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His expression turns from stiff to alarmed in one second flat. “Please tell me you haven’t taken things that far? Because if you have, I swear to God—”

I stare at him—poker face on—and hold the position for practically an eternity before saying, “No, we haven’t.”

Dad exhales and drops his face into his hands. “Jesus Christ, Jordan. What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

“Come on, she’s seventeen. What percentage of girls
haven’t
gone that far by her age? Statistically, she’s sitting in the minority.”

His entire demeanor changes and he’s suddenly normal nonchalant Dad, not the overprotective person he is when it comes to Karen. “I know what it’s like to be your age. And I don’t think getting involved like that is wrong, but for Karen, there’s too much at stake. So, I’ll be as blunt as possible and just say, find a way around it. Anything but going all the way. Got it?”

In other words, don’t get her pregnant. I know my mom got pregnant with my older sister, Eloise, when she was barely twenty and they had no money, no insurance. She was a student and Dad was a full-time gymnast. I get what he’s saying. If the roles had been reversed, if my mom had been the gymnast and had gotten pregnant, she either wouldn’t have had Eloise or she would have been forced to quit competing.

What Dad doesn’t realize is that Karen and I aren’t having sex anytime soon. We’ve barely grazed second base. She’s not the type that you rush things with. It’s so much better when it’s her idea and that’s how I plan to make decisions like that, moving forward. If it’s Karen’s idea, then I’m on board. Otherwise, I’m not pushing her.

I like the idea of leaving Dad to sweat it out, but a tiny drop of compassion drifts up to the surface. “We’re practically an entire Olympic cycle away from reaching that point, so quit worrying. She’s Karen. I can’t just go screwing with her.” I close my eyes briefly, realizing my poor choice of words. “
Mentally
. Screwing her up mentally.”

“Good to hear.” Dad’s feet drop back onto the floor and he gives me a pat on the knee before standing. “I trust you.”

My eyebrows shoot up. Really? This is new. “You’re not going to tell me how you came up with fifty grand?”

He turns to me, amusement all over his face. “I’m ninety-nine percent positive that I will never tell you how I paid that bill.”

I think he just challenged my investigator skills.

“W
ho have you been writing your thoughts to?” Jackie picks at her less than appetizing fast-food salad with a fork, maybe talking herself into taking a bite.

My own sandwich from home remains mostly untouched due to some pretty intense subject matter in today’s therapy session. “I stopped writing letters weeks ago.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Really? Why is that?”

“I don’t know. I guess once I admitted to doing it, it got easier to say a lot of the things I’d been writing down.”

“Regardless of the intentions behind writing those letters, it’s a very healthy outlet for you to deal with your feelings,” Jackie says. “Continuing the exercise may help you get through some of the challenges that are coming up in the near future.”

Speaking of challenges…

My eyes stay focused on my hands when I spill the most difficult update I have for Jackie today. “My grandma wants to fly out here next week.”

“To visit?” Jackie asks though I’m pretty sure she’s put two and two together and has guessed why Grandma is coming.

I stare at her PhD mounted on the wall. “To pack up my parents house.” I exhale the words all in one long breath.

“You haven’t changed your mind about selling it, correct?”

“Correct.” I’d decided even before going to Brazil that it was unrealistic to keep the house,
my house,
especially with having to take care of it when I didn’t even want to enter the garage, let alone stay there. Dad’s former partner at his law firm had already started the sale process. A family—a young doctor, his teacher wife, and their two little girls—had just made an offer.

“You can’t wait forever to take care of this,” Jackie says so matter-of-factly, it surprises the hell out of me. Usually she dishes out the “go at your own pace” philosophy and “you can’t hurry grieving.”

“But—”

“I mean it, Karen. You’ve agreed to sell the house. Someone is going to pack it up without you, probably your grandmother will take care of that, and you’re never going to get that closure you and I both know that you need in order to truly move on.”

This aggressive approach is very out of character for Jackie so I’m momentarily silenced, not sure what to say next.

“How about this,” Jackie proposes, dropping the firm tone. “Next week when your grandmother arrives, you and I will go to your house together and I’ll help you through it. We’ll have a special on-location session.”

“Do you do that a lot with other patients?”

She gives me the friendly smile I’ve come to know from my young hip therapist. “I can’t give you information about other patients, but taking issues out of the office is a widely practiced technique. But I think you need more support than just me. I know Jordan’s not around next week, so maybe ask someone else who’s willing to help you through this. Think about it and don’t be shy about asking for help.”

I lift my gaze to meet hers. “So we’re really gonna do this?”

“Yes,” she says, returning to the firm tone.

I take a deep breath and nod. Time to look the beast in the eye.

***

“Give me that!” Blair snatches my cell phone from my hand, placing it behind her back. “Stop. Reading. Comments. On. You. Tube.”

I sigh and toss my T-shirt and shorts into my gym bag. “I can’t help it. I’ve never had a hundred thousand views on any of my routine videos before.”

“Well, Stevie has.” Blair throws my phone into my bag and zips it up, stuffs it into my locker. “Which means she’s got a ton of groupies and anyone who beats Stevie is going to get a visit from them in their comment section.”

She’s probably right. But still, I can’t help reading that stuff—finding out what people think about me. I can filter out the most ridiculous comments and find the truth buried under the bullshit. And truth is, I might not have won if my fellow American gymnasts were all healthy and competing. Plus, my floor routine really isn’t up to international standards.

Blair shuts her own locker and stands up, ready to head out to the gym even though we have fifteen minutes until afternoon practice starts. Remembering Jackie’s directions earlier, I grab her wrist, pulling her back down on the bench beside me. “I need a favor.”

She stays perfectly still while I explain what I have to do next week and what my therapist has recommended. When I finally stop talking, she nods and says, “I’ll be there. I’ll do whatever you need me to.”

I release the breath I’d been holding. It’s not that it’s difficult to ask Blair for help. It’s just hard to admit that I’m really gonna do this. It’s so final.

When we head out to the gym, Coach Bentley waves at me from inside his office. “Close the door behind you,” he says.

I take a seat in the chair across from his desk and watch as he slides a check for $200,000 printed by my parents’ accountant across the wood surface until it’s resting in front of me. I look up at him, confused. “But this is for—”

“Jordan’s tuition,” he finishes. “We had a deal. I know that. But it wasn’t a deal I’m able to live with, just as you aren’t able to live with keeping this money, correct?”

The money I got for my parents drinking, driving, and killing themselves in the process. No thank you. “Correct.”

“I’ve got a compromise for you.”

I fold my arms over my chest, biting back angry words and focusing on the factual questions.
I knew he’d go back on this deal. I just knew it
. “He thinks he’s going to Stanford. You have to take this money. I’m not keeping it.”

His gaze drops to the keyboard in front of him. “I asked Jordan’s grandparents to help. I hated going there, but it feels right. They aren’t the warmest people in the world, but they do want to be a part of his life and sometimes writing a big fat check is a person’s chosen method of expressing love.”

Yeah, I think my own grandmother is in this camp. She’d rather be involved in a technical or financial sense than an emotional one.

“Plus, there’s the bragging rights.” Bentley rolls his eyes. “Grandson at an Ivy League school. That kind of thing is very important to them, even with them not being American.”

Jordan’s mother was British and he and his older sister grew up in England. Until he was ten, when his mother, sister, and Bentley’s parents were killed during the London bombing. Bentley’s parents had come all the way from Chicago and were on their first trip to the UK.

Not wanting to delve into depressing topics right now, I refocused my attention on the neglected $200,000 check in front of me. “But what do I do with this money? Ask the law firm to donate it?” At least I wouldn’t have to lie or withhold information from Jordan regarding his tuition payments, which brings me to a whole new question, “Wait… does Jordan know his grandparents paid?”

Bentley shakes his head. “No, he’d probably find an excuse to use his fallback schools. The animosity between him and them isn’t much different than my own feelings about them. So let’s keep this between you and me, okay?”

I nod but I can’t help wondering why Jordan never mentioned this animosity. He glossed over his relationship with grandparents, saying only that he’d hardly seen them since moving to the US years ago. I tuck that question away for now because it’s obvious Bentley is ready to fill in the rest to finish telling me his news.

“You can absolutely ask the firm for help in choosing an organization to donate to, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and specifically coming up with something that might hit close to home for you,” he continues.

“Like what? Gymnastics scholarships?”

He cracks a smile. “Yes, but more specifically, I was thinking about kids who’ve lost their parents, whether in support or have actually lost them, and providing funds for them to take classes here.”

“What do mean, lost them in support?”

“Foster kids,” Bentley says to clarify. “With the Department of Children and Family Services involved, we can easily get the information into the right hands, foster parents can come and apply for assistance for the kids they’re caring for.”

This idea appeals to me on so many levels but I have one major concern. “What happens when the money runs out? I’d hate to get someone involved and then pull the rug out from under them.”

“We’ll take half of the money and invest it, plus open the fund to outside donors. I think the cause is very worthy. Statics have proven that elementary and middle-school kids who participate in extracurricular activities and sports are less likely to drop out of high school, abuse drugs and alcohol… In addition, children in the foster care system have a much higher probability of going down those paths.”

“You really did think about this,” I mumble, lost in my own thoughts. What if my parents weren’t as financially stable? What if they were dirt poor and what if I were several years younger and had nowhere to go except into foster care? Since losing them, I’ve never once thought of myself as lucky. Until now.

And my mother would have loved to head up something like this. She lived for November and December, when the gym team would sponsor a family for the holidays. My mom was always in charge and spent days and days shopping for the family and calling local businesses for food and service donations. If the kids in the sponsor family were interested in gymnastics, she’d always talk the gym board into donating free lessons. The kids would always end up with way more gifts than I ever got for Christmas.

I give Bentley a sad smile. “What do you need me to do?”

“Just sign this check over to the gym and I’ll take care of everything.” He pats my hand. “This is a very good way to spend this money, Karen. I think we can have the program up and running by fall.”

“Sounds great.”

Both of us head out into the gym, joining Stevie, Ellen, and Blair. Blair jogs beside me during our warm-up laps around the gymnastics floor. “Everything okay?” she whispers.

“Yeah, just some financial stuff I had to take care of.”

An hour into afternoon practice and my thoughts have completely shifted from the $200,000 check to the snarky YouTube comments on my floor routine from the Pan Am Games. I honestly don’t know how I’d ever stop thinking about my parents being gone if I didn’t have gymnastics to distract me. Bentley has us working new tumbling passes on the tumble track today and after nailing my fifth double twisting double back, I get brave and ask, “Can I try this on floor, into the pit?”

He’s silent for way longer than I can handle, his forehead wrinkling, probably coming up with arguments against this plan. “I need to upgrade floor,” I add.