i glanced at my watch as I raced down the hall toward the gym. Realizing that practice had started twenty minutes ago, I picked up my pace even more. I was already on thin ice with Coach Burrows, and I sure didn’t need to give her one more reason to choose Summer over me for that last spot on the team.
But some things are more important than practice, I thought.
I’d gone with Payton to talk to Judy and helped them work things out. Then I’d had to change for practice. Surely God would bless me for my efforts. After all, I was doing a good deed for somebody.
When I burst into the gym, I noticed no one was warming up. At first I figured everyone was still in the locker room changing. Then I saw them all nestled in a corner, listening to the head coach.
I stood in the doorway for several seconds, wishing I could turn around and walk away. But I forced my feet to tiptoe over to the meeting. As soon as I took the first step on the polished gym floor, Coach Burrows stopped speaking and all eyes turned to me. Some of the girls smirked; others shook their heads.
As I sat on the floor beside Nadia, I was hoping someone would say something reassuring, but no one did.
“That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about,” the coach said without even looking at me. “Some of you aren’t taking this team seriously. We can’t win a national championship with mediocrity. I have not seen dynamic routines from any of you. I don’t know what’s pulling your performance level down, but whatever it is, I’m going to get rid of it.”
My hands started sweating. Did she think I was the cause of the team’s poor performance? Was it I she was planning to get rid of?
“Now, get out there on the mats and warm up.”
Everyone stood and silently headed toward their favorite apparatus.
“Shadrach,” the coach hollered, “I want to see you.”
I walked up to Coach Burrows, my knees shaking and
my mouth dry.
“You’re very close to being cut,” she said, not even whispering. “I want to see something impressive from you, and it had better be soon. Do you understand?”
All I could do was nod. I had been working on some complex routines on the balance beam, but I wasn’t ready to show them to her. Still, I knew it was now or never.
“I have been working on some stuff I think you’ll like,” I told her. “Do you want to see it?”
“I’d love to,” she said with an uncharacteristic smile.
As I approached the balance beam with confidence, Coach Burrows stopped to say something to one of the other gymnasts. While I waited for her, I took a lot of deep breaths, staring at the balance beam and praying I’d do well.
“You’re not ready,” Nadia whispered in my ear. “You don’t have your routine down yet. Let’s work on it tonight and you can show her tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I know I can do this. It’s time for me to start believing in myself and in God.”
“All right, Shadrach,” Coach Burrows said, her arms folded across her chest. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
All the other girls stopped their practice to watch me. I took one last deep breath and prayed one more prayer for God’s help. Then I launched into my complex routine. The mount went perfectly, which gave me some measure of confidence. As I hit the first few moves without a hitch, I started to smile. Everything I did was flawless, even one of the moves I hadn’t nailed before that very moment.
Thank You, God! Thank You, God! I chanted in my head.
As the moment neared for me to do my back aerial, I knew I would execute it as beautifully as the rest. I soared in the air for a brief moment, relishing the thrill of doing something I loved so much and performing so well.
But at the end of my back aerial, instead of landing on the beam, I fell on the mat, bottom first. My ego was badly bruised, but my tailbone was hurting too. I screamed out in pain.
Some of the girls started snickering. The coach walked away, shaking her head and making notes on her clipboard.
I tried to get up, but the pain was too great. The two trainers who always lingered in the corners of the gym hurried over to help me. I didn’t want their assistance, but I couldn’t stand on my own.
The trainers carried me to a back room, where they had me lie facedown on a table. One of them poked my bottom to see if anything was broken. “It’s just a bad bruise,” he said.
The second trainer handed me a bag of ice and told me to leave it on the bruise for a little while. “Take the ice bag home,” he suggested, “and ice it down some more.”
I had to face reality. I was never going to be a Gym Dawg.
After the trainers left the room, I stared at the floor, trying hard not to cry from the physical and emotional pain. Then I sensed someone beside me. I looked up through teary eyes, hoping Nadia had come to me with some comforting words. Instead I saw Summer Love crouching beside me with a condescending look on her face.
“You might as well quit right now,” she whispered with a sneer. Then she walked away, returning to practice as if the end of my world were of no consequence to her at all.
I carefully climbed off the table and stood in the doorway watching everyone else practice. I’d been working hard all semester, yet I couldn’t seem to catch up with the other girls. I was good, but they were awesome.
I wanted to go out there and work out some more, but with every step I took, throbbing pain tore through my body.
Summer’s words came back to me. Maybe she’s right, I thought. Maybe I should quit.
When gymnastics practice ended and everyone else left, I hobbled back to the dorm. I was relieved to find it empty. I wanted to have a pity party, and that would be easier if I was alone.
I had a hard time getting out of my sweats without making the pain in my backside worse. When I finally managed to get changed into an extralong sorority T-shirt, I dumped fresh ice into the pack the trainer had given me. Then I lay across my bed, facedown, and gingerly placed the ice pack on my bottom. It was cold, but the trainer had insisted it was necessary.
In deep frustration and despair, I picked up my pillow and threw it across the room. It hit the window, which shuddered with a loud bang.
Payton flew in from the bathroom. “What was that?” she cried, her eyes big.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“I’m glad it’s just you,” she said as she retrieved my pillow from the corner. “I thought maybe Dakari had broken the window again.”
For some reason, her comment struck me as hysterical and I started laughing. Payton laughed with me, even though she didn’t seem to know what was so funny.
She handed my pillow to me. As I took it, my laughter faded. Burying my face in the pillow, I let out a flood of tears. Payton sat beside me and put her arm around me.
“You need to get out,” my roommate said.
“I can’t go anywhere,” I wailed. “I’m in pain!”
“Look, my dad’s on his way here. He wants to take me out to dinner tonight, and I thought—”
“No way,” I said, interrupting her. “I couldn’t possibly sit down in a restaurant.”
“Come on,” Payton pleaded. “I don’t want to go by myself. I’m really on the hot seat with him after that car accident. But if you’re there, he won’t fuss at me so much.”
Before I could respond, the bathroom door opened and Jewels peeked through. “I’m claiming the bathroom at six. Branson’s coming over at seven to take me out.”
Hearing her throw his name out there like that hurt me even more than seeing them together. Had she forgotten how I felt about him? Did she think he didn’t mean anything to me anymore? Was she hurting me intentionally?
Without a word, Payton went to the door and pushed it, gently but hard enough to shove Jewels out of our room. I sat up on my bed, fighting the tears caused by the physical and emotional pain, and leaned my head against the wall. “I can’t take this.”
“Yes, you can,” Payton said, holding my hand.
“I don’t want to be here when Branson comes to pick her up for their date.”
“Then come with me and my dad for dinner,” she encouraged me. “Who cares about that jerk anyway? Branson is way too full of himself.”
I took the tissue she handed me and blew my nose. “You know, when I first walked in, and I didn’t think you were here, I was glad because I thought I needed to be alone. But now I’m really happy you’re here. God knew I needed you. Your strength is amazing.”
She laughed. “Girl, I only have strength when I’m talking about somebody else’s problems.”
I laughed with her. “I know what you mean.”
“God gives us what we need to get through the stuff we’ve got, or He wouldn’t give it to us. We just have to stick together and look out for each other, that’s all.”
Mr. Skky looked just like Payton, only a man and taller. He was really nice. When he found out I’d injured my tailbone at gymnastics practice, he suggested we bring my bed pillow to sit on at the restaurant. I thought it was cool that he didn’t worry about being embarrassed by that.
After we ordered our food, Payton’s dad asked me how things were going with me. By the time our meals arrived, I had shared just about everything that was happening in my life. As he listened to me ramble on, I realized how much I missed my own father.
“I mean, I don’t know how these teachers expect us to
master all this stuff so quickly,” I complained, cutting into my delicious-smelling piece of teriyaki mahi mahi. “The first year of college shouldn’t be so much harder than high school. I never understood before why so many freshmen dropped out and never came back. Now I get it. Just passing the classes seems nearly impossible sometimes.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Payton grumbled, spreading butter on her baked potato.
Her dad looked at her with compassion. “Payton, honey, you’ve just got to try harder. Being in a majority white school might be uncomfortable, but you have to find a way to adjust and make friends. Maybe you should try out for the cheerleading squad.”
“I can’t cheer at this school, Dad,” Payton said.
“Why not?”
“The flips and jumps are way different. At most black schools, cheerleaders shake and jam. Here they do acrobatics. I can’t compete with that.”
“I know how you feel,” I said to Payton. Then I turned to her father. “It’s been really frustrating for me to try to get on the gymnastics team. The other girls seem like they’ve been doing the harder tricks for a much longer time than I have.”
“Both of you young ladies need to stop talking about what you can’t do. You’re going through a big transition, just like all the other freshmen. How you handle it is what counts.”
I took a bite of my steamed broccoli. It was delicious. Just as the tasty food was providing nutrition to my body, I knew Payton’s father’s words were providing nutrition for my spirit.
“You both love the Lord,” he said. “You need to lean on Him. With your schoolwork, your extracurricular activities …even with the boys.”
“Oh, Dad,” Payton said, rolling her eyes.
But I knew he was right. I’d told him a little about my situation with Jewels and Branson, and he already had a pretty good idea of what was going on between Tad and Dakari in Payton’s life. I really wanted to hear what advice Mr. Skky had for us. And I could tell Payton did too.
“What do you think we should do about these guys who are messing up our lives?” I said, spearing another bite of fish.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing?” Payton echoed.
“That’s right,” he said with a smile. “Just leave them alone. Guys want to be with girls who have it together. I’m not saying you need to get yourself straightened out just so you can get a guy. But when you’re a basket case emotionally, you drive the good ones away.”
“Why can’t they help us get our lives figured out?” I asked. It made sense to me.
He smiled. “Because they’re still working on themselves. A boy can’t help you if he doesn’t have his own act together.”
Payton and I glanced at each other and laughed. We both knew the guys we’d been stressing over needed to work on themselves a lot.
“When somebody you think cares about you starts going out with someone else,” he said, “especially if it’s someone close to you, you might think he’s doing it just to make you mad. And maybe that’s what Branson is doing. I don’t know. But it might be that he’s simply trying to figure out his own life, just like you’re trying to figure out yours.”
“But somebody who really cares about you wouldn’t play with your heart like that,” Payton interjected. “Even if he was going out with someone else, he’d try to keep it subtle to spare your feelings, right?”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Skky said. “You girls deserve to have good guys, and that’s what you need to be on the lookout for. A real man is going to only want to be with you.”
“Sounds good to me,” Payton exclaimed with a smirk.
“You know any guys like that?” I asked her, grinning.
“Nope,” she said. “You?”
“Nope.” We both turned to Payton’s dad.
He chuckled. “Maybe the guys around you just aren’t mature enough yet. They’re only freshmen, after all.”
“So, what do we do while we’re waiting for these guys to grow up?” Payton asked, her eyebrows raised.
“Just enjoy your life. Have fun finding out who you are. The rest will come at the right time.”
“I sure hope so,” Payton said.
“Make your heavenly Father proud,” Mr. Skky advised us. “If you do that, your earthly parents will be proud as well.”
Payton got up out of her chair and hugged her dad. I sure missed mine. But I was thankful that God let me borrow Payton’s father for the evening, to feed hope into my hungry soul.
A couple of days after my pep talk with Payton’s dad, I started singing in the bathroom. My bottom felt better and the swelling had gone down. I’d just turned in a paper that I felt I did a pretty good job on. I was starting to care less about Branson and wanting to be closer to God. I was so thankful that I broke out in a song of joy.
Then I realized that the song in my head was playing on the radio in my room. I flew out of the bathroom to turn up the volume. The song was called “Imagine,” and it made me think about what heaven will be like and what I’ll be like when I get there. It made me long for the day when I would fall to my knees and praise God forever and ever.
The lyrics also reminded me that there was more in my future than this life on earth. I needed to focus on heaven, not the concerns of this world … to live for God, not just myself.
“Hey, could you turn that down?” Jewels grumbled, standing in the bathroom doorway.
“Sure,” I said, accommodating her request with a smile. “No problem.”
She stood in the doorway, staring at me. “Branson and I are going to study at his fraternity house, and I—”
“That’s nice,” I said politely, starting to sort the freshly washed clothes in my laundry basket.
“I might stay overnight at the sorority house,” she added coyly.
“Cool,” I said in a sweet tone, tossing my socks and underwear into the drawer.
She looked confused, undoubtedly wondering about the change in my demeanor, probably thinking I was putting on a false front. But with God’s protection, it honestly didn’t hurt me as much to hear about Branson and Jewels. Sure, if I could have it my way, they wouldn’t be seeing each other. But her life was not mine to live, and neither was his. I wasn’t going to let myself get bruised by their actions. Those days were over.
I set up the ironing board and plugged in the iron, then turned to Jewels. “You don’t have to tell me about what you and Branson do. You guys obviously have a connection. But I don’t need to know about it.”
“Whatever,” she said, still looking perplexed.
“I do wonder why you keep telling me about him. I thought you and I were friends, but I guess that’s not the case. A true friend wouldn’t flaunt a relationship with my ex-boyfriend in front of me the way you do.”
I arranged my green cotton blouse on the ironing board and started pressing it, turning my back to Jewels. I heard her huff a few times, then stomp out of the room and slam the bathroom door.
With my worries about Jewels and Branson finally off my mind, I determined to pick up my grades. As soon as my laundry chores were completed, I said to myself, Library, here I come!
As I entered the big, quiet room, I headed straight toward my usual seat. My mystery guy hadn’t been there the last couple of times. But I kept going back to that table where we’d met. I didn’t really want him to be there. He was a distraction, and I needed to be focused. But when I saw him sitting in his usual chair, looking even cuter than I remembered, I didn’t mind the diversion a bit.
When he saw me he got up quickly. “Am I in your seat?” he asked, gathering his books.
“No,” I said, “this is your table.” I started to walk off.
“There’s room for both of us,” he said.
As I put my bag on the table, I noticed the jogging suit he was wearing sported the school’s colors.
We studied in silence for a few minutes. Then someone tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and saw it was the guy with the goatee and sideburns who’d argued with me about the Bulldawgs football game. His friends from the time before were all sitting at the desk next to my table.
“So, how’s Miss Kicker Fan today?” he asked. His face looked even hairier than I remembered.
“Leave her alone, Denny,” his buddy said.
I laughed. “It’s OK. I do like Hanson. I’m proud of that guy.”
Denny sat down with his friends, who started snickering at him. “So,” I said to the group at the desk, “do you think we’re going to make it to the play-offs this year?”
“I hope so,” the cute guy at my table answered, getting into the conversation.
“We need somebody who can make big plays,” Denny put in.
“A lot depends on the kicker, I think,” I said.
“Hanson is pretty good,” Denny commented. “For a freshman.”
“Yeah, he is,” I said.
“Did you see the interview of him in the school newspaper?” Denny asked.
“No,” I said. But before I could ask for details, his friend stood. “Come on, Den Man, we’ve got to get back to the frat house.”
Denny stood, and so did his friends. As the others gathered their books, he started writing something on a piece of notebook paper. While everyone else in his group headed for the exit, Denny came up to me and handed me the paper. “Here’s my number,” he said. “Maybe we could go to a game together. I’m sure we’d have a lot of fun.”
Denny winked at me, then followed his friends out of the library. As I dropped his number into my book bag, I noticed the cute guy at my table watching me.
“He’s crazy,” I said, feeling embarrassed for some reason.
Determined to get back to studying, I rummaged through my book bag for a textbook. The one I wanted was underneath my Bible, so I placed it on the table.
“I knew there was something special about you,” the cute guy said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, pulling out the textbook I planned to study.
He picked up my Bible and held it up. “I’m a Christian too.”
I smiled and he grinned back.
“I’m still growing in my faith, though,” he said, putting my Bible back on the table.
“Me too,” I said, forgetting all about my textbook. “You know, I don’t even know your name.”
He laughed. “I don’t know yours either.” He leaned his arms on the table. “What do I look like to you?”
“Oh, I love playing the name-guessing game.” I placed my hand on my chin and stared at his face. “Let’s see. I’d say you’re a … Charlie. Chuck? No, Charlie. Definitely.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Are you saying I have a big blob head like Charlie Brown?”
“Of course not!” I said, laughing with him.
“Well, if I’m Charlie Brown, then you’ve got to be Lucy.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Hey, did Lucy and Charlie ever date?”
“Yeah, I think they started in elementary school.”
We giggled like a couple of kindergarteners.
“You know,” Charlie said, “I think Hanson is a Christian too.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, just a comment he made in the interview for the school paper.”
“I’ve got to get a copy of that,” I said, half expecting him to offer me his. But he didn’t.
“I’m sure he felt your prayers for him during that last game,” Charlie added. “The article said he was really nervous about the kick.”
“That guy?” I said. “He looked completely sure of himself out there. I wish I had his confidence.”
“Don’t talk down about yourself like that,” Charlie said. “Everything I’ve seen you do exudes confidence. The way you defend other people, the way you show you care. You’re a beautiful girl on the outside, but you’re golden on the inside because you’re related to the King. He lives in you, and you’ve got His strength.”
I soaked in his words, my hand cupped firmly on my chin. He was a believer and he was saying what I needed to hear. I really wanted to apply the truth he was telling me to my life.
I knew God had led both of us to this library at the same time because I needed to hear what he had to say. We really connected and not just because our conversation focused on grades or dating or football. It was about listening for hope.