#trials

Trials were everything you’d worked for your whole life growing up hanging from low bars in your hometown gym with crooked hangbags that smelled like dust and melted rubber. Trials were every 4 years but every single year in between consisted of pressure and injuries and fear and unsustainable discipline that could make or break your career. One miss, one misstep, one slip could end it all before you even began.

He knew all of that. He listened to it in your voice the late nights when you lied and told him you weren’t afraid. When you made jokes about how beam was “literally just a four inch wide piece of wood” but both of you knew it scared you more than any football field ever could.

He told you he couldn’t be there. OTAs. Meetings. Deadlines. He always sounded both annoyed and accepting when football needed everything from him again. You told him you understood, and you really did, but when you hung up you kicked your legs up against the headboard and pictured searching the crowd until you couldn’t find him and landed your biggest skill and having no one who really knew you watch you do it in person.

You shoved that thought aside. You couldn’t afford to think about things that probably wouldn’t even happen right before the biggest meet of your life.

The arena was louder than you expected. Flags hung above, cameras followed every move, and the crowd’s excitement made your skin tingle. You sat on the floor stretching with your headphones on, staring at the beam, trying to memorize every part of it. Your coach spoke next to you, but her voice faded into the background, lost in your heartbeat and the noise in your mind.

You checked your phone one last time before lineup, your hands shaking slightly as you opened his message from earlier.

Go be great. I’ll be watching. Always.

You smiled, slipped your phone away, and stood up.

You didn’t notice him when you walked out for introductions. When the announcer said your name and the crowd cheered. When you saluted the judges and stepped onto the beam. You were too focused on not letting your knees lock, on keeping your breathing steady. Pretending this was just another practice.

It wasn’t until you mounted the beam and let your eyes flick up for a split second that you saw him.

He was sitting a few rows up from the floor, his baseball cap pulled low and sunglasses on, trying and failing to blend in with the gymnastics parents and fans in patriotic shirts. You recognized him instantly—the way he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, the way his jaw tightened when he was nervous, the posture you had memorized from watching him on the sidelines of his own games.

Your breath hitched, it felt like your heart was in your ass, you almost lost your balance.

He wasn’t supposed to be here.

For a moment, the world tilted, your vision blurred, and you thought you might step off before you even started, but then he looked up and met your eyes and gave you that small nod he always gave you before kickoff, that silent you’ve got this that grounded you more than any breathing technique ever could.

He was here. He chose to be here.

You lifted your arms and started your routine.

Everything else faded. The skills came out of muscle memory—back handspring, layout step-out, switch leap, side aerial—your body moving through the air the way it had thousands of times in practice, but this time it felt different, like the air itself was holding you up. You felt fear, adrenaline, pride, and something close to peace all at once.

You stuck your dismount.

The applause hit you like a wave, but you barely heard it. Your coach hugged you, your teammates screamed, and your hands trembled as you saluted, but all you could think about was him. You searched the stands again and saw him standing, clapping, smiling in that quiet, almost shy way he had when he was genuinely proud of you.

You felt like your chest might burst.

You found him later in a quiet hallway away from cameras and athletes, tucked near a loading dock where the noise was muted. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking too calm for someone who had just shown up unannounced at the biggest meet of your life.

“You lied,” you said, walking up to him with a half-laugh, half-accusation, your adrenaline still buzzing through you.

He smiled like he’d been waiting for that. “I didn’t lie, I just… strategically withheld information, which I’m pretty sure is allowed in relationships when the end result is a surprise that doesn’t involve a birthday cake.”

“I thought you had OTAs,” you said, still stunned, still trying to make sure he was actually real and not a stress-induced hallucination.

“I did,” he replied, pushing off the wall and stepping closer, “but I told them I had a family thing, and before you correct me, I’ve already decided that you absolutely qualify as a family thing, so don’t argue with me on that.”

You laughed, but your throat tightened. “You flew all this way just for this weekend?”

He shrugged, but his eyes were serious. “Yeah, because you’ve been chasing this since you were a kid, and football can survive one weekend without me, but Olympic Trials only happen every four years, and I wasn’t missing you walking out there and doing what you’ve worked your entire life for.”

You stared at him, taking in the exhaustion on his face, the faint travel lines under his eyes, the sincerity that never felt rehearsed, and suddenly you felt more overwhelmed than you had on the beam.

“You have no idea how much I wanted you here,” you said quietly, your voice cracking despite your best effort to keep it steady.

He reached for your hands, chalk dust still clinging to your palms, and held them like they were something fragile and important. “And you have no idea how much I wanted to be here, because I’m tired of watching your life through a screen and pretending that’s enough when it’s not.”

He lifted your chin gently so you had to look at him. “I see you, not just the medals and the routines and the interviews, but you, the person who texts me at 2 a.m. about beam drills and sends me videos asking if a landing looked crooked, and you were incredible out there, like genuinely incredible.”

You swallowed hard. “You’re not supposed to make me emotional before vault, that’s like rule number one of elite gymnastics relationships.”

He laughed softly. “I didn’t get that memo, and honestly, I think you’re better when you’re emotional, because you’re terrifyingly good when you care this much.”

You stayed there for a while, hidden from the chaos, two people who lived under constant pressure, finally in a quiet corner of the world.

“Parallel tracks,” he murmured, brushing his thumb over your knuckles. “But I guess sometimes they intersect, and sometimes they’re actually running toward the same finish line.”