Letters to Nowhere by Julie Cross Read Free Book Online

what you’ll be doing if you get your swings higher and work hard on all your basics.”
    One of the little girls rolled her eyes behind Jeff’s back and I laughed under my breath. That would have totally been Blair a few years ago.
    Stevie was the next in my group to join me at the pit bar and by that time, the level 6 girls had moved on to another event. We both chalked up in silence and I avoided eye contact with her before making my third attempt at the new release, hoping she wouldn’t even watch me. This time I got both hands on before sliding off. When I climbed out, Stevie was standing over me, her mouth hanging open.
    “What the hell was that?”
    “It was an accident,” I muttered. “At least it kind of was the first time and then I just thought maybe—”
    “It looks great. Really great. But competing it…” She shook her head in disbelief and before I could stop her, she shouted across the gym. “Hey, Coach! Karen wants to show you something!”
    Ellen landed her bar dismount with a thud that echoed through the entire gym, because Stevie Davis, the three–time world competitor, had just spoken loud enough for everyone to hear, and people always hung on every word Stevie said.
    “What are you doing?” I hissed at her, keeping my head down.
    She grinned, wider than I’d ever seen her smile. “I didn’t say what exactly you were going to show him. That’s up to you.”
    Anger and adrenaline both flamed inside me. I could see Stacey, baby Olivia latched to her breast, stop her beam coaching with the level 9s and 10s to glance over in this direction. Most of the other coaches in the gym had stopped to watch, therefore the gymnasts were also at a halt.
    Finally, Bentley turned around and walked in our direction. “Karen?”
    I glanced wearily at Stevie, who was still grinning. Realistically, I wasn’t screwed. I had several options. I could do something he already knew I could do and pretend to be excited about it. Or not. Hadn’t I said that the dead parent excuse was the best get–out–of–jail–free card? Sure, normally I would have been worried about getting in trouble for taking risks without permission, but seriously, what would he do to me?
    I felt a determined anger surge through me as I swung into the new release. This time, I felt the perfection of my timing and knew before I even saw the bar again that I’d catch it perfectly. When I did, everyone in the gym clapped.
    “So awesome,” Stevie whispered after I’d climbed out of the pit.
    Bentley just stood there with his arms crossed, face totally unreadable. Stacey handed baby Olivia over to one of her team girls and came striding our way, looking either really impressed or totally pissed off. Both expressions were very similar on Stacey’s face.
    I busied myself in the chalk bowl, waiting for one of them to say something.
    “It would be an easy upgrade,” Stacey said right away. “She wouldn’t have to redesign her bar routine at all.”
    “She caught it on, like, the third try,” Stevie chimed in. “That has to mean something.”
    I was surprised Stevie got involved in this discussion, but I wasn’t about to stop her. However, I knew better than to open my own mouth. Stevie and Stacey went back and forth for several minutes weighing the risks and rewards of upping the difficulty during the season. Neither of them mentioning me heading off to UCLA in June. Neither of them mentioning the end of my elite career. Maybe I wasn’t the only one secretly planning to stick around longer?
    Bentley said nothing for a long time, listening to them. Finally, he cleared his throat and all three of us looked right at him.
    He placed a clean white sheet of paper on his clipboard and wrote Layout Jaeger on the top. He hung it on a screw that stuck out of the side of the pit bar. “We’ll keep a tally sheet. Karen has to catch the release a hundred times and mark them all here. Then another hundred with the rest of the routine added