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"You okay?" His voice conveyed concern.
I nodded. "I'm fine. Sometimes this happens once I finally sit down for the day. I swear I have the body of a ninety-year-old sometimes."
Dad chuckled. "I don't know about that. Where's your next meet?"
"I have to check with Kova. I can't remember where, but I think it’s in a few weeks."
Thanks, kidney disease and lupus. Apparently brain fog was a gift from them.
With this meet, I'd victoriously secured a spot for Worlds since I’d placed first on both days and walked away with a few medals in the events for vault, floor, and bars. I'd just barely missed third place by a couple tenths for beam, but I was okay with that. I couldn't wait to get home to hang my medals on the wall. All of my medals held a special place in my heart, but these were more special. They were won after my diagnosis, and at my first big national competition. I really wanted to take them out of my bag and hold them right now, but I'd wait to do that in private when I got home. It was a little emotional for me, after all.
"I think it's in another country now that I think about it." I rubbed my head trying to remember which one. It was my first international meet—and another big one for me—I just couldn't remember where as there were a few meets that took place overseas.
Dad angled his head toward me. "Oh, yeah?" Then he looked in another direction.
I followed his gaze and masked my expression. Kova and Katja were walking toward us, both with drinks in their hands. Kova handed Dad a plastic cup of amber liquid and ice, and Katja extended her arm in my direction offering me a bottle of water. We three were on the same plane home. Hopefully in different sections.
"Thank you," I said, but she ignored it. I wasn't surprised. Katja had hardly looked in my direction. Normally it wouldn't bother me, but now it irked me. Her disdain was obvious.
Screw that. I was going to ask Kova when we got back.
"Adrianna tells me the next meet is in another country?" Dad said to Kova, stirring the ice with the little black straw.
I uncapped my water and looked the other way as they spoke, too tired and mentally drained to listen or participate. The icy water slid down my throat and I almost sighed. I drank half of it in one breath. No matter how much water I had to drink lately, I couldn't seem to quench my excessive thirst.
We had less than an hour before we had to board the plane. Bending down, I dug through my purse and pulled out our notebook. I rummaged for a pen then sat back and wrote.
I'm writing this while sitting right in front of your lovely, perfect wife.
She hates me.
Don't tell me you don't notice the way she looks at me when I'm around. She acts like I'm a thorn in her side she wants to remove and throw away.
I'm not crazy.
I know when someone has it out for another person. She has it out for me. I can feel it in my bones.
What scares me is that I think she knows everything. She knows what we have between us. I didn't want to face the facts, but I think it's time I do. It's the only thing I can think of. The only reason why she acts the way she does toward me.
But my question is, why hasn't she done anything about it yet?
Unless she has, and you just haven't told me.
I paused and looked up, thinking. My pen teetered between my fingers and my gaze shifted to Katja. She was staring at my lap, then lifted her eyes to mine. Placing my pen in the center of the notebook, I folded it shut and held it to me. This was the bluntest and riskiest I'd ever gotten with our thoughts, but I had to get them out or I was going to burst.
She continued to glare at me with hateful eyes and a stone-cold expression on her face. It amazed me how someone so beautiful could look so ugly. An evil kind of ugly. Her eyes dropped to my lap again, then she leaned over and whispered something in Kova's ear. He turned his head toward her while she kept her eyes on me. I couldn't see what his gaze expressed but he grabbed her hand and placed their laced fingers on his thigh with a small smile. His knee bobbed.
Fatigue washed over me. My eyes grew heavy and warm. God, I hated this feeling. Like a heavy blanket of iron was draped over me, and I suddenly got so tired that all I wanted to do was sleep. Usually I had to push through it, but this time I didn't.
I turned my head in the other direction and rejoiced when the attendant announced the plane was finally boarding shortly after. Shoving my notebook and water bottle into my purse, I slung it over my shoulder and said goodbye to my dad, then got in line. It was a five-hour flight and I knew the moment my head hit that scratchy pillow I was going to pass out hard.
What I hadn’t foreseen was that my notebook would vanish by the time I’d arrived home.
Nineteen
Lately, I felt like giving up.
Not because I didn't love gymnastics, but because my emotions caused by the reality of my life were too much to handle. My secrets were a burden. My very existence was a lie. I didn't know who I was anymore or what would become of my future. I was too lost in my head with no outlet to ease my soul. My skin crawled. I wasn't able to focus on one thing long enough except gymnastics, and when I was alone, my mind jumped from one topic to the next. I hated it.
