her chest and the occasional judges smile that’s always used to conceal something. But it’s harder with my dad because I think I’m looking for proof that he doesn’t care, like it would be easier if he didn’t. Our relationship would be one-dimensional instead of complicated as hell.

Words form inside my head, arranging themselves into lyrical fashion. My fingers find the guitar strings and then my hand makes its way to the notebook and pen, scribbling furiously, then back to the guitar. Before I know it, it’s five in the morning, the sky is turning dark pink, and I’ve written a song.

But unfortunately, I’m still not sure why Karen went from being so pissed off at me to asking me to spend the night alone with her. My guess is that she’s planning some kind of intervention where she talks me into surgery. A mixture of anger and fear crashes over me, but then I remember that I basically did the same thing to her before the Pan-Am qualifying meet. I showed up at her hotel room and, with Blair’s help, talked her into finding peace with what her parents did and really going for that good performance. Guess I can’t be angry at her for doing the same for me.

At least I won’t be caught off guard.

I’m lost.

Completely shit-faced lost.

Again.

My side smacks hard into the landing mat in the foam pit and the impact knocks the wind out of me. I roll onto my back mentally stringing a dozen swear words together since talking is impossible right now.

Yeah, so it probably wasn’t the best idea ever to hit the gym at five in the morning after staying up all night. But it’s not like I’ve ever been good at this fucking double twisting double backflip. My logic was: Who knows? Maybe sleep-deprivation will improve my lame-ass twisting.

Obviously that didn’t work out for me. But what else is new? My mom’s been telling me I suck practically since birth—in Spanish and English, so that every insult counts as two.

“
Thomas, you’re just like your papi—lazy and sneaky, always want ways to get gold without mining
.”

I clench my fists, squeezing away the anger and then I relax and sink further into the mats. Maybe I won’t get up. Maybe I can’t get up.

The second one. Definitely the second one.

“One of these days you’re going to break your neck and no one will be around to do CPR.”

I stop thinking about the pain radiating through my body and jump to my feet, taking in Stevie Davis’s figure in the doorway of the gym. “Are you offering to give me mouth-to-mouth, chica?”

“Not a chance,” she says, so fast I’m almost hurt.

My normal quick insulting reply is held back because I have to put every ounce of effort into climbing out of the pit without showing even one painful wince. By the time I make my way to the end of the tumbling strip, Stevie is on the big gymnastics floor, her iPod fastened to her waist and ear buds in her ears. I shake my arms out, giving myself a second to decide if I should just give up for the day and crawl into bed for a few hours of sleep.

Thomas, you’re just like your papi—lazy and sneaky.

Adrenaline pumps through my veins, covering the pain from my last crash, which was only one of many this morning. I take off in a sprint, flipping fast down the tumbling strip. But halfway through the double twisting double backflip I get lost again, so bad I can hardly tell which way is up. My face hits the mat first, the impact causing my nose to burn and my eyes water like one of the little bawling girls I have to coach later.

“Goddammit!” I shout before remembering that I’m not alone. I glance around the gym and see Stevie prancing across the floor, headphones still in place. I breathe a sigh of relief and make my way out again. Her back is to me and I can’t stop myself from watching her move. She’s not doing much, just jumping and leaping around, which is a freakin’ waste of time if you ask me, but the way her muscles flex with every movement—it’s hard not to stare. It doesn’t help that she’s wearing a leotard and skintight leggings.

I abandon the twisting for today and go back to my straight passes. I haven’t done a triple back in competition yet, but I’m fucking doing one at Nationals. There’s no way I’m walking onto that floor with a bunch of entitled veterans and then throwing some cookie-cutter, average passes. I’m doing my best tricks. I don’t have the luxury of failing. Either I get sponsorship to keep training or I go back home and… Well, that’s not an option I’m even willing to think about right now.

“What’s the difficulty value of a triple back?” Stevie asks after I’ve tumbled several passes and it’s almost time for the other girls to start morning practice.

I tell her the answer and ask, “Why?”

She shrugs. “Just trying to figure out if it’s worth the risk.”

I snort back a laugh. “Hell yeah, it’s worth it. It’s a fucking triple back.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes and sits on the floor to stuff her headphones into her gym bag. “Wouldn’t it be smarter to up the difficulty a little on two skills in the pass rather than dump it all into the triple? Just seems a lot like putting all your eggs in one basket.”

“Baby, where I’m from we’re lucky to get one basket. People like you must get a few dozen to work with?”

Stevie shakes her head, a look of disgust on her face. “You are such a cliché. You’re gonna face-plant on that triple at Nationals, quit after failing to make the senior team, and then blame the world for your screwups.”

I dig my fingertips into my palms, channeling the anger to one spot. This sounds way too familiar. “Oh, I get it. You’ve got a little color to your skin, too, and that makes me and you exactly the same. Except your daddy is cashing in on his Olympic medal and Nike ads from twenty years ago and mine is in prison.”

I don’t know what made me say that out loud. That was not the comeback I needed. Now she’s going to freakin’ feel sorry for me. I’ll shoot myself if I have to see one single look of pity coming from Stevie Davis.

She cocks her head to the side, examining me. “Now I know how the story ends. You fail at Nationals, blame the world, and end up in a cell beside your dad. Poetic justice at its best.”

Ain’t that the truth. Nice to know we’re on the same page.

“And after
you
fail at Nationals, you’ll go back home, go to college, become a doctor or a lawyer,” I say. “I bet you have some fancy grades and test scores, plus buckets of scholarships like Campbell.”

She jumps to her feet, taking a step in my direction. “I bet you do this close-minded judgmental thing with everyone.”

I shrug. “It’s been working for me so far.”

“That’s a great plan, TJ. It’ll come in handy when you need to point blame at people for your inevitable failures. “

“Screw you.” If I squeeze my fists any harder, I’m gonna break a finger.

She steps closer to me, arms crossed, glare pointed right at my chest. “Just don’t pretend you know shit about me. Do that with someone else.”