"Payson, did you expect a gold medal going into the uneven bars final?" a reporter asked as Payson gave the obligatory post-victory interviews. She had barely had time to pull on a pair of sweats and slip on some shoes before Marta Karolyi had excitedly dragged her into the press room.
"I knew that I had a decent chance if I hit the routine, and I feel like I did that," Payson said with a tense smile. "But I also got lucky. My competitors made some unanticipated mistakes."
"We are very proud of Payson," Marta interjected. "She led the team to a gold medal and now she has won many of her own medals."
Marta kept talking, but Payson found herself drifting towards the glowing neon EXIT sign. Before she could leave, another pushy reporter yelled out a question.
"Payson, how would you summarize your Olympic experience?"
Payson sighed. Anything too enthusiastic would sound insincere, but she couldn't tell the reporter what she really thought. To make matters worse, everyone else had stopped talking and were looking at her expectantly, waiting for an answer from the new all-around gold medalist.
"It was a great experience," Payson replied lamely, grimacing at how unemotional she sounded. "I never expected to have this much success. I credit my wonderful teammates for pushing me to be my best and my parents for giving me every possible opportunity to get to this point."
The reporter smiled and opened her mouth to ask a follow-up question, probably regarding what Payson had to say about the support of her coach, but Payson pushed her way through the exit doors and jogged outside in the drizzling rain. She pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt and slipped on a pair of sunglasses that were hidden deep in the pockets of her sweatpants. If the cab driver happened to look at her closely, he would blame the water droplets running down her nose on the rain, not the tears that were slowly dripping down her face.
Marta would be mad at Payson for leaving so quickly and MJ would be furious, but Payson knew that Marta couldn't stay mad at the U.S.'s "golden girl" for long. MJ could easily issue a statement apologizing for Payson's rude exit and asserting that Payson had started to feel ill and needed to go back to her hotel to lie down. In fact, that was exactly what Payson planned to do, so MJ wouldn't have much trouble corroborating that story.
Bored sports commentators would debate about what Payson was ill with and whether or not this sickness had caused her relatively poor performance in the uneven bars finals, but none of them would guess that she was plagued with a broken heart.
A/N: The end was kind of angsty again, but soon you'll know why Payson is so upset. Expect the return of Sasha in the next chapter! I'm going to try to update every day or every other day. These first two chapters were pretty short, but they will eventually get longer. Reviews are much appreciated.