Chapter 32
Elena
The message from Maxime glowed against the darkness of my room.
I'm at the café downstairs. Want to see you.
I stared at the words until they blurred, my thumb hovering over the keyboard. Training had left me hollowed out—left ankle throbbing, shoulders tight, core muscles trembling from pushing past any reasonable limit.
Can't tonight, I typed. Uncle Étienne worries about my sleep schedule, and I have early training tomorrow. Coach has been strict about rest lately.
The response came immediately.
He's not your father, Elena. Why do you care so much about what he thinks?
I read that sentence three times, something uncomfortable settling in my chest with each pass. It wasn't the question itself—I'd asked myself the same thing often enough—but the assumption underneath it. That caring about someone's opinion automatically meant weakness. That acknowledging another person's worry was subordination rather than respect.
Maxime thought my consideration was submission when it was something far more complicated—recognition that someone who'd spent years learning exactly what I needed, who understood without being told when I was pushing too hard, deserved to have his concern taken seriously.
It's not about him being my father, I wrote back, trying to keep the edge out. It's about respecting someone who's looked after me for years, and being responsible about my training. I can't afford to be exhausted tomorrow.
I hit send, then added quickly, Let's talk this weekend? I promise I'll have more energy then.
Fine. Good night.
That single word that we both knew meant anything but fine. I sat there staring at my phone long after the screen went dark, trying to understand why a simple scheduling conflict felt like it had revealed something fundamental—a gap that no amount of explanation could bridge.
Maxime couldn't comprehend my relationship with Étienne, couldn't see how it existed in a space that defied easy categories. Not quite parental but carrying that protective instinct. Not friendship exactly but holding that same quality of chosen intimacy. Something that had evolved over years until it became its own thing entirely, resistant to the labels other people needed.
And what made my chest tighten was realizing Maxime's inability to understand wasn't just about Étienne—it was about me. About the complicated mess of needs and boundaries that made up who I was.
I gave up on sleep and went out to the terrace barefoot, the stone cold against my soles. I moved through the prep positions for my ball routine almost unconsciously, my mind replaying the day's failures with the kind of obsessive detail that wouldn't actually fix anything.
The triple toss had been a disaster. Three attempts, three failures, each worse than the last. I replayed it now, trying to find where things broke down. The initial toss had been clean—perfect arc, plenty of time to turn and catch. But something in the transition was off. Core engagement delayed maybe point-three seconds, just enough to throw off my axis, my visual tracking losing the ball because my gaze had drifted toward the observation window where I'd known without looking that Étienne wasn't there.
He'd been avoiding me so deliberately that his absence had become its own presence, a negative space that shaped my movements as surely as if he'd been standing beside me.
My left ankle throbbed with that familiar warning. The injury dated back to Bulgaria—fourteen years old, still growing, a bad landing when my center of gravity had shifted overnight. Three months training through it because admitting weakness meant getting dropped, meant disappointing my mother in ways that felt existential.
I shifted my weight carefully, testing the joint's stability with the unconscious assessment that had become second nature. Learning to distinguish between pain that meant stop and pain that could be managed, worked through, ignored until it became just another background sensation.
Coach Laroche's voice echoed in my memory, sharp with worried frustration.
"Elena! Where is your focus? You're executing like someone who's thinking about dinner. The qualification series is in three months and you're giving me technique that wouldn't pass regionals. What exactly do you think you're going to do against Russian gymnasts who can do this unconscious?"
The other girls had carefully not looked at me, their gazes fixed on warm-ups with studied concentration that meant they were absolutely aware and simultaneously grateful it wasn't them.
"I'm sorry, Coach."
She'd made me run it three more times, added an hour of conditioning that left me shaking.
"This might be your last season," she'd said as I gathered my equipment. "Your body won't hold up much longer—nobody's does. If you want any chance at Olympic qualifiers, you need to perform at absolute peak. No room for distraction, no margin for error. Understand?"
I'd nodded, not trusting my voice.
"You have the talent, Elena. You have the technique. But that's not enough if your head isn't in the game. Figure out what's distracting you and deal with it."
Standing on the terrace now, I executed relevés, feeling my ankle protest with a sharp twinge that made me adjust automatically, unwilling to let pain dictate what I could or couldn't do because that way led to admitting defeat.
I pulled out my phone and called my mother before I could talk myself out of it. She answered on the second ring, her expression already sharpening into evaluation mode.
"Elena. It's late there. You should be sleeping."
"I couldn't sleep. Wanted to hear your voice."
Something flickered across her face—surprise maybe—before the familiar assessment locked in.
"Stand up straight. Your shoulders are rolling forward."
I straightened automatically, resenting the constant corrections even as I obeyed.
"How was training today?"
"Difficult. I couldn't get the ball routine clean. Coach was frustrated."
"Good," she said. "That means she still has expectations. The day she stops being frustrated is the day she's given up."
The logic was sound. The same logic she'd been applying since I was old enough to understand that love in our family came with conditions.
"She said this might be my last season. That my body won't hold up much longer."
"She's right," my mother said matter-of-factly. "You're twenty. In gymnastics terms, that's ancient. This season is your chance—possibly your only chance—at Olympic level."
"I know. I'm trying. Sometimes it just feels like no matter how hard I work, it's never enough."
"That's because 'enough' doesn't exist in competitive sports. There's only better or worse than yesterday, only ahead or behind your competitors. The moment you think you've done enough is the moment someone else passes you."
What I chose, as if I'd had a real choice. But I didn't say that.
"I believe you can do this," she continued, and I heard the unspoken second half—but only if you commit completely. "You have the talent and the training. What you need is focus. Whatever is distracting you, you need to let it go. There will be time for everything else after the season ends. Right now, gymnastics has to be your entire world."
"I know."
We talked for a few more minutes about technical details, then she said she needed to sleep. We ended with the same careful affection we always displayed that was real but constrained by years of learned caution.
I stood there after she hung up, feeling more alone than before. The conversation had somehow emphasized rather than bridged the distance between us. Training pressure, weight control—Coach wanted me to lose another kilogram—increasing technical difficulty, online comments questioning whether I was just a "trust fund gymnast" packaged by Beaumont money rather than earning my place on merit. Everything piling up, crushing me under expectations I couldn't meet no matter how hard I tried.
I looked out at the darkness, wrapping my arms around myself, and whispered into the empty air, "Uncle," barely above a breath, not expecting an answer, just needing to say his name aloud, to acknowledge the absence that had been shaping my days for two weeks.