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stretches, so I bring both legs together, my toes pointed, and press my torso flat against my thighs, my body like a folded up jackknife. When I straighten up, I see Alex approaching. Her face is flushed, and I doubt it’s just from the heat outside. She is smiling too, despite the fact that she is limping, and clearly oblivious to the stares from our teammates. Whether they’re staring because Alex is late or because of yesterday’s win or because, as always, she is the Gansett Stars Darling, I’m not sure.
    Was my smile like that after I saw Tanner?
    The mere thought makes me shudder. My job is to focus, train, and win, not swoon over some stupid boy.
    Alex slides down into a split next to Trish and me. “Do you think Coach noticed I’m late?” she whispers.
    Trish just shrugs.
    I arch into a back bend, my arms pressed against my ears, straightening my legs to curve my body into a half-heart shape, and hold myself there, my eyes on Alex even though I am upside down. “Coach always notices,” I tell her. “You know that.”
    Alex sighs, but the smile doesn’t leave her face. “Sometimes I wish …”
    â€œYou wish what?” I ask before straightening up. I want Alex to pull me aside and confess everything, but she’s staring into space as if I hadn’t spoken at all. A minute goes by before I give up. “Listen, I’m warmed up already, so I’m going to head to beam before Coach yells at me to get over there.”
    Alex comes out of her daydream to give me an encouraging look. “Show him you can stick the layout, Joey. You can do it,” she says, her tone fierce.
    I smile back, grateful for her support, sure, but more relieved to see the Alex I know and love again. I get up and walk straight past the row of low practice beams that sit barely an inch off the ground, to the one high beam set out in front of all the other ones like a showpiece along one edge of the spring floor.
    I hop up, walk to one end, and before I can become nervous or psych myself out or even remember my fall from yesterday, I stare down the ends of my fingertips, arms outstretched in a straight line just below eye level. I swing them up and over my head into a perfect back handspring, right into the highest, most confident back layout I’ve ever thrown on beam.
    And I stick it.
    â€œWoohoo! Go, Joey,” cheer Alex and Trish. A few other teammates whistle their appreciation.
    My arms rise up over my head in a flourish, posed and proud. When I turn to dismount, Coach Angelo is standing on the blue mat below, his arms crossed, clipboard pressed against the left side of his body. His face is expressionless. I freeze.
    â€œWhere do you think you’re going?” he asks, his voice cold.
    â€œUm, I just … I knew you’d want me to do my back layout first thing, so I thought I’d get on it before you needed to tell me to.”
    â€œJoey, what exactly did you fall on yesterday? Was it a back handspring back layout?”
    I hesitate, the inside of my stomach doing flip-flops. “Well … no.”
    â€œDon’t play games. You’re wasting time. Answer me.”
    I take a deep breath. “It was a back handspring, back handspring into a back layout.”
    â€œSo what made you think that doing a single back handspring into a back layout would cut it?”
    I open my mouth and close it, then open it again. “Nothing, I just —”
    He raises a hand to cut me off. “Before you come down from that beam, Joey Jordan, you are to stick twenty tumbling passes without a single bobble. Do you understand?”
    I swallow. Nod.
    â€œYou want to win, don’t you?”
    â€œYes, Coach,” I say, then decide to go for broke. “But, well —”
    Angelo’s glare halts my words. “But what?”
    â€œUm, ah,” I say, stumbling, yet still determined. “I was thinking that maybe I’d do