"Wake up or your going to miss training today," Gabby said coming into Mckayla and my's room to wake the two of us up. Of course we weren't in the mood to be waken up before noon but it was training time tomorrow they would finally let us sleep in.
"10 more minutes. Please?" Mckayla asked.
"How about no. You girls better get going," Gabby said before walking out of our room. I was the first one to stumble out of bed and pull on short shorts and a training leotard. Which left me with the job to get Mckayla out of bed.
"Get up or your going to be late and we don't want to be late," I said while shaking Mckayla who was starting to wake up more.
"Oh come on. We had a late night and I want to sleep in. It's not until tomorrow that we start to compete. They should let us sleep in," Mckayla said sleepily.
"Fine. Then I'll tell everyone that you have a crush on Liam," I replied before watching her get up quickly before looking at me.
"How do you know?" she asked me with wide eyes.
"It's not exactly like you hide it," I replied while smiling at her.
"Shut up. You better not tell anyone. Got it," Mckayla said while blushing a tiny bit.
"My lips are sealed," I said before nodding my head.
"Well you better get ready because I'm leaving without you," I replied before steeping out of our shared room but quickly steeping back in to grab my cell phone and pushing it into my back pocket.
"Just go. Tell them I woke up late," Mckayla said from the bedroom
"K," I yelled back before quickly walking to the practice gym.
"Floor. We need to get this down for tomorrow night," Misty said the second I walked in. I pulled my hair up higher and into a tighter ponytail and set my phone with all my other stuff I had left here last night. I walked onto the floor and began my routine, trying my hardest to stick every single one of my tumbling passes. I'm a Brit, through and through but I'm with the Americans on this one. The British team can kiss my ass for all they want. Tomorrow was the qualification night. I wanted to qualify for team (yeah you had to qualify to compete in team and I was sure we would), all-around, beam final, floor final, and maybe even bars final. Yeah, I know it's a lot but they never said you couldn't stop.
I hopped onto the floor and waited before starting my floor routine. I stepped into one of the corners before starting my first pass which was my easiest even though it was a harder skill but I've been doing hard skills since I was 8, so it wasn't. My 2nd tumbling pass though I was scared about. I changed a 3 1/2 twist to a full 4 twist. A big change 2 days before the Olympics for me began and I would have to get it good. I did some of the choreography before steeping into the little corner. I stood for a second, taking a deep breath, before running and front flipping into my full 4 twist. I did it but added a punch out. I stopped because that was probably where Misty would want to talk to me about. I looked down to see my feet still inisde of bounds which made me happy.
"We'll add the punch out to your routine. Now keep going. We're going to work floor as long as we can to get this as close to perfect as ever," Misty said before continuing to watch me work floor. I made sure to try and stick everything.
Around an hour later we got a 10 minute break.
"Wow. You must be tired," Aly said when the 5 of us were sitting down drinking water and taking in the sun in the little part of the park in the olympic village.
"Oh yeah. Misty's killing me today. I think I can do my floor routine in my sleep now," I replied with a little laugh.
"That's how I feel with my bar routine and you never told them I was going to be late so I got in trouble," Mckayla said giving me a playful dirty look. I just rolled my eyes at her and finished drinking my water bottle and posting some pictures on Instagram. I had gained tons of followers.
"Girls. I have two people I want you to meet," Marta said while walking up to us with two people following her.
"This is Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson," Marta said while steeping away for us to see the two Olympians. All 5 of us stared at each other before looking back to the two Olympians. Olympic gymnasts. They were amazing.
"I'll leave you guys to know each other and your break will be extended longer," Marta said before leaving.
"So like hi," I said being the first one to move.
"Well this a bit awkward. But I already know Shawn. So, hi," Gabby said following in my lead.
"Hey. So we're here to help you get through the nerves. Yeah I know but we can kind of tell you what to expect," Nastia explained.
"Oh," Mckayla said.
"So, can I get all your names so I can remember them?" Shawn asked.
"Gabby, as you already know," Gabby said with a smile.
"Jordyn,".
"Mckayla"
"Aly"
"Arielle". We said our names.
"You guys have different names which is good. People will remember you," Nastia said.
"So are you guys nervous for qualifications?" Shawn asked us.
"Oh my god yes," I said.
"Same as Aria," Mckayla said.
"Well that usual because tomorrow nearly everyone watches women's gymnastics to see who's the top. Try you hardest tomorrow and on team because that's really what matters. And why did Arielle just talk in an English accent?" Nastia asked.
"Oh that's because she's British," Aly replied.
"Mmh. Really?" Shawn asked.
"I actually am. But the US had more chances for me than England did so I decided to compete for the USA but I go American when like other people are around," I said.
"Oh. Well that's kind of funny because your competing in London and you English but for one of their biggest rivals. It's ironic. It's how I felt when we had to compete against Russia because I'm a born Russian but competed for USA," Nastia said to me.
"Yeah. I actually like the US more than England because it seems more alive," I replied. It was true. Things kind of got into a rhythm here in England but in the US everything seemed to move more.
"Yeah. That's what you say because you've lived here nearly your entire life, " Mckayla said to me. She was true with that. Living on an island that's like 100 times smaller than the US really changes your thought on the country. Plus I felt a bit more free there for some reason. I mean we had nearly the exact same rights. I really don't see the difference between them.
"I think you guys need to go back to training. We'll work with each of you one day. Me with Arielle today and Mckayla with Shawn," Nastia said. All of us got up before throwing out the empty water bottles and heading back into the gym.
"So what do you want to do first?" Nastia asked me. She was 6 years older than me. Kind of like an older sister.
"How about bars?" I asked. I really like doing my bars routine which I had changed up, quite a lot.
"Yeah. I like bars. It's fun as you can tell," Nastia said as the two of us walked to bars. I grabbed my grips and put some chalk and water on my hands to stick more to the bars.
"Ok. So let me just see the routine and then I'll tell you what I think that you should fix," Nastia tells me. I do the routine and finish. Even my dismount was changed to a double layout, which was one of my favorite dismounts to do and I landed it pretty consistently.
"Ok. That was really nice and you landed your dismount which is really important when they score. Now try getting the lines and handstands straighter plus point you toes all the time. They won't take off if your pointing your toes at the wrong time," Nastia said.
"Ok," I replied before re-chalking my hands. Nastia was really helpful on bars, like really. I think my routine is so much better than it was earlier. On vault I just worked to stick my landings. On beam we worked on trying to get everything more balanced to get less balance checks, which is what mainly bring down my score. By 5 pm that night I was exhausted, which also added on to staying up late last night but we didn't compete till 6 pm tomorrow and podium training wasn't for us until 3pm (we got it for 2 hours as did everyone else) and I could sleep in again. Something I hadn't done in a long long time.
Nastia and I got to know each other really well. She acted like the older sister that I've never had. Plus she was just really nice. Someone that you want to know and it helped when she also was a gymnast. She helped with the nerves too.
That night Nastia took me and the other girls with Shawn to Nandos. Well it was my idea to go there. Lou used to take me there quite a lot back when we were younger but that's because they have tons of them here in England. The 7 of us squished into a booth and got tons of food which went quickly because us gymnasts have a very large appetite. I also found out that Shawn and Nastia already knew my little secret. Shhh....
We stayed up late talking in Gabby's room with all of us running on energy that we didn't have a clue that we even had. Jumping around and playing music loud. These girls were like my sisters which is pretty ironic considering I actually have 4 sisters in real life just all these girls are older than me. Yeah, I'm the baby. The one of the only ones born in 1996. Louis was 4 years and some months older than me. I wasn't even one when the Atlanta, GA summer olympics happened but Mum said I watched the gymnastics part like a little hawk (even at 6 months old, my birthday is March 17, St. Patrick's day).
Around 2am both Mckayla and I half-asleep walked back to our room in a zombie-like trance as Lou would say. I stepped into the shower once we got into our room and showered before pulling on my pajamas and jumping into bed.
*****************(A/N Cricket.. Cricket. Sleeping.. More sleeping. :-} )*********************************
"Aria. You've got to wake up. It's 1:30 PM," Skylar said while opening the blinds to let in the mid-day London light.
"Gimme more time to sleep," I mumbled while stuffing my face into the pillow to block out the light.
"Do you want to compete or not? It's time to start getting ready for everything. You have hair and make-up plus podium training. We've decided to let you guys train in your leos to get used to them," Sky replied. I knew I wasn't going back to sleep. I've crossed the point from where your too awake to go back to sleep but still tired.
I drowsily and slowly got out of bed like a zombie. Mckayla was already up which surprised me.
"Is everyone else up?" I asked her.
"Nope. Just you and Mckayla," Sky replied with a smirk. I just glared at her and she laughed at me.
"Now come on. You two get to get ready first today," Sky said before pushing me into the other living room in our suite. Everything had been set back up like it was two days ago for opening ceremonies just there was a lot more stuff.
Mckayla was sitting there eating bacon, eggs, and waffles.
"Were's the food?" I asked her and she pointed to the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a plate, and pilled bacon and waffles on it. I'm not really an egg person. Walking back into the living room, I sat down next to Mckayla and began to scarf all the food down.
10 minutes later, I was sitting there licking grease and maple syrup off my fingers. All the other girls had waken up and had finished eating breakfast too.
"Ok. We need to pick out leotards," Skylar said to all of us.
"Oooh. I love doing that," Gabby said. Gabby loved doing all this stuff with make-up and such. It was fun and we all liked it too. The five of us slowly got up heading to the room where they kept all the leotards. We had already picked the team, and all around leotards but the others we got to pick. Today we would use purple leotards.
"Ok. Look around for you leo size and get into it," Sky said while unlocking the door. We looked inside. They had so many different leotards it was amazing. They had USA flag ones, colored ones, sparkly ones. Damn, it was amazing. We all went over to where the purple one was, we had all chosen this one for qualification night. I looked through the multiple ones before finding the one with my name written on the tag in curly handwriting. T, Arielle. I mean okay. I couldn't help it when people put down T instead of K. That was fine. Everyone here knows already.
I grabbed my leo and headed into one of the bathroom to change. I stripped out of my pajamas and pulled it on. It fit perfectly. Just like we want it to. I pulled my pajama pants back on top of it, all the other girls were in the room all changed just like me.
"Ok. Hair and make-up now. It's 1:30 and you girls have podium training soon because they moved times," Sky explained to us. This happened a lot. This get changed at the olympics all the time. It's because so many people have to compete each night. You just have to go with the flow. There were tons of straighteners and stuff out. I grabbed one of them and spritzed some hair protectant in my hair. Most of the time I did my hair and make-up by myself so I was used to this.
I quickly straightened my hair, and decided to pull it up into a bun I used to do for competitions. I mainly used ponytails but a bun would keep it more secure and it looked cute and there are a lot of cute guys here. Hey, I'm a teenage girl, we've got to keep out options open. I pulled all of my hair up and back before beginning to braid some pieces and pull them in, out, and around the bun creating a cool look (picture in the picture area). All my hair was pulled up and wouldn't get into my face which was a plus.
"Can you do that to my hair?" Jordyn asked me.
"Yeah. Sit right here," I said while I grabbed a few hairbands. I brushed out her hair before doing it to the best I could because her hair is short and buns are easy to do when you don't have to braid around it. It ended up looking really good though.
"Girls. Podium training in 20 minutes," Misty said while coming in and out of the room. We all began to pack out new bags. The team gives us a TEAM USA bag and warm-up pants to just compete with. I pulled those on and put my grips, extra chalk, my music for floor, my cell phone, a book, earphones, and ace bandages. It didn't fill it but I didn't need a lot of stuff. Mckayla put similar stuff in hers too. Most of the time we would probably just all cheer and talk with each other. This is the Olympics. Your probably not going to be reading a book on the sidelines but you never know.
Louis POV:
"So what do you want to go and watch?" I asked Eleanor once we got out of the water polo arena. The GB (Team Great Britain) had just finished for the night and had qualified.
"How about gymnastics. I love watching those girls run around and look so happy afterwards," Eleanor said. I remembered what my sister would look like after a competition. All sweaty and stuff but she was happy and usually very very excited, and hyper. It was fun. She (Arielle) loved the sport. It was like what the lads were to me. She'd always done gymnastics. She started when she was 3 because mom couldn't find a sport that would allow her to use all her 3 year old fearlessness and hyperness other than this one. It stuck with her.
"Sure," I replied while the two of us walked through the village to North Greenwhich Arena. They let people in during Team USA's podium training. I knew a lot about this because once I turned 12, Mum would drop me off with Arielle and watch her while she did other things. I also used to go and spot her at the gym for community service hours. I liked spotting her on bars the most because it was fun having to toss you sister in the air. It really is, plus she was really tiny then which meant when she had to start using both bars, I would have to move her body from bar to bar until Misty decided she was ready, when she was 8.
Eleanor and I walked into the team USA podium training. I couldn't tell who was who because we got somewhat middle seats and all the girls were in the same leotard.
"Can we move closer?" Eleanor asked. I replied with a yes and we moved closer to the lower and closer seats.
"Oh. Look at her. She kind of looks like you," Eleanor said pointing to one of the gymnasts.
"Which one?" I asked her.
"That one. On bars. It kind of looks like Arielle," She said. Ari had meet Eleanor and they both really got a long well. I was happy with that. The girl, who I could tell was Aria, did look like Arielle. I saw her begin to rotate around and around the high bar before doing a double layout dismount. That was one I had to continually spot Arielle on before she began to get it.
Arielle's POV:
I rotated around the bar, splitting my legs slightly so not to hit the low bar before I did my double layout dismount. I let go of the bar and stuck my entire body together before landing on the map and staying in that place with my arms out. I was the last girl to perform on everything for my team and all the teams which meant I HAD to do a good job. On nearly all of my routines, well now on all of my routines, I could score up to a 16.5. Which is a very high score. I would be lucky if I even hit 16.
"Good job. All you need to do is that tonight and your fine to get into the bar finals," Misty said. Two hours of practice. Bars was one of my favorite places to be because I always felt like I could fly on them. Plus I had to get this routine good. Bars was my last place to place for event finals and the last final qualifications. I would close off the entire night. It had to be good. No excuse for it. I pulled of my grips and stuffed the back into my bag before pulling on my team USA sweater and grabbing my water bottle.
"I'm nervous," Mckayla said while sitting right next to me. She was going for team and vault.
"Don't be. It'll be just like Visa's. Just a larger crowd but think about it. It feels a lot like Visa's. Your competing in everything before me and your going for vault. You'll be fine. Just relax and feel like a star," I said.
"Wow. We got you in one of your serious moments," Aly said poking me. I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue out at her.
"So what are you trying for tonight?" Aly asked.
"All around, team, beam, floor, and bars," I replied.
"That's a lot. Just try not to get tired. We need our secret little weapon," Aly said jokingly. The always called me their little secret weapon because even though I'm the tallest, I'm also the youngest and most people wouldn't think that I would be able to win a nation all-around title without going to a national competition before.
"Shut up. We get to days between each final. We'll all be fine," I replied.
"Yeah," Aly said while the two of us waited for Gabby and Jordyn to finish up. Gabby was on floor and Jordyn on vault. We had to do two vaults and only Mckayla and I were doing Amanars. Oh well. The other girls were doing yurchenkos too.
"Oh look who's starting to come in," Gabby said slightly out of breath but still with the same sound we all made. It was the Russian team. They nearly always expect to win and this year was NO different. They walked in with bizarre make-up (black leotards, neon blue eyes. BIG NO NO) and with their noses held high like they were the queens of everything, while walking past us giving us slightly disgusted looks. These were also the same girls we were joking around with a few days ago at breakfast but what is done at breakfast in the olympics is not done when competing for a make it or break it spot in the gymnastics part of the olympics.
"Shut up. They can be nice. We all know this is just how we have to be. On our guard and to not let anything get to us," I replied. All the girls nodded their heads while the other teams walked in. Though only one more caught my special attention and that was team GB. Once upon a time this little girl wanted to wear one of those blue leotards with the Union Jack on it, her hair pulled back, and wearing a team GB sweater and sweatpants. Yeah. Team USA though had caught my eye once I was 10 when I thought I couldn't make it for the USA team but who knows. All of us girls pulled on out team pants. Gabby redid her ponytail and Mckayla re-adjusted her slung back bun. I played with my nails. completely free of any nail polish.
The announcer began to open up the gymnastics part in the games and we all stood for a while before he did the let the games begin. We all rushed back before people began to compete so that we could stretch a bit more and so that Mckayla could wrap her broken toe. That's not a big problem for gymnasts. You sort of forget about it after competing.
We sat there watching the other girls compete. There were only 10 teams but still we were near the back, team number 8. Right now number 7 had just begun competing.Things went faster than you would think than you would think. Two teams would compete at the same time but start at different times. Team 6 had finished and we would begin. Aly was the first on. They had split us up. Only two of us would be on the same apparatus at the same time and that was Mckayla and I.
Mckayla and I would go on floor, beam, vault, and then bars. Gabby had bars, beam, floor, and vault. Aly had beam, vault, bars, and floor. Jordyn had vault, floor, bars, and beam. Everybody was competing at the same time and at different things.
The two of us went to floor first. Mckayla did well but I never got this one tumbling pass her coach had her do. She had to run to far and then didn't have enough space to tumble. Stupid. I steeped onto the edge of the mat waiting for my music to start and when it did, my nerves somewhat calmed. I was nervous. I always am but never this much. Just when you have the entire world, or could have, watching you to see if you mess up. Your going to feel nervous. I took off running and did my first pass, landing it. Trying not to get out of bounds or hop. Then came the hard one, my quadruple twist and punch out. I ran forward, flipped up, and twisted feeling as light as a feather. I landed hard and flipped forward again before my nerves finally calmed. I continued to do the routine but it seemed more natural, less full of adrenalin and nerves.
I smiled once I got off floor before jumping off the podium. That's what we called the place where the appartuses were on because it was lifted a few feet off the ground.
"Nice one. Nothing out of bounds," Mckayla said as I put my feet into uggs and grabed the rest of my stuff. I glanced up to see if they had added my score. Nope, Team USA was still in 3rd place once all the other girl's scores had been added. I could score a 16.3 (points) on this at the most. Hitting a 16 would move team USA to 2nd, above the Russians.
"Nervous huh? Don't be that was really good," Jordyn said while she set her stuff down. She would compete on it next once they finished all the scoring.
"Why wouldn't I be? It's the first night of competiton," I replied to her, while continuing to stare at the scoreboard. The screen flashed and my score was up 16.28. Only 0.02 away from what I could have scored. Moving us ahead of China (who had just finished competiting and couldn't do anything to save their score) by .2 of a point, which is a lot in the world of gymnastics. I went onto beam which went easily adding up to our score, which was starting to close in on Russia. Then came vault, which the two of us easily dominated with our Amanars adding to our team's score. Only .7 before we pushed Russia out before we competed and now only .3. Adding to the additional pressure.
The two of us walked to bars side by side in silence. I peeled of my uggs, setting them under my chair before I sat on the ground and stretched a bit. I heard Mckayla hit the mat, we usually didn't watch each other on bars because it went quickly though the judging of it took longer than some of the other events. I slipped my grips on. My first time going on these for real today. Mckayla's score flashed on the screen. I chalked my hands and sprayed some water on them for an easier hold on the bars. Standing in front of the low bar, I waited for the judges to tell me to go and when they did I hopped onto the bar. I fly high, because flying makes me think of escaping to somewhere better. Like I had before. Everything before I ran away was about Louis. Think about Louis' imagine. What would happen to it if you did this or if I did that or if I made a mistake or if. ARGH!! I got sick of everything being about Louis. He wasn't the king of me or the world. This was about me and not him.
I blocked out the sounds of other people, the ones cheering, the ones shouting, and the ones screaming. Making it seem like it was only the bars and me. I usually did the while on bars. Allowed myself to slightly dream. I began to roate again and again and again before flying up high and landing. The last of my team to compete. I held the position and got out of it, turning to the crowd. Doing our normal ending thing.
"Look at the score. It's been updated," Aly said the second after I peeled of my grips. I turned around. We were in 1st with a 1 point advatnage. A lot in gymnastics. More than some would think. The other teams didn't have 5 people, since they were the smaller countries' teams. You could only have up to 5 people no more but they would let you compete with less. (A/N: I don't know if that's true. Only made up for the story. End of A/N). It ended quickly. We were pulled up near the vault and given a little show of placment before we moved onto the all-around.
Only 60 of us would compete. It seemed like a lot of people but think about it. Floor only takes 2 minutes, bars 50 seconds to 1 minutes and something seconds, beam up to 1 minuues and 20 seconds, and vault which went in like 20 seconds. You really only competed for what 3-5 minutes at most. It would go faster than you think. 4 of us from our team would compete for the all-around. Gabby, Aly, Jordyn, and me. I would go in order of vault, floor, beam, and bars. I would always finish with bars for qualifications. Don't ask me why because I don't know. There was also another change after team. You would only compete on everything once if you were in all-around and people who only wanted to do a final not the all-around would go in between the first two events that you had and the last two. Meaning what I scored in the all-around for each event would be my final score too but they would only take it for the final you wanted to score into.
Going to vault first was nice. People paid attention to the other apparatuses not vault a lot, allowing me a small peace of mind. Then came floor which seemed to flow together more easily to me, and plus the amount of attention made me feel nice but I wasn't Mrs. I love attention and will do anything to get is. The break in-between felt perfect. It took about an 1. Enough time to rest a bit, get some energy. Stuff like that. Then came beam and bars. I was 2nd in the all-around standing which was all I knew. I didn't pay attention to the other girls, which may seem rude but you need to know what place your in. I perfected beam, as I like to think of it because I didn't feel off-balance at all. Then, I waited for bars. My last place. The last place.
The girl before me went and I watched her. She was from Argentina and tried her hardest but she fell on her butt in the middle. I didn't laugh. I know what if feels like to feel humiliated in front of a crowd. It happens more than once. She finished and I did what I did best. Escape into bars and Arielle world. I chalked my hands for the second time tonight and sprayed them with water again. I waited for the starting signal the second time.
I did my little choreography on the low bar before flying onto the high bar and starting my releases. Then, came my big one. My Geiger but as I was in the air, I felt time stop, because two identical blue eyes were starring into mine with realisation in them.
A/N:
Sorry for the cliffhanger. ;). Thanks for reading and I WOULD LOVE it if you read my other story. The Secret Calder. They both have Louis in them. :-). But yeah. PLEASE!!
Love you all,
Secret1dluver023