I flung myself onto the low bar. This morning had not gone my way. The very beginning was fine, up until practice started. Everything went downward. I should be happy today. It's the opening ceremonies, everything gets light up and everyone is happy. Nothing bad is going on today but still it happened. Mckayla and I woke up at around 10 am. We pulled on our leotards (they were matching white and blue ones) and some short shorts on that. We both straighten our hair so that we can pull it tighter and not worry about it whacking us in the face when we do some elements. Our coaches wanted us to meet them at the our practice gym. Different countries shared gyms. We shared ours with Team Great Britain but we used it a lot more than they did because they used a gym in London to train instead of this one we use.
After we had finished getting ready for a full day of training, we went and got breakfast. This was the 1st morning that we had gone to the cafeteria. It was huge. It even had it's own McDonald's. I had gotten McDonald's for breakfast. The cinnamon buns with an apple juice. Whenever we went to McDonald's when I was a kid for breakfast I always ate that and still love eating it. Mckayla got a coffee with an apple. I just liked getting the extra-boost that I got from the sugar. Plus, it tastes really good. Once we had finished all that the two of us headed out into the Village to try and find the gym. We had found it the night before but that was because we had a coach to take us there. It was a bit harder to find today. Probably because I hadn't payed any attention to where it was.
We were the 2nd group of girls to get there. Gabby and Aly were working on bars and beam. We all took rotations but I was hopefully going to be using the tramp since I was going to try and change the 3 1/2 twist landing on one of my tumbling on passes on floor to a full 4 twist landing. It was going to take a lot of practice to land it and it all started on the tramp. It's pretty fun using it too. Marta and Misty were there too. I'm pretty sure Liang Chow was at the cafeteria because I think we passed him and the other girls and their coaches were somewhere else. Mckayla's coach was going to come later since she wanted to be able to get our full training schedules and she had to go to an Olympic meeting to make sure it all went well. Just normal stuff that the coaches took turns doing so for that time I was going to share Misty with her.
"Arielle work on your quadruple twist landing on the tramp," Marta instructed me. I took my shoes off and set them by the stuff that I kept in here or I think Misty brought in. I grabbed my new grips and set them in a little cubby that had my name on it, that's where we kept them, before getting onto the tramp. I jumped on it a few times before doing a double twist landing on it. Very simple but a good way to warm it up. You didn't want to dive into anything when it came to adding an element. You wanted to make it looked like you've been doing it your entire life not just for a day or two. Once I finished warming up I began to throw some quadruple twists, without landing them. That was the easy part. The hard part would be working on landing it the same way I landed my 3 1/2 twist. It didn't matter right now if I took a few steps but that could mean the difference between a gold and silver on competitng nights. You wanted to stick whatever you threw because when you stick it they can't really take off points unless you do it in the wrong order or mess up while your doing it.
"Try landing some," Marta said as she walked over to me. She also helped coach when it came to these moments. I loved it when she coached because she was so fair and kind but also strict when it came down to it. A good mix. I set the mats up so that I would have to land on the mats or fall on them. Jumping up and down a few times I relaxed myself. I didn't do that well under pressure but I loved the feeling of adreline of competitng in front of all of these people. One of the best feelings in the world I would say. No wonder superstars like performing in front of people. We're like that but we also like being normal people. Our dream is to go to the Olympcis and we did it. Now we want to win. It goes like that just after this we'll be famous not as much as superstars though, well that could be a possibility for me but I don't like that possibility. It just doesn't appeal to me.
I landed but took a few steps. Not a bad one but I knew I would still want stick it. I did it again and again sticking more and more each time, practice makes perfect. Which is true when it comes to gymnatics. Marta said I was doing fine and went to work with Gabby and the other girls. I continued to work on my quadruple twist. Landing and sticking more each time, which always made me happy. Now, if you know me I can't think while doing gymnastics. I know that sounds werid but I can't, it makes me all nervous and I can't be nervous these 2 weeks.
"Let's try that with a punch out," Marta suggested. A punch out was when I landed and then flipped foward. It wasn't done much but it would put all the extra power still had into it. I tried it but we deicded to just keep it like it was supposed to be done and hope for the best. That's all we could do and we soon would have to stop training because of the opening ceremony. I was so excited, you could tell.
Now, Mckyala's coach had come back from the meeting with all the stuff we needed to know and she brought a girl with her. She would help us with our make-up and dressing for the competitons. Only she was shy and just stood there, so when I got a break I went over to talk to her.
"Hey. I just wanted to tell you that we aren't trying to ignore you it's just we have to practice. My name's Arielle but you can call me Aria," I said.
"I'm Skylar. It's nice to get an explanation but it's okay," She said.
"Thanks. So are you staying in the village?" I asked her. Most of the other group's and countires' were having prep people stay outside the village.
"Yeah. I stay right next to you. So tonight you go to the left to get all the stuff for the opening ceremonies," Skylar said.
"Cool. So do you have any nicknames? We usually call people by them," I explained.
"Yeah. Most people call me Sky," She told me.
"Cool. That's a cool nicknames," I replied and it was. Sky. It just sounded cool.
"So you might want to get back to work," Sky said.
"Oh yeah. I'm just waiting for the beam to open up," I replied to her.
"I understand. I used to do gymnsatics but I quit because my parents couldn't afford to pay for me," She explained.
"Well don't give up. You just have to do what you want," I said.
"I know and I love doing what I do. It's different and it's cool. I think I'm going to love working with you girls. I know for a fact that we're going to be seeing each other because I'm going on the Kellogs Tour with you," Sky told me. The Kellogs tour of Gymnasts. It was huge and we would be the main show. I remember watching it on Lou's laptop back when I was 12. I loved Nastia Liukin and we didn't get American TV channels, so I used his laptop. All those days I spent on that thing. Lou was sort of pissed but this all happened once I "stopped" gymnastics, so he didn't get mad. Actually, some days he would watch it with me which is was really funny.
"Really. That'll be cool. The beam's open so I talk to you later and we can go around the village with Mckayla," I suggested. The other girls were going to sit in our apartment and relax until prep started.
"Maybe. If this ends before prep," She said. I nodded and turned. Gabby had just ended her beam and it was her turn for break.
"Good luck. Misty's working us hard," Gabby said nearly chugging an entire water bottle in seconds. All the coaches had decided to let Misty work the beam because she had 10 world beam titles, they though it would be right to have her work with us and when she was working the girls hard, she was working me REALLY hard.
I walked over to the beam.
"We'll start with you doing 3 routines with dismounts and then work on them," Misty said. This was starting me off sort of slow because most of the time it was 10 routines with out dismounts but I guess she knows what she's doing. My routine had changed. Liang Chow and Misty had created two routines, one for me and one for Gabby. They had more tumbling and were crazy hard elements. I was going to have the hardest dismount for ALL the gymnasts competiting , a full twisting double back, the same as Shawn Johnson had in 2008. I was in the beginning of my first full beam tumbling pass, two back handsprings and a back-pike where I didn't use my hands. I heard the doors to the gym open, which was normal due to all the coaches coming in and out plus, the girls going out during their breaks but right now they had us all working a apparatus.
I was at the middle of the beam ending my second back handspring and going into the back-pike. When I was looking I was able to see who had come in and out of the door. I jumped and got height, going into my back-pike when I saw him. Him as in Louis Tomlison, my older brother. He always knew who I was when I was compeiting. He had this thing and I reall hope he couldn't tell now. I caught his eyes, starring into them. I knew he was staring back into my identical ones. Even though this only took 6 seconds it felt an eternity. I knew I would land on my head if I didn't do something lightning quick so I quickly brought my legs over and landed.
"Stop right there," Misty said and I held my landing.
"Did I do something wrong?" I asked her.
"No. That's what we want you to do, it was perfect. Now do that again and continue the routine this time," She said. Well, things were going good. That was perfect but my nerves were shaking my entire body but that was good when it came to me. I performed my best under pressure. I jumped off the beam and went back to where I would run onto the spring-board and hop onto the beam. This was one of my favorite apparatus, while it was Louis's least favorite, out of all of them. Even bars. His favorite was floor since it was the one where there was the least danger to the eye but to us it was the most dangerous even though we did tumbling passes on the beam, which is covered wood that is less wide that both of my feet next to each other. I hopped onto the beam and walked to the end where I began to back handspring. I was in the middle of my back-pike when Louis called, "Aria,". I lost my focus and finished the back pike but fell of the beam. Mckayla noticed and fell on her butt on the vault.
"Are you okay?" Misty asked. She was always worried because that was another reason why her gymnastics career had ended. A few months before she had hurt her leg but she walked it off, not knowing that it would stop her gymnastics carrer forever.
"Yeah. I'm fine," I replied before standing up. Nothing happened. I feel backwards and landed on my butt.
"I'm going to have you and Mckayla work both on beam since there are two. I need to go and talk to those boys," Misty said. We usually didn't use both beams so this was kind of happy time for the both of us since we were probaby going to sit around doing nothing or just doing easy stuff. Misty went over, talked to Mckayla, and then Mckayla walked over to me.
"Oh my god. That was so stupid of him," Mckayla said.
"Yeah, I know. You never yell or talk to somebody when they're in the middle of a back-pike like that. You just don't. It was so freaking scary. Plus my butt hurts," I said while hopping back onto the beam.
"So does mine," Mckayla said.
"You should probaby practice or we'll get yelled at," I told her.
"Why do you have to be right?" She asks and begins her routine, which is flawless since she hasn't changed hers. I just smiled back at her before re-starting my routine. We would each do our routine and then do it for each other to get feedback on it. It worked well when a coach had to do something plus it made stuff a bit more fun for us.
"Girls," Misty said in the middle of our routines. I finished my next 2 combination elements before stopping and turning.
"Yeah," I replied during the turning.
"You both have 15 minutes because those boys would like to talk to you," Misty said. The two of us hopped off the beams and landed next to each other.
"And remember. Don't reveal anything," Misty said mainly talking to Mckayla. The two of us pulled on our training pants since we didn't want to talk to boys while dressed in leos, it just didn't feel right.
"Hiya," I said while walking over.
"You shouldn't be doing that on the beam. It's way to dangerous," Louis said. I rolled my eyes at him.
"I'm an elite gymnast, I've been doing this for years," I said.
"That was cool, so we have 15 minutes to talk to you guys," Liam questioned.
"Yeah and then its back to beam" Mckayla said.
"So are you guys walking in the opening ceremonies?" Niall asked.
"Yeah," I said. It was a 5 hour walk through the city which would take forever.
"Which is not by choice. It'll be a good 5 hour warm-down walk," Mckayla says sarcastically. Yeah, Misty's forcing us to walk in the opening ceremonies. It wasn't that bad until we learned it was 5 hours PLUS we had to stand and walk around the main areana until they called our country's name, then we could leave. The winter Olympians have it easy. They walk around the inside of the areana not from the town and around the city because it's either below 0 or close to it.
"Wouldn't you want to walk that long though?" Liam asked.
"Well it matters. I mean we're lucky we don't have to compete tomorrow and stuff so that's not bad. Tomorrow we're just going to be watching other people compete. Like the swimmers," I told them.
"And Tom Daley," Mckayla said, sighing. She had a crush on Tom Daley. The team GB diver. He was pretty hot and only 18.
"Oh. Tom Daley," Louis said and rolled his eyes.
"Girls back to work. You guys can stay but don't call their names or stuff," Misty told them. Mckayla and I took off our training pants and hopped back onto the beam. They boys stayed quite for the most part. I was still pissed off though. My brother was starring at me and god, it felt like his eyes could see into me and who I really was. Which made me angrier. Seriously, who does he think (if he can find out who I am) he is, if he think he can ruin my life and then waltz back in like nothing happened. I mean ok. He doesn't know what happened but it's my life that was ruined, until now and he doesn't understand what he did, in the long run.
I was about to finish on beam when Louis came next to it. I was at the end of the beam trying not to pay attention to him. I began to do my dismount when Louis stood in front of me. I did one less twist and landed right in front of him.
"Could you please move?" I asked him polietly. He did and I walked around him. Picking up my stuff, I walked over to the bars and I could tell Misty could tell that if possible, smoke would be steaming out of my ears. I set my bag on one of the chairs, pulled out my new grips and slipped them on. They were a little straight but I would have to break them in. I pushed him out of my brain and jumped onto the bars. Continualy flinging my body and doing all my elements to the hardest I could. My mind was calling him a prick and a dickhead. Angering me even more, if possible. I picked up momentum and did my dismount, landing hard and not moving.
"He's gone," Mckayla said.
"Thank god," I replied.
"We're heading back but I decided to wait for you to finish. You were so mad that your routine was nearly flawless. You pushed yourself and continued to do everything under that pressure and all of us here thought that was amazing," Mckayla said.
"Thanks. So we're going to prep now?" I asked her. It was around 1 in the afternoon and the walk would start in a few hours. Just enough time for us to eat and get ready.
"Yeah. We're the last to get ready," Mckayla said. I took my now nearly broken in grips and put them into my bag. Slipping into my USA Gymnastics jacket and hopped into the pants. I would be using these tonight too. The back said Team USA Gymnastics and I adored this. It made me feel like I mattered and that was something I hadn't felt too much the past few years.
I pulled my bag up and followed Mckayla out of the gym. The two of us walked side by side, just thinking and heading back to our apartment. The two of us loved being roommates. Our room was decorated just like it used to be back at Marta's ranch. Posters of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift. We had a Hunger Games movie poster in the room, a boom box, iPod doc, make-up and clothes all over the place. If the sheets didn't say London 2012, with the London 2012 Olympic logo on it.
"You know what I just thought. The boys were only in the gym when we were there. I think they may be onto something," Mckayla said dead serious. Which freaked me out. I had to make sure One Direction had NO way of knowing that I was Arielle Tomlinson. That I was Louis's younger sister. They just couldn't find out. The stuff that showed who I really was, was private but him being over 18 and my older bioloigcal brother meant that he was able to get his hands on it. If he wanted to but I really don't think that he would anyways. Mum always told him everything so he would think that everything was fine. Not that his Mum had accidentally signed adoption paper saying that Misty was my legal guardian.
Louis's POV:
"Didn't that girl look like Ari?" Harry asked me. Aria sort of did but didn't at the same time. Her hair was way to long and blonde. But they way her eyes were exactly like Ari's made things a little strange. I was very serious when it came to Ari. She was my baby sister. I'm the one that's supposed to protect her. Not hurt her.
"Sort of. They had the same eyes but there are lots of people that have blue eyes," I replied to Harry and it was true. Niall had blue eyes but I couldn't use that since Niall had a different color blue eyes than Ari and I. We both had gotten my dad's blue eyes for some reason even though she was a Tomlinson. Mum was always touchy on the subject for some reason. Didn't make much sense.
Arielle's POV:
The two of us had walked back to the apartments and had gotten changed. Putting my leo back in the closet that we shared, I pulled on my Team USA Gymnastics suit and my hair back in a sparkly red, white, and blue scrunchie. They had gotten us these for today since we aren't allowed to wear colored scrunchies when we compete and they come with the uniform. We had gotten multiple leos to chose for all our nights when we would compete. I wanted to go for the All-Around, Beam Final, and Floor Final. We were already in for the team because we had gotten here but our qualification score for team would help us in the long run since people will know who to be watching and they will. Most want to know if we will finally get the US another Team USA Gymnastics Gold Medal. We've only gotten one other medal and that was back in 1996, when I was 1 years old. Louis says he remembers it a tiny bit but I really don't believe him, he was 5. I don't remember thing from back when I was 5.
"Mckayla hurry up your lazy ass or your not going to get lunch," I yelled through the bathroom door. That girl took forever to shower and if she took this long again she really wasn't going to get lunch. I heard the water turn off and 5 minutes later the door opened. Her hair was blow dired and she was running a comb through it.
"You know we have something called prep where they do hair and make-up for us," I said.
"Really?" Mckayla asked.
"Yeah. How could you not know that? It's probably because I had to go to the last X-Factor show for Louis and he had me in the prep room with him. I just sat there playing with Harry's hair and texting my friends. Harry was the only one who knew about me back then," I told her.
"You've touched Harry's curls," Mckayla squealed. Yeah, I sort of forgot that she was a fan girl.
"Let me rephrase this. I tried to touch Harry's curls. I had my hand hit a lot by him and I got to annoy him," I said.
"But you still go to touch his curls? Were they soft?" She asked.
"What the fuck? Seriously. Yes, I touched his hair. I don't remember if it was soft," I said throwing my hands up in the air and catching my phone that I had thrown into the air too.
"Fine. Let's go get lunch," Mckayla said softly giggling. I rolled my eyes at her and we both came out of the room. Outside everything was set up. Make-up kits were all over the place, hair curlers and straigtners were plugged in.
"Hey Sky," I said while walking out.
"Hey girls," She replied while eating some french fries. We had all gotten lunch from McDonalds.
"So, I'm going to do your hair so you both have time to eat since you both took forever taking showers," Sky said.
"Oh. Do Aria's first," Mckayla said.
"Ok. So I'm think of straightening it and just letting it down naturally after that. M'kay?" She asked me.
"K. That would be cool," I replied.
"You can it while I do it," Sky said. I grabbed chicken nuggets and a large cup of fries. Like I said, I like eating a lot. I felt her part my hair into layers and spray it with hair protectant. She let it dry and all of us talked about random things. Like where we were from. I found out that Sky was from Ohio but she lived in England which was pretty cool and she found out I was from Doncaster. Plus we both weren't big 1D fans. Well, I wasn't because I didn't really like my brother and so the hate/ dislike transferred to the band too.
She began to straighten my hair which took around 15 minutes. I looked at it once it was done. It fell around mid stomach and I liked it. I never really straightened my wavy hair but that's because I spent more time practicing than anything. Mckayla on the other hand always straightened her hair, every single morning.
After Sky finished Mckayla's hair we all sat around eating and once we finished she did out make-up. Well all she did was put some blush on my checks and mascara on my eyelashes. Then she made my nails look like tiny American flags. She did the same with Mckayla. All the other girls were outside waiting with the rest of Team USA and getting assemebled.
"Sky, do you want to walk with us? I bet they won't mind since your part of our crew," Mckayla said. We all got along well with each other and Sky felt like an older sister since she had recently turned 17.
"I don't think I can," Skylar said.
"Well let's ask. The worst they can say is no," I said. I had an extra Team USA jacket. I had one for gymnastics and one that said Team USA. She could use it. I went back to my room and brought it out.
"You can use my other jacket," I said handing it to her.
"Guys. You don't have to," Sky said.
"But we want to. Walking would be a lot more fun if you were with us," Mckayla said. The three of us packed everything up and put it in the corner of her apartment. Once done with that we walked done. Nearly everyone had someone that wasn't on Team USA and they were fine with Sky walking with us. All the other girls like Sky too. She was like an older sister.
The walking sucked for the most part but halfway through one of the guys, he was like 17, had me sit on his shoulders. It was fun because I could see everything. All the other gymnasts and Sky were on the shoulder of a guy. His name was Eric and he was really nice. Plus, all I had to do was record everything on both of our iPhones. He said jokes and I laughed along with him.
The nightime came rather quickly once I began talking to Eric. All the other girls were scatered in the crowed, except for Mckayla who was next to me. We all joked around and held our phones up, recording everything. Around 9 at night we finally got close enough to see the lights of the arena and hear music from it which got us all excited again. We had stopped recording since it wouldn't be fun to have a 5 hour video with nothing but us joking around and doing random stuff. I pulled the two phones out of my jacket and began to record with the again.
It took forever before they got down to the Us and then we were close to the end. The second we came into view of the big main arena. Everyone began to cheer and whoop. I sat up straighter and began to cheer and whoop along with everyone else. We were near the entrance when we hear.
"The United States of America," announced by the announcer. We got inside and there was music playing and all the other coutries around. We all were going to be gathered for the IOC to open the ceremonies. We walked around the little track, which gave me the best feeling and I know my kids will see this over and over when the Summer Olympics come on. They will see the video there Mum took when she was at the Olympics. We all were assemebeled and waited for the rest of the countires. Eric had taken me off his shoulders and we were bouncing around dancing. Everyone was nice and didn't really care about stuff. Carefree. Finally the music stopped and all of us began to wait.
"Want to get back up to see?" Eric asked me. I said yes and he lifited me back up. Mckayla and I went up along with a lot of other girls.
"I am here to begin the 17 days of Olympic Games. This is the 30th Olympiad and the 3rd time London has hosted an Olympics," The IOC president began. His speech took forever before he opened it. Finally he said,
"And I know begin to 30th Olympic Games. They may begin," and he walked off the stage. We all were cheering and whooping. The good thing was that this areana was in the Olympics Village so all we had to do was go back to our apartments. Eric and I split up but he gave my his number. I think I may have a little crush on him which isn't bad.
"That was so much fun," Sky said once we all got back to our apartments. Right now we're in hers talking about how the night went.
"We're so glad that you came with us," Mckayla said.
"I'm so happy that we finally begin to compete," I said lying back down on Sky's queen sized bed.
"Girls, you better get back to your room before your coaches get pissed," Sky said.
"But we don't wanna," Mckayla whinned.
"Just go. I'll see you tomorrow," Sky said and the two of us groaned. We wanted to stay and sleep in a queen sized bed not a tiny twin sized one. Mckayla and I both walked out of her apartment and tip-towed into ours. The two of us erupted into giggles the second we got into our room. We both stripped and put on our pajamas before pushing out beds together into the center of the room. That way we could talk at night and not be super loud.
"I'm tired," I said yawning once we pushed the bed together.
"Same," Mckayla replied. The two of us scooched over next to each other until we were back to back and finally were able to get some sleep.
A/N:
HELLO!! Update! YAY! Gonna be more updates because of thanksgiving break. Love ya guys. Comment and Vote if ya want. :-)
~secret1dluve023