*
The Competitors Village at the Pan Global games was a mix of excitement and nerves. There were those that wanted to celebrate their victories; and then there were those that wanted to mourn their defeats. Kimberly Hart wasn’t sure which category she fell into.
Earlier in the week, her team—Team USA—had stolen the hearts of a nation and, more importantly, earned a gold medal. Standing atop the podium crying, as they played “the Star Spangled Banner” was perhaps the most surreal moment of her life. It reminded her of the days after a great battle was won, when her other team would congregate in the Command Center and celebrate.
Except it was different this time. This time the girls she won with weren’t friends. Sure, they were nice—sometimes—and talented but they weren’t her friends. She had met some of them just over a month ago for training camp. And, no matter how much she tried to get passed it, they always remembered that in the end, they would be her competitors for the big prize.
The “big prize” was the individual All-Around gold medal. Little girls dreamed their entire lives of winning it. Kimberly was one of the rare few that actually had a chance of winning it.
Perhaps that was what had made it so difficult when she hadn’t. The news people said it was “hers to lose,” and lose it she had.
She had done that balance beam routine thousands of times. She had gotten so that she could almost time her heartbeats with the pounding her weight made on the beam. It was a difficult routine, one of the most difficult in the competition. There were plenty of tricky jumps and passes. Plenty of time to fall off.
She hadn’t even done that, fall off that is. She almost fell, just once. Kim prided herself on being a fighter. She fought one of the hardest battles of her life that day. Gravity was against her. She forced her toes around the beam and hung on for tear life. But it didn’t matter.
To win an all around gold you had to be perfect. It wasn’t like the team competition when not every score counted. Or you could rely on your teammates to put up a big number in your place. That small bobble had put her out of the running. That was it: the end of a little girl’s dream.
Kimberly always tried to be a positive person. When her real friends had come to greet her she smiled and said that it was an honor to be 5th in the world at something. Plus, she had her team gold.
They came from all over: Angel Grove, Geneva, London, Africa, to name a few. (Except he wasn’t there. And really why would he come for her?) They had come all this way to see her even though she hadn’t spoken to any of them in months. She had been so focused on her dream. It was actually awkward to be around them.
They chatted about things she hadn’t been around for and people she had never met. They told of their odyssey—driving, all of them, in one car from California to Georgia. It was unimaginable. And they laughed. They laughed like there was lightness inside of them bursting to get out. She laughed a forced laugh—the laugh of losers.
That was the worst part. Knowing that she had lost both of the things she held so dear in one night: her dream and her team.
She was nothing without her team.
Kim was fighting back tears as she opened the door to her apartment. She hadn’t been there since the competition had begun. All her time was spent at the gym. Now she wished she had spent some of it with her friends. Their dirty hotel sounded horrible but wonderful at the same time.
And that was when she found it.
It was funny, she realized with detached irony as she read it, this had all started with a letter. That was when she had decided to put herself in front of her friends. That was when her individual performance began to out-rank her team’s. She had given it up.
Really, she hadn’t known it then, but that was when she had lost everything. Tonight was just when she had realized it.
She couldn’t call him. He wasn’t at home. She couldn’t write him a letter. God knows they’d had enough of those.
So she took a plane the first chance she got. It was laughable really. Everyone she had ever met had come from all over to see her, her parents had a fancy dinner celebration planned for that very night, and she just left. Her Dad would be mad. She hoped her mother would be able to explain it to him. For one last time, she had to be selfish.
He wasn’t there when she arrived. So she waited, somewhat pathetically, in front of his door. He was a student at Angel Grove University now. He had a dorm and everything, just like a normal boy. What was even weirder was that no one had given her a funny look when she walked the campus. Somehow, even though she had trained so long to stand out, she still fit in.
It felt good.
It was past five pm when he showed up. She had begun to wonder if he had gone somewhere else (home? No one answered the phone. A bar? College kids did that, didn’t they?)
He didn’t see her when he approached. He was looking down. She could tell he was upset, brooding. She was fluent in his body language.
“Tommy,” she said, forgetting all the really good things she had planned to say.
He looked up for the first time and she could see the surprise in his face. He had been convinced. He didn’t think her possible of straying so far from home. He had believed her lies.
That was when she started to cry again. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. She was supposed to say something smart and meaningful and he would take her in his arms and marvel at what a wonderful person she was. Except she wasn’t really. Not all the time.
But for some reason he took her in his arms anyway.
There was kissing. Later, when someone would ask her what happened she would remember some kissing. But mostly she remembered that he enveloped her in warmth and comfort. It didn’t matter that she had done bad things. Because together they were good.
“I’m sorry you didn’t win,” he said at last, due to some sort of misguided notion that something had to be said. Really what were words when there were kisses?
For the first time in a long time, she laughed like there was lightness inside her.
“I didn’t lose, silly.”