Chapter 333 - Shit

Chapter 333: Chapter 333 - Shit

Finals.

Roxie stared at the knot of her shoe. It was tied, but she still bent down and pressed a finger against it as though the knot might have somehow loosened since the last time she checked.

"It’s tied," Karen said, pointing at it.

"I know."

"Then stop. You’re making me fidgety too."

Roxie straightened and shook her foot once, testing the fit inside the shoe even though there was nothing wrong with it. Angela groaned beside them.

"You two are impossible."

Around them, the holding area was packed with finalist teams waiting for their turn on the Nationals floor.

Music from the arena came through the walls in heavy bursts, followed by cheers that swelled and disappeared again. Staff members wearing headsets moved constantly between the teams, calling names, checking numbers, and directing groups toward the tunnel.

Every few minutes another team vanished through the entrance while another returned flushed and sweaty, some crying, some laughing, others immediately searching their coaches’ faces as though one expression could tell them whether what they had just done was enough.

Roxie rolled her shoulders and flexed her fingers. Her palms already felt damp, which made no sense because her hands were hardly the part of her body she needed to worry about. She wiped them against the sides of her skirt anyway and caught Marissa watching her.

"You good?"

"Yeah."

Marissa studied her for another moment before leaving it alone.

Coach Miller stood several feet away with his clipboard tucked beneath one arm. He had already given them the same speech twice, and Roxie was beginning to think he was more nervous than all of them combined. He kept pacing from one side of their small section to the other, occasionally glancing at the clipboard without appearing to read anything from it.

It probably should have worried her.

Instead, watching him repeat the same reminders almost word for word made something inside Roxie loosen. Karen leaned toward her and quietly asked whether he was pacing faster, and Roxie watched Coach Miller reach the wall, turn around, then immediately start back toward them.

"I think so."

Angela covered her mouth. "He’s going to make me dizzy."

Ava had started giggling every time Coach Miller reached the same corner and turned around again. Tori was openly following him with her eyes while stretching one ankle, and even Kendall kept glancing his way as though she had given up pretending she had not noticed.

For several minutes, the entire team seemed more entertained by Coach Miller wearing a path into the floor than by the fact that they were minutes away from competing for a national championship.

Then a staff member appeared beside the tunnel.

"Briarwick, you’re on deck."

The mood changed immediately.

Roxie’s smile disappeared. Tori lowered her leg, Karen stopped whispering, and the loose conversations around them faded as everyone moved together almost automatically.

Roxie ended up between Karen and Angela when they formed their circle. Coach Miller finally stopped pacing and looked around at them. He opened his mouth, closed it again, then gave them a weak grin.

"I don’t know what else to say."

A few girls laughed nervously.

"I think I’ve already given you every speech I know."

"That’s true," Karen whispered.

Angela elbowed her.

Coach Miller ignored them and looked around the circle again, his eyes lingering longer on the seniors. Roxie felt it when his gaze reached her and Kendall.

"We’ve done everything we could to reach this floor. Every practice, every correction, every night I kept you in the gym longer than you wanted to stay." His expression softened as he looked around at them. "For some of you, this is the last competition you’ll ever have wearing Briarwick across your chest."

Roxie swallowed.

She had spent so much time thinking about winning that she had managed to push that part somewhere else. This was her last competition. Her last Nationals. Maybe the last time she would stand in a circle like this with Angela against one shoulder, Karen against the other, and Kendall staring back at her from across the team.

Coach Miller looked at the seniors again. "This is your final encore. Everything you gave this team, all those days and nights in the gym, brought you here."

Roxie breathed slowly through her nose. Her eyes stung unexpectedly, and she blinked harder before anybody noticed.

She had expected another reminder about timing and clean landings.

This was worse.

Coach Miller smiled. "Go show them what Briarwick is."

He placed his hand in the center. Kendall added hers first, Roxie followed, then Karen, Angela, Tori, and everyone else until their hands were stacked together.

"Briarwick," Coach Miller said.

Their voices answered him.

Before they could even separate, the announcer’s voice boomed from the arena.

"Coming to the floor, representing Virginia, Briarwick High School!"

The scream from the audience reached them through the tunnel.

Angela’s eyes widened. Karen whispered, "Holy shit."

Kendall looked around the circle. "One, two, three."

"BRIARWICK!"

They broke and moved.

Roxie barely remembered walking through the tunnel. One moment she was beneath ugly fluorescent lights with the team packed around her, and the next the arena opened ahead of them in white lights, giant screens, moving cameras, and more people than she could process at once.

Briarwick’s name flashed across the enormous display overhead. Somewhere in the stands, their supporters screamed hard enough to rise above the rest of the arena, and Roxie let herself smile as they ran toward their opening marks.

She gave herself a few seconds to take it in.

Then the routine took over.

Tori stood in the center of the opening stunt group while the rest of Briarwick settled into the opening picture around her. Roxie was several feet away, low enough that she could see Tori clearly between the girls in front of her. Across the floor, Kendall had already reached her position.

Their eyes met.

Kendall nodded once.

Roxie breathed in.

The opening sound effect hit, and the first count ran through her head.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Tori loaded, and her stunt group drove upward.

She shot into the air.

Even from several feet away, Roxie’s stomach dropped.

Tori climbed ridiculously high and snapped into the skill at the top, legs opening wide before pulling sharply back together. For one brief moment she was the only person moving on the entire floor while the rest of Briarwick held perfectly still beneath her.

The arena erupted.

Roxie barely heard them because she was watching Tori come down.

She drifted slightly right.

Roxie saw it immediately, and so did Tori’s group. The bases shifted beneath her before the catch and absorbed her cleanly despite the slight travel.

Good.

The second Tori’s feet touched the floor, the music slammed into the first full section and Briarwick exploded into motion. Girls broke from the opening picture in every direction while Roxie pushed forward with the first line and drove straight into her tumbling pass.

Her hands struck the mat through the roundoff. She snapped backward into the handspring, drove through her shoulders, then launched into a full twisting layout, turning one complete rotation in the air while keeping her body long and tight.

The floor disappeared beneath her for a moment.

Then it came back.

Roxie landed near the front of the mat, lifted her chest, and faced the judges with a bright smile already in place.

She could see them clearly from here.

Clipboards.

Pens.

Faces that gave almost nothing away.

Roxie held the smile anyway.

The next count came.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Her stunt group moved into position behind her, and Roxie stepped into their hands as they drove her upward. She felt the pressure settle beneath her shoes and tightened through her legs while the floor dropped away.

They brought her down through the transition only long enough to change the grip, then drove her upward again into the next position. Roxie locked her knees, lifted through her chest, and hit the pose cleanly while the formation around them continued moving.

The audience reacted.

Roxie barely registered it.

Her bases dipped beneath her again.

This time she knew exactly what was coming.

Double down.

They released her from the stunt, and Roxie twisted twice through the air on the way down. The arena turned around her in flashes of white light, color, and dark seats while she kept her body tight through both rotations.

Then she opened.

There.

Her bases were below her.

Roxie dropped into the cradle and felt their arms catch her across the back and thighs.

Clean.

They set her on the mat, and she stepped out immediately while the routine kept moving around her.

Everything was where it should be.

Karen crossed behind her on time. Angela reached her mark. Kendall moved through center. Tori had already disappeared back into the routine after commanding the opening.

There was barely enough time to enjoy any of it.

The formation compressed into three stunt groups, and Roxie ran toward the center. Her bases were already waiting. She placed one foot into their hands and briefly gripped their shoulders as they settled the load beneath her.

Being a flyer had taught Roxie to recognize tension through touch. She could tell when someone underneath her was getting tired by the way fingers tightened around her shoe. She could tell when timing was wrong before she ever reached shoulder level because one hand would arrive a fraction later than the other.

Right now, everybody felt ready.

The count started again in her head.

One, two. Load. Three, four. Dip. Five, six. Drive.

Roxie rose with the other flyers.

The force traveled through her planted foot as the bases extended upward. Her stomach tightened automatically while the floor dropped farther beneath her, but she locked her standing leg and pulled everything through her core until she reached full extension.

The crowd reacted.

Roxie barely heard it.

Balance first.

Her ankle wanted to move beneath her.

She held it.

The side flyers hit their positions while Roxie opened into the arabesque at center, extending one leg behind her and lifting her chest as her arms spread wide.

From the audience, she knew exactly what they saw.

A long clean line moving above the floor. Something graceful enough to look effortless.

Roxie felt everything underneath it.

The pressure of the bases’ hands around her shoe. The tiny corrections through her standing ankle. The strain in her calf every time the stunt group shifted beneath her.

Then the bases started moving.

That was always the part that tightened something in her stomach.

When they stayed still, Roxie balanced over one point. Once they moved, everything underneath her moved with them.

One, two.

The group stepped.

Roxie adjusted through her ankle while keeping her upper body still.

Three, four.

Another step.

The floor seemed to slide underneath her.

She kept her eyes forward.

Five, six.

Her weight drifted slightly toward her toes.

Correct it.

Seven, eight.

They locked into position.

The crowd screamed.

Roxie smiled toward the judges while every muscle in her standing leg stayed tight. From the front, she probably looked completely comfortable above the moving formation.

She felt every inch of the height.

The next count came, and her bases dipped. Roxie folded into the cradle and trusted them, falling backward through that brief empty space before arms caught her across the back and legs.

They set her down, and she moved immediately.

The next tumbling pass was already waiting.

Roxie started toward her mark and made the mistake of looking at the judges’ table.

One of them was shaking his head while writing something.

Her stomach tightened.

Had somebody made a mistake?

Was something late?

Had they seen Tori drift on the opening?

Had Roxie’s double down been off?

She almost searched across the floor for Kendall, but the count was already coming.

There was no time.

Roxie reached the setup mark.

Beyond the judges, hundreds of phones were raised toward the floor.

Her breathing shortened.

Yesterday flashed through her mind.

The hesitation.

The count she had nearly lost.

The phone pointed directly at her.

Roxie forced her attention back to the mat.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Roundoff.

Her hands struck the floor.

Back handspring.

Push.

Layout.

For one horrible fraction of a second, Roxie felt herself traveling farther left than she wanted.

Then the floor came back.

Her right foot landed first.

Her left came down half a beat later.

The ankle rolled underneath her.

Pain snapped up the outside of her leg so suddenly that Roxie nearly lost the landing completely. Her knee buckled, and for one terrifying beat her body started to follow it before she caught herself and forced her weight back over the right leg.

Pain traveled all the way up her calf.

Keep moving.

The thought came before the pain had even finished registering.

She could not even afford to look down.

Roxie pushed into the next step.

Another sharp stab tore through the ankle.

Shit.