Alex Ko Read Free Page B

just because I’m young, or when they lie to “protect” me. I’d always rather know the truth, and Coach never held back. . . .
    To prepare for getting back on the p-bars, I rubbed fresh chalk onto my hands, which were already sore from an intense workout. Our training sessions were three to four hours long. From the moment we walked in the door to the second we ran gratefully out into the cold night air, Coach worked us. If we were even a minute late, he would make us climb the rope ten times. The ceiling was a good fifty feet up. By the time we were done climbing, our arms and abs burned. And that was before we started warming up, which included push-ups, running, and hundreds of sit-ups. Only then would we actually practice our events!
    Even though it was only February, I was already contacting special summer programs for Olympic hopefuls, because that’s how seriously I took gymnastics. Coach and I were working on a double pirouette, which is when you do a handstand on the bar and then spin around in a circle, shifting your weight carefully so you stay absolutely straight the entire time. The one little complication? You do it all one-handed. I was determined to get it right.
    “Up!” Coach said, and clapped his burly hands. I positioned myself between the bars and piked up to a handstand. Tiny drops of sweat covered my chest and mixed with the chalk dust to form a layer of slick gray mud all over my body.
    Maybe it was the sweat that did it. Maybe my hands were slippery or my arms were just tired from the workout. But as I put all my weight onto my right side and began my pirouette, my arm buckled. I tried to straighten out, to keep my bones stacked neatly so that I wasn’t depending on just my muscles to hold me up, but it was no use.
    “Alex!” I heard Coach yell as I tumbled on top of him. His hands grabbed me, trying to guide me gently to the ground, but I was moving too fast. I careened into the equipment. My right leg slammed hard into the p-bars, and I yelled.
    This wasn’t the first time I’d fallen off a piece of equipment. Accidents are a part of life for any athlete, and I’d even broken a finger once before. But right away I could tell this was different. It hurt like my leg had been immersed in boiling water.
    “Are you okay?” Coach asked. We were sitting on the ground, though I didn’t remember getting there.
    I gritted my teeth and nodded. “I’m fine, Coach.”
    “Training isn’t over!” Coach snapped, sending everyone running back to their equipment. He peeled away the bottom part of my pant leg to reveal a bloody, bruised mess where my right shin used to be. It felt inflamed, like there was a hot-water balloon right beneath my skin. Coach sent an assistant for an ice pack and carefully helped me clean the cut.
    “It’s okay,” he assured me. “It’s good for you to get through this. Gymnastics is all about working through the pain.”
    That might sound crazy to some people, but pain is part of the game. Coach always reminded us about Kerri Strug, who tore two ligaments while vaulting at the ’96 Olympics but continued competing until she literally collapsed. Her team won a Gold Medal thanks to her dedication. Endurance was a virtue we had drilled into us—and one that would come back to haunt me as a dancer years from now.
    So I told Coach I was fine, and he let me sit out the last few minutes of the session. I spent it holding the ice pack to my leg, trying to will the swelling to go down.
    And that’s when I made a big mistake.
    Instead of calling my mom and going to the doctor immediately, I tried to hide it. While everyone else headed to the lockers, I squinted my eyes, looked at my leg, and decided it wasn’t that bad.
    “Work through the pain,” I whispered.
    Even though gymnastics was my main focus, I was still dancing pretty regularly. I wanted to be an Olympian, but dance . . . dance made my soul sing. I couldn’t imagine a life without it. I had to fit