Scattered - Tangled series (Overprotective famous brothers)

Competition and Interrogation

ALISHA’S POV

This is what I called a competition. Jing Wei and I had sort of a face off going on from the start of the meet. It all started with her winking at me after she stuck a perfect vault. Me being me accepted the open challenge, and stuck an almost perfect uneven bar routine, stumbling a little during the landing. Note to self: Work your ass off on uneven bars landing. I wasn’t the one to take a defeat easily.

Roo, our beam queen, and injured herself on vault. So I was substituting for her now. She wasn’t happy about it, to say the least. Jing Wei was on the first position, Kay second and me third in all around individual. This was the last opportunity for USA to win the team gold. One clean routine, and we won. Anything wrong, and we lost. No pressure at all.

“Hey. Do the Full twisting double tuck.” Dimitri said, as I applied chalk to my hands.

“What?! I practiced it so little yesterday. What if I fall?” I asked. It was a huge risk to take at this stage in the competition. We could lose the gold.

“You’ll do it. You are on fire today, I can see it. We’ll get the gold, you’ll come first. It’s about YOU, right now. Go for it.”

Dimitri. He can be a real Hitler at times, but he can also be encouraging. If he believes in you, there had to be some reason. He always said that his time was too precious to be wasted if we weren’t ready to dedicate our everything to gymnastics.

I nodded, and hoped he was right. Looking at him, then my brother and friends sitting at the stands, I started with my routine.

My mind was blank, completely blank. All I was thinking about how this day was perfect. My brother was here. Kat was out. And now, it was my chance to prove it to Jing Wei.

Go for it.

“I can’t believe what I just saw! Was that a full twisting double tuck?” the commentator said through the mic, as the gym roared with applauds. I ran towards my team and we group hugged, like always. The scores were tabulated. After seconds that seemed like eternity, the results the displayed.

USA

China.

 

Alisha K

Jing Wei

Kayla T

We did it! We won the gold, I came freaking first. Everyone in the elite team in the gym was squealing like crazed fans, not taking eyes off the score display. Afraid it may just change somehow. High-fiving each other, we stood grinning.

“The first American to beat Jing Wei!” The other commentator announced, and I looked at her. The entire Chinese team had frowns on their faces, Jing Wei almost on the verge of a breakdown. She looked at me with disgust, and her coach squeezed her shoulders. Looking in the other direction, I could see my brother, along with the other people supporting USA cheering. I smiled, and and could see my brother giving me a thumbs up.

The awards ceremony wasn’t too long. This competition had no individual medals, so there were only team and all around medals. Our team got on the podium and we got the gold medal and the bouquets. After photos and stuff, they came down to the all around medals. More hugging, rather hug tackling our coaches happened. Most of us made our coaches wear our medals. After Trevor left, we couldn’t have imagined this happening. But the entire staff worked as a team, and with Dimitri, we were holding the Gold. We owed it to them. Our family away from home.