Her hands slam into the front of the vaulting table with a thump, a last second attempt to stop her body from crashing into the apparatus, not that it works. Kate growls at herself, fingers clenching into a fist that she almost considers smacking against the table. Usually she tries to hide her frustrations, but with five and a half weeks before the Olympic Trials she's a mess. What is the point of attempting a comeback if she can't even vault properly?
"I know this vault hasn't done you any favours, but there's something to be said about trying again," Montgomery calls from the edge of the soft foam pit, Kate's landing spot for the duration of today's vaulting practice.
But it isn't just any vault. This is the Amanar. A round off with a back handspring onto the table, followed by two and a half twists in the air before landing. One of the most difficult skills a female gymnast could attempt, and a huge score booster.
It was also the vault which had torn Kate's ACL before London and something she had not tried since that day.
Part of her wants to just give up and ignore Montgomery's suggestion of switching back to the Amanar. Her current vault for competition, the double twisting Yurchenko, is similar to the Amanar. Slightly less impressive as it contains one less half twist, but easier to execute.
But she won't give up, that isn't who she is. So Kate sighs, shoulders slumping for her trek back to the beginning of the vault runway to try the skill again. Of the three vaulting tables in the gym, Kate's been working on the one closest to the wall all afternoon, preferring to avoid collisions with the pint sized six year olds who have the tendency to run across the vault runways instead of walking around them.
Again at the front of the runway, Kate turns her head back towards the vault. There is a process to her success, and it begins with visualizing how she wants the vault to go. Bending over to rest her hands gingerly on her knees, she closes her eyes to focus. She needs a good push off of the table, lots of height, and fast twisting. But just like every other time she's tried to picture the vault before a run today, the only sight replaying in her mind is the one of her injury.
Kate simply can't get it out of her head. The fall, the noise, the excruciating pain, and the long recovery process. Logically, she knows that she's back to landing in the soft foam pit where there's no chance of a repeat injury. But, nonetheless, it's the same vault, and it's freaking her out.
She spares a glance at her coach leaning against the wall next to the vault runway, patiently providing support the entire day. As the single elite level gymnast currently training at the gym, Kate's lucky enough to be the only one receiving Montgomery's tutelage. It's been hours, and her coach hasn't gotten angry at her for balking the vault over and over again and not once getting in a successful attempt.
The man in question gives her a sympathetic look. "I know this is tough for you, Kate. It won't be the end of the world if you decide to stick with the double twisting Yurchenko."
She adjusts her leotard with a sigh, trying to buy some more time before attempting the vault again. Even though trying, and failing, with the Amanar today has shot her confidence down, Kate can't shake the feeling that she must get the vault, that there's no other option.
The pressure to learn and perform the vault successfully comes from within. Kate's stubborn streak reigns supreme most of the time, usually translating into her gymnastics. But, setting unattainable goals and pursuing them relentlessly until they are met is the speciality of elite athletes around the world. Failure is a hard thing for Kate to swallow and a feeling that she avoided if she could.
That pressure and ambition has made her current difficulty with the vault hard to accept. She's had mental blocks before, such as when she first tried learning how to do a side aerial on the balance beam. Kate would falter every time she attempted it, grasping the skill only after practicing it on the floor for weeks before moving it to the four inch wide beam.
Back then, Kate was lucky enough to learn the handless cartwheel at a younger age and during the off season, when she didn't have to prepare for upcoming competitions. She had the luxury of being able to pace herself and take it slow with the skill. However, Kate's time with the Amanar vault is limited. With the clock ticking down until trials, she has to overcome her mental hurdle and master the vault again in a matter of weeks.
It wouldn't be the end of the world if she didn't, Montgomery is right about that, but the high score that the vault afforded her could still make the difference between making the team or missing out on it entirely.
Taking a deep breath, she tries to clear her head and focus solely on the vault at the end of the runway. The vault is hard, but it isn't impossible. She's done it before. Many times, in fact, while preparing for London. So why can't she do it now?
It could be because her mind feels split between two different streams of thought; one telling her to relearn the vault for Olympic Trials to raise her score andto prove to herself that she can get over her mental block. But then there is the other, sneakier, thought invading her head that is trying to convince her that she'll never land the skill again without injuring herself. It's already happened once, why can't the same thing happen again? Her knee currently has to be taped up while training, since the reconstructed tendons are still vulnerable, and Kate always feels a little residual pain after hard landings on the balance beam or floor.
Does she really want to ruin an already compromised limb a second time?
Ignoring the darker thoughts, Kate grits her teeth and takes off in a run towards the vault. The apparatus grows bigger by the second as she gets closer to it with every passing step. Then, she's too close and-
I can't do it. I have to stop.
Her hands stretch out in front of her without her consent, bracing for impact against the vault as she tries to skid to a halt; attempt number twenty one abandoned. Kate's body slams into the table after her hands do, and she groans.
Not again.
Pushing herself off, she wipes the sweat off her face with the back of her hand, fingers tight with self directed anger. Her knee would be fine, she would be fine after landing the Amanar in the foam pit. She knows that. Just as she knows there is nothing to be worried about. So why does she always decide otherwise right before it was time to attempt the vault?
The always present throbbing in her knee doesn't bother her, she's grown used to it since her surgery. But what Kate doesn't want is for it to turn into something that can't be fixed. That is a reality that could become hers if she landed the vault incorrectly again.
But it's something that could happen, she reminds herself. Notsomething that will happen.
This is why she has to learn the skill again, to prove to herself that one terrible vault in the past does not mean that all of the future ones will also end in disaster.
The question is, how long will it take?
The hard shove that Kate gives the front door of her childhood apartment causes it to fly open with force, banging against the wall decorated with pictures of her as a kid. She shuffles in, tired muscles aching, depositing her duffel bag on the kitchen counter with a thud before opening the fridge and reaching for an apple. With one hand clamped around the fruit, she runs the other through the messy flyways of her hair that are attempting to obscure her vision.
The path she's taking is towards her bedroom, thoughts focused solely on a nap that will eat away at her exhaustion. The pull of an hour of sleep is so strong that she almost misses her dad perched on the couch in the living room, files spread out on the coffee table.
"Home so soon?" she asks him, giving a curious glance towards her father around a bite of her apple.
Her dad shrugs. "Finished up with a client early today and decided to bring the paperwork home. Though I could say the same thing about you, Katie. You're usually back after I am."
"Training was productive today, so Montgomery set me free a couple of hours early," Kate says, avoiding eye contact with her father in favour of another large bite. It isn't fully a lie. The first part is made up, but the second is true. Her coach did let her leave the gym hours earlier than usual, but not because practice went well. It was more due to the fact that vault had frustrated her so much in the morning that she was off her game the entire training session. He told her to come back tomorrow, when her head was clearer and she could focus again.
A full day of practice under her belt and Kate hadn't managed an attempt at the Amanar. Not yet, at least. But she promises herself that she will.
The look that her dad gives to her answer is inquisitive, almost as if he doesn't quite believe her explanation. And he probably doesn't. Jim Beckett can almost always tell when something is wrong. But given that stubbornness is a family trait, he's usually nice enough to let her work things through on her own. At least when he knows that she can handle it.
Kate hopes this isn't a case where he decides she can't and steps in.
He changes the subject instead. "Hear back from that journalist yet?"
Kate lets out an inward sigh of relief that he doesn't want to press the issue any further, though their new conversation direction makes her want to hide for a completely different reason. But she smiles anyway, willing to indulge her dad's question.
"I think we're meeting up again soon," she says, turning the half eaten apple in her hands. Between her training and physiotherapy, and a slew of deadlines for Rick, they've been busy since having lunch a couple of days ago.
But while on an icing break during yesterday's practice, Kate's phone had buzzed with a text from him, containing some more questions that he hadn't gotten to on their lunch. They were more gym oriented than personal, such as 'What's the biggest difference you've found with training college gymnastics versus elite gymnastics?' and 'What are the goals you want to achieve for the Olympics after making the team?'
She'd texted him back in protest of the second one, saying it was a bit presumptuous to answer that question for the public to read when she hadn't even made the team. He replied with a short 'humour me,' and Kate couldn't help but laugh at that. He was more certain than she was, that was for sure.
Before she could reply, though, he shot off another text, telling her to hold her train of thought until they got to see each other again in person. It's not as much fun if you answer over the phone.
She had wanted to keep the conversation with the journalist going for longer, but sadly Montgomery had called her name and ended her break, sending her back to complete drills on the balance beam.
Her dad found the idea of a journalist writing a series of articles on her quite entertaining, especially when Kate had shuffled home the day she met Rick and dropped on the couch with a dramatic sigh. Unlike how she perceived it at the time, Jim didn't see it as a problem but rather as an interesting opportunity. When she came home the day she had met Rick for lunch, her dad's knowing smile grew after realizing that she had enjoyed herself.
At least he had promised that his opinion would change of the writer if Rick's writing was unflattering, much to her chagrin. Someone was on her side, regardless of how it all turned out.
"That's good," he says with a color of amusement to his voice, picking up on her small smile and her general mood shift towards the writer. "The Yankees game will be on soon. Want to join me on the couch?"
For two years after Johanna Beckett died, Kate and her dad had lived in the same apartment space but shared very little of their lives while trying to deal with grief. Her father had thrown himself into his work as a means of distraction, the same way that Kate had channelled all of her energy into gymnastics. Neither of them were good at talking their feelings through, preferring to bury any personal troubles in the pursuit of an outside goal. But since she had returned home from Stanford, her dad had been making an effort to reconnect with Kate and improve their bond in the absence of her mother and his wife. Part of that effort had included bringing back the things they used to love to do together when she was younger, like taking in a Yankees game.
"I think I'll skip out today, but thanks for the offer. Maybe this weekend?" she says with a shake of her head, smiling slightly as she tosses the finished apple core into the trash. It isn't that she doesn't want to spend time with her dad, she does, but Kate doubts she'd make it through the first inning. Training had been physically and emotionally exhausting, and the only thing calling her name right now is a nap.
When his fingers strike the final period of his article, Rick allows himself an inward cheer. Another article done, one more deadline met. In the past couple of days he's been working frantically, trying to complete most of his current projects in order to devote his time and energy on the Olympic series.
He's been given three athletes from the city to cover for the multi-article assignment he is doing for First Press. A haughty sprinter intent on being the one to beat Usain Bolt once and for all. Currently, the runner's agent was proving difficult to work with, having given him little more than a business card and a promise to be in touch. That left the cyclist in the midst of a three month cross country training run, making it difficult to maintain consistent contact, and, of course, Kate. The reluctant gymnast who finally opened up to him and shared her story over a burger that she couldn't eat.
He'd be lying if he said that he wasn't intrigued by her dedication to a sport that caused her so many injuries and grievances, and by her willingness to try climbing the comeback mountain that so many others had failed to scale.
Rick had gone into journalism because he loved finding out people's stories. Why people do what they do, what brought them to where they are now. He wrote his first novel, an admitted labour of love, while in college in an effort to come up with a story of his own. His attempt hadn't been successful, the work still remaining unpublished, but it hadn't dampened his eagerness to pursue writing. For now, he would tell the stories of other people rather than the stories that lived in his head.
He had started out small, working the graveyard shift and covering the stories and events that no one else wanted in a large metro area paper, injecting his small pieces with flair that often clashed with what overhead editors wanted. But that flair, especially for community profile pieces, had gained him a niche following and enough attention that he made the shift to freelance work.
His work has become a mashup of hard-hitting profiles and in depth features of issues and topics that often slip through the cracks of regular newspapers. Rick's personal writing style and penchant for embellishment of a scene or a personality lent itself naturally to magazines and online publications. From amateur sports teams (a pet project and personal favourite) to the run down, nearly abandoned mining towns in the Appalachian mountains, he's carved out space for a little bit of everything in his budding career.
But now he's drawn to these three hometown heroes in the weeks before the Rio Olympics, excited to bring a little of that international appeal to a city that often fails to recognize the groups who inhabit it. He's especially hooked on Kate and her story, the fire and determination that she will succeed sparking something in him that he's only felt in passing for his previous work.
He had made a beeline for his laptop after lunch with the gymnast, fingers eager to type out a rough outline for the first blog post. It was only after his makeshift home office had darkened around him and the sun showed signs of setting that he realized he had been writing for hours. He'd made an effort to make sure that he'd captured her story and voice in a way that was compelling yet still authentic.
Their meeting had provided him with enough information to spread over a couple of articles, save for some questions that he still needed answers for. He'd gotten the farthest of all of the three athletes with Kate. Writing about her wasn't difficult - he loved his job, but this was the first time that it hadn't felt like work.
Rick opens up the rough draft of another article left to finish, this one about an initiative by public school students to increase the presence of the arts in their school. The piece is mostly done, needing one last quote and a couple of closing sentences to give it a sense of completion. He's about to open up the transcripts of his interviews with the students and administrators when his cell phone rings.
The caller ID shows the name of First Press' editor, Gina Cowell. As far as editors went, Gina isn't the worst he's had. Although pushy if he tiptoed a little too close to a deadline, she mostly let him work in peace. She was happy enough with his work to ask him to cover stories for the publication on a routine basis, and for someone still building their resume like Rick he was very grateful for the steady work.
Picking up the phone, he brings her up to speed about the cyclist and the sprint runner, including how their articles were planned out but required proper interview time to proceed.
"And what about the gymnast?" Gina asks, mollified by the fact that he's started, at least. Often, Rick would leave the writing process until the very end, bringing all the pieces together in a haze of caffeine. But for his Olympic series, covering three different athletes at the same time meant that he had to plan.
Rick smiles slightly, remembering the texts he sent to Kate the day before. "Going pretty well. First article almost done, save a couple more questions. Second one shouldn't take too long either."
And that is true. He already had ideas for the next couple articles on Kate, and his mind is already spinning with possibilities for others. He's glad that the deal includes multiple stories to the lead up to the Games, it's a built in excuse to spend more time with the gymnast and hear a little of her background while getting a preview to the upcoming chapter of what he's sure will be an amazing comeback.
He tries not to think about the fact that he has to do the same for two other athletes.
Gina lets out a surprised snort. "Almost finished the first one? I'm surprised, Rick. Didn't know you had it in you."
"Hey, sometimes I can pull myself together if the subject material is interesting enough," he laughs. Kate definitely was, though Gina had no way to know that.
Even though they are on the phone, he can feel Gina's eye roll from her high rise editor's office uptown to his cramped apartment in Queens. "Seems like her inspirational tale may be giving you some motivation. As long as you remain caught up with your other two athletes, whatever. Knock yourself out."
After promising to try to reach the cyclist and runner again, he hangs up with his editor and returns to his school article, clicking save for good measure. Just a couple more stories to go, and he can focus his energy on the Olympics.
But Rick doesn't dive right back into writing, caught up in staring at his phone. Despite the pressing need to finish, he can't help but wonder what Kate might be doing right now. Is she still in the gym working towards perfection, or enjoying a rare night at home or a meal with friends? He knows all about her career and her gym life, but there's an entirely unexplored element in her personal life.
And he's not above admitting that his interest in that particular portion is influenced just slightly by his own curiosity rather than prompted by journalistic integrity. Still, he pushes his phone to the far side of his desk, hidden behind his laptop and largely from the temptation of his fingers to text her.
Instead, he turns his attention back to the glowing screen, calling up the transcripts of his student interviews to hunt for that perfect final quote to close out the story.