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shutting the door and returning to the gym.
    Alex finishes with her hair. Finally. “Well, that was interesting.”
    â€œMaybe Coach knows?”
    â€œRight. Like you haven’t been wanting to change your routines forever and he’s forbidden it.”
    I think about Julia saying there’s more than one way to impress the judges, that it doesn’t always have to be about power and tumbling. “Maybe it’s time I defy Coach for once. Prove to him that he’s been wrong all along.”
    Alex’s expression is so skeptical I might have just told her that the sun isn’t coming up tomorrow or I met a real-life were-wolf or that Sarah Walker is actually a nice person.
    â€œYou never know,” I say. “He might come around.”
    â€œDon’t get your hopes up, Joey,” she says, grabbing her stuff and limping down the long hallway lined with Julia glory to the exit.
    But the thing is, they already are.
    Â 
    Alex and I don’t say anything else until we get outside, the heat greeting us with its sticky tongue, promising that the walk to my house will be gross.
    â€œI can’t wait to get in the pool,” I say.
    Alex smiles. She knows what’s coming. “I know. Me too.”
    â€œRace you, then? Because why not make this trip even more disgusting and the water even better when we get there?”
    â€œOf course,” she says.
    â€œReady, set” — I give her a look and she nods — “go!”
    Despite the humidity and the bruises marking our bodies and the fact that Alex is favoring one ankle, she and I take off running, out of the parking lot and past the Dairy Queen and Tony’s Pizza, the T.G.I. Friday’s and the other assorted chain restaurants, through the center of town and then down along the beach. We fly past the ocean, me in the lead, then Alex, then me again, both of us picking up speed, all thoughts of our hurts forgotten, our strides longer and longer as we turn away from the waves and the long stretch of sand toward my house, which is just a few streets away now. We arrive at my front lawn at the exact same moment, so it’s a tie, and both of us lie down on the grass, our breaths coming in heaves, laughing.
    â€œLike we really needed to go for a jog after practice,” Alex says.
    â€œI know. But it’s kind of tradition, right?”
    Alex smiles, propping herself up on her elbows. “It is.”
    â€œAll right, I’m going swimming,” I say, getting up and brushing away the blades of grass that are sticking to my skin. “Are you coming?”
    â€œYup,” she says.
    We traipse through the house, Alex calling out “Hey, Mrs. Jordan” toward my mother’s studio before we head out the screen door onto the deck. Alex ducks into the bathhouse to change into her swimsuit and then it’s my turn. We pile our discarded workout clothing in a heap on a chair, and soon Alex is stepping onto the diving board at one end with me right behind her.
    â€œAny requests?” she wants to know, bouncing a little.
    â€œHow about a double back?”
    â€œDone,” she says, turning around to face me, positioning herself at the very edge of the springy board, standing high on her toes. She jumps once before taking off into two lightning-speed, perfect somersaults, and then splashes into the water.
    â€œCome on, Joey,” Alex calls out to me. “The temperature is perfect.”
    â€œSo what’ll it be?”
    She looks thoughtful, bobbing in the deep end, her hair slicked back from her forehead, making her eyes seem even bigger than usual. “A full twist, I think?”
    â€œYou got it,” I say, readying myself at the back of the board. I take two practiced strides, then launch myself from the end like I am heading into a vault, feeling that familiar freedom of being shot into the air. But instead of Coach’s watchful, critical eye to worry about,