An announcement cuts through the noise of the stadium: fifteen minutes until the competition begins, which means it’s time for Hallie to warm up on bars. She’s on the same rotation as Delia and Brit, and the three gymnasts take turns chalking up and practicing elements of their routines. There’s an unintentional hierarchy: Brit defers to Hallie because she’s the stronger athlete, and both girls defer to Delia, because she’s become something of a legend, a mother hen, a spokesperson for the horrors of the sport ever since the accusations broke. Today, Delia’s leotard is teal. I heard Jasmine discussing it during her TV segment; teal is the color of sexual assault awareness.
At the one-minute mark, Hallie signals to us that she’s all set.
“Last-minute pep talk,” Ryan says. “Huddle up.”
Ryan wraps a protective arm around Hallie’s shoulders and slides a nonchalant arm around my waist. Hallie’s breath is shallow. This isn’t her first rodeo; it’s clear that she knows as nervous as she is, she has to fake it till she makes it. Otherwise, she’ll psych herself out.
“I just want to tell you one more time how proud I am of you,” Ryan says, locking eyes with Hallie. “You’re strong, you’re tough, and you have trained so hard for this for so long.”
She blushes. “Thanks.”
“And don’t let the prospect of floor rattle you all day,” he says. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t?” she asks, surprised.
“The new choreography? Fantastic. The updated tumbling passes? Genius. I’ve known you a long time, and I’ve never seen you as poised or as elegant as you’ve been performing lately.”
Hallie exhales. Her shoulders visibly relax.
“Oh,” she says, almost laughing to herself. “Right.”
“Avery?” Ryan prompts.
I didn’t prepare anything to say. When I was competing, it’s not like Dimitri ever gave any sort of warm, touchy-feely pep talk like this one. A gruff request to stop whining and keep my chin up, maybe, but nothing like this. I swallow.
“You have no idea how good you have it,” I say. “How easy this will be. How prepared you are. You are a natural superstar, and you have Ryan, who’s amazing, and you have an incredibly supportive family cheering you on.”
The words come easily because they’re the truth.
“Every single day, I am so proud to work with you, because you never give up and you never lose what makes you you,” I continue, ignoring the lump forming in my throat. “I’m lucky to be on your team. And I can’t wait to see you rock this competition.”
I squeeze my hand around her shoulder. I didn’t expect to be so emotional, but seeing Hallie here, just inches away from a competition that could make her a front-runner at Olympic Trials, I’m overwhelmed. I break the huddle to give her a tight hug.
“Thank you, guys,” Hallie says, her words muffled into my hair. “Seriously. Thank you.”
An event coordinator taps Hallie on the shoulder. “It’s time,” she says.
Hallie glances at each of us. “Bye.”
“You got this!” I call out.
Ryan goes with her. He’s there to hover by the high bar throughout the duration of her routine, ready to lunge forward during her riskiest release moves when she’s most likely to fall, in case he needs to catch her. I don’t want to be a distraction, so I’ll watch from the sidelines.
Hallie reaches into the chalk bowl to add one more layer of dust to her grips, and nods to Ryan that she’s ready. Moments later, an announcer’s voice booms over the loud speaker. A hush falls over the crowd in the bleachers.
“First up on bars is Hallie Conway,” the voice booms.
The audience roars a cheer. “Let’s go, Hallie, let’s go!” I call out, clapping.
Hallie strides to the center of the low bar, totally transformed. She stands tall, suddenly looking five years older and twice as serene as she really is. She raises both arms to the table of judges and beams, performing the customary salute of respect that every gymnast does at the beginning and end of each routine. I see a judge flick to a new sheet in her notebook and peer over the tops of her thick-rimmed glasses.
Hallie takes a deep breath, then jumps on the low bar and swings up into a perfect handstand with such easy grace that I forget to be nervous for her. She transitions smoothly to the high bar, then pirouettes in a handstand, and executes a clean Tkatchev–Pak Salto combo, flinging herself backward and soaring smoothly down to the low bar. Everything is tight, as it should be: vertical handstands, straight knees, pointed toes, rock-hard core. The routine concludes with a mesmerizing series of giants—swinging, 360-degree circles around the high bar—and then she’s slicing through the air into a double-twisting double back tuck. The moment she hits the mat, she’s sturdy and sure of herself—she sticks the landing. The audience erupts into a cheer as she arches backward.
Hallie waves to the crowd, turning to face each corner of the arena to blow grateful kisses.
Giddy, she crashes sideways into Ryan for a one-armed hug.
“Amazing job,” I say, high-fiving her in a burst of chalk dust when she makes it back to the bench. “You nailed it.”
“That felt great,” she says.
“Because it was great,” Ryan says.
Thirty seconds later, the judges confirm what everyone knows: It was a beautiful performance. They award her a 15.025—and anything in the fourteen range or above is incredible. By the end of the first rotation, she’s in fourth place—Emma, Delia, and Kiki have just barely edged her out for the top spots. Hallie’s face falls slightly.
“Don’t worry, you have three more rotations to go,” Ryan points out. “The rankings will change.”
“Yeah, but I just finished bars,” she protests.
Nobody has to say out loud what she really means: her best event is now over, so it could all go downhill from here.
“Vault’s next,” I say brightly. “Just focus on nice, solid landings, and you’ll be just fine.”
Per the rules of the competition, she competes twice on vault. Judges score both efforts, then take the average as her final score. Her first run, an Amanar, is impressive. But any success there is canceled out by the deductions she receives for the two extra steps she takes upon landing her second vault, a Mustafina.
I know the rules of the sport well enough to know better, but it still seems incredibly unfair that Hallie gets points docked for her dynamite energy. She’s like a high jumper in a ballerina’s body—if she were a track-and-field star instead of a gymnast, her explosive power would make her an Olympic champion. But not here. My nerves feel frayed as I watch the judges grimly turn over the final score: 13.250. Hallie slips to fifth place. The mood on the bench is tense.
Her third rotation is beam, and if there’s one event that demands confidence and precision above all else, it’s this one. When I was a gymnast, beam was always intimidating, but at least I felt in control of the experience. If I shook or bobbled or fell, it was my own fault. But now, as Hallie competes, that sense of control crumbles. My muscles spasm as I watch her move. When she pirouettes, I crane my neck, as if I can manipulate the speed of her spin. As she wobbles on the landing of a front aerial, my stomach and glutes and thighs clench hard, as if I can keep her centered on the beam through sheer force of will. Her tumbling pass—a back handspring, whip back, back layout that’s usually just pure fun to watch—tilts slightly off center. One foot curls desperately around the beam, while the other leg ricochets sideways in a last-ditch attempt to regain balance. She stays on, but just barely. After her dismount, she salutes limply to the panel of judges and trudges into Ryan’s arms.