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I exhaled everything I was holding on to and visualized my routine. The leather beneath my feet called to me, encouraging me. My heart pounded in my chest and my nerves were back to taunting me. But then I thought about how Kova had once said nerves were good and kept the adrenaline going. Lose the nerves, and you lose the love. His words made sense to me.
Despite the flickering agony in every nerve ending in my body, there was not a chance in hell I was going to let anything, or anyone, take this from me.
I could relax when I was dead.
Warming up with connecting back handspring step outs, I blocked out the pain like Madeline and Danilo said.
That didn't mean I couldn’t feel anything.
I was silently screaming on the inside.
Eleven
"Come on, Adrianna." Madeline grumbled. "That was weak going over. You need to excel after you hit the handstand, then you can push it over."
Weak.
That word left a sour taste in my mouth.
I wiped the sweat from my temples as I walked to the end of the track thinking about Madeline's suggestions. I rotated my arms in wide circles to loosen them. I desperately wanted to rub the ache in my elbow, but I didn't want to show it was bothering me. Instead, I chewed the hell out of the inside of my mouth to hide my discomfort.
Madeline had felt it wasn’t a good idea to risk practice tumbling on floor with my arm just yet. So, after we broke down my floor routine and conditioned the dance skills for three hours, we moved to the tumble track.
"Your butt is too low and you're going to knock your teeth out if you land like that on the actual floor. Do it again. Stick the landing," she yelled and clapped her hands.
Using the tumble trampoline had been a good idea after practicing all day. Even though I could feel the strain deep in my elbow, I kept going. My fingers started to go numb but I shook it off. I told myself if I could work through an Achilles strain and a kidney infection, then there was no reason why I couldn’t work through this too.
"Faster. You need to rotate faster to build power. Do it again. Get that flip moving faster."
I set my eyes on the end of the trampoline and pictured myself doing exactly what she instructed. Inhaling a deep breath, I placed one foot in front of the other and tapped the black netting. I exhaled and looked to my right. I could feel someone watching me.
Black eyes met mine.
Danilo was blatantly staring at me as he worked with Reagan and Holly on bars. My brows twitched. He wasn't observing me with interest, but more in bewilderment.
"While I'm young." Madeline bit out.
My eyes snapped back to hers. I nodded and shifted my feet.
When I glanced over at Danilo one last time, he had his back to me.
Shaking it off, I hurdled into a roundoff, my shoulder tight as I flipped backward two times before rebounding off the trampoline with a grunt. I reached as high as I could to set a twisting double full out. This was a dangerous tumbling pass on the floor because I was twisting toward the ground and could lead to injury faster.
Blocking out the shooting pain in my arm, I ro
tated as hard and as fast as I could by bringing my fists to my chest. I told myself to keep going, to push and fight for that perfect landing. I could feel the pull of gravity and squeezed every muscle in my body, twisting until I spotted the giant blue mesh matt to open up for my dismount.
Feet together, my toes touched down first on the floor and I raised my arms above my head to set the landing. After an inconsistent day of practice, I stuck it.
"Fabulous," Madeline said, clapping her hands as she praised me. "Let's move on."
Panting, I flopped down on my butt to scoot off the mat. My chest was a little tight but nothing I wasn't used to, I just needed to take smaller breaths.
"Madeline?" I called out.
She walked over to me. "Yes?"
"I was thinking about something you said earlier. Are you going to be training me until we leave?"
