“It’s just not fair!” she shouts.
And then she shrinks down into herself. She crosses her arms tight across her body and steers herself into me for a hug. I hold her close and stroke her hair. I guide us to sit down on the steps, and do the one thing I wish someone had done for me, back when I was in pain and enraged and swimming in sadness: I give her a plan. I suggest that if she feels comfortable, she should consider telling her parents the truth about her appointments with Dr. Kaminsky. She agrees to do it, and I offer to be there with her for that conversation, if she wants. And then, as a family, they can all figure out how to move forward—whether that means reporting what happened to her to the police, or simply letting it go. I remind Hallie that there’s no pressure to come back to practice today, or tomorrow, or any day.
“The most important thing right now is to take care of yourself,” I tell her. “Trust me, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now, that matters even more than your training does.”
She nods. I hope she believes me.
* * *
The next week is awful. Delia Cruz goes on Good Morning America, looking steely and powerful in a sleek white suit, and gives a searing retelling of the most horrific moments of her life. On Twitter, she releases a statement encouraging other survivors of sexual assault to get help. The replies to her tweet are mostly full of love and support, but there’s a mountain of replies from hateful trolls, too. I can’t even begin to fathom the mental gymnastics they have to employ to convince themselves that she’s the one ruining Dr. Kaminsky’s life, not the other way around.
Maggie Farber comes forward. So does her teammate Kiki McCloud. And then there’s a wave of others who speak up, both household names who competed in the Olympics and athletes who never quite made it into the spotlight: Emily Jenkins, Bridget Sweeney, Liora Cohen. By the end of the week, there are six names splashed across most of the major TV shows and publications, and a sickening sense that more will come. I feel both shocked and relieved, like I dodged a bullet. It was only by sheer luck that I visited other doctors instead of him.
Tara Michaels, the prominent conservative pundit and self-professed lover of “family values” who wears enough pearly pink lip gloss to single-handedly keep Sephora in business, unleashes a tirade that goes viral. She says it’s “disturbing” that America swallows up the stories of these six “unreliable” teenagers without giving a “respected” doctor a chance to tell his side of the story. “Facts are important,” she urges, disregarding that most of her own facts happen to be wrong. Half the gymnasts who have come forward are in their twenties by now. Dr. Kaminsky’s lawyer already issued a blanket statement denying any wrongdoing. Tara’s speech is peppered with racist jabs toward Delia, Kiki, and Emily, whose photos flash on-screen. The producers could have chosen photos of the athletes with medals around their neck; instead, they picked crotch shots—straddle jumps and leaps, taken from below. By the third time I see the video clip circulating online, it has more than ten million views.
The internet churns with impassioned headlines about how America has failed its girls; how gymnastics is just a beauty pageant masquerading as a sport; how this is what happens when parents don’t pay enough attention to their own kids. There’s a lot of outrage directed at the sport, the parents, the gymnasts themselves—but I don’t see enough of it aimed at Dr. Kaminsky. You’d think, given how many powerful men have fallen into scandal over the past few years, that collectively, we’d know how to do this by now.
The gymternet—the blogs, podcasts, and Twitter accounts run by die-hard gymnastics fans with passionately engaged followers—lights up with commentary and analysis of the situation. I tried listening to one podcast episode, but turned it off halfway through. The hosts sounded defeated. There’s no pleasure in dissecting this tragedy.
Hallie told her parents about how Dr. Kaminsky had made her feel, and they swiftly connected her to the best children’s therapist in the Boston area. She insists on coming to practice each day, though there are dark circles under her eyes and her usual boundless energy sags. She used to keep her phone tucked away in the changing room while she trained, but now she keeps it nearby so she can stay updated in case any more gymnasts come forward. She doesn’t seem to want to speak out publicly, and given what the other six gymnasts have gone through, I don’t blame her.
What haunts me the most, though, is Ryan’s reaction to the situation. Hallie had asked me to tell him the truth about her experience with Dr. Kaminsky.
“I’d feel awkward talking to him about it, you know?” she had explained. “I know he should probably know, but I just can’t.”
The day the Delia story broke, Hallie decided to leave practice early. She called her mom to come pick her up, and I waited with her in the locker room so people didn’t keep staring at her. Once she left, I found Ryan in the gym and told him we needed to talk. We sat in a quiet, empty corner of the gym, and I relayed the entire dismal story. He looked shocked and sad when I summarized what happened to Delia, but downright grief-stricken when I shared how Kaminsky had made Hallie feel. His face crumpled.
“No,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Is she okay? How is she holding up?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “She’s angry. Upset. Sad. Who wouldn’t be?”
He punched a stack of crash mats, and the solid thump of his fist echoed around the gym.
“I told her to go to that scumbag,” he spat out. “This is my fault.”
“It’s not,” I said gently.
And because nothing in the world was right, I stepped forward to give him a hug. I held him for a long time.
“I just had no idea,” he repeated over and over, looking pained. “Everyone trusted him.”
I was at a loss for words again.
“Maybe,” I said finally, “that was the problem.”
• CHAPTER 14 •
It’s been a hell of a week, so on Saturday morning, when Sara invites me to yoga for what must be the fifteenth time, I say yes. Anything is better than sitting around, reading infuriating tweets about the scandal. If yoga can help take my mind off that, I’m willing to try it.
“Yay, this is fab! I’m so excited to have you in class today,” Sara says, giving me a quick squeeze of a hug. “You don’t have a yoga mat, do you?”
“Nope. You know, I’ve never actually done yoga before.”
“Not a problem. There are extra mats at the studio. You should bring a water bottle and wear something comfortable that you can move in—probably not a leotard, though, just FYI. Like, leggings, tank tops, that kind of thing.”
“Trust me, it’s not like any of my old leotards even fit anymore,” I joke. “I wish.”
“Don’t do that,” Sara says gently.
“What?”
“Make comments like that about your body,” she explains. “There’s no need to beat yourself up.”
“I don’t—” I start to protest.
But I do. Constantly. I can’t remember a time before I was acutely aware of every inch of my body: every muscle, curve, and soft spot. Dimitri taught us that our bodies were our tools, the same way an artist would use a paintbrush. That’s why we had to be so strict and disciplined with the way we ate and worked out, he explained. And at the time, it all made sense: the intense diets, the weekly weigh-ins, the way he punished us with hours of conditioning if we overate or gained weight. Every week, he’d jot down our height, weight, and measurements in a little blue notebook. He wore a withering expression when we failed him, whether we gained a pound or confessed to eating a slice of pizza. That expression still flashes across my mind every time the waistband of my jeans digs into my stomach or I consider indulging in a dessert.