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"Can you sleep?" McKayla asks. She's been trying for like an hour, seriously. Well, it had been twenty-five minutes last time she checked her phone, and that was just before she opened her mouth, but that's not the point. Tossing and turning is not good for her. Or her hair. There's only so long she can spend working out the knots in there before she hollers for someone to take over for her. That's usually Kyla, because of the sharing a room thing, so really McKayla's doing this for her. "I can't sleep. Are you sleeping?"
A muffled groan comes from the other side of the room, and then Kyla slurs something that could be anything from leave me alone to what do you want?
McKayla chooses to ignore it. She peers over the edge of her sheet, but she can barely tell Kyla's hair from her pillow, so she settles on her back again and lets her head fall with a puff. "Kyla," she whispers. Maybe she drags out the word a little. Kyla usually acknowledges whining.
"Shut up," Kyla groans. Her mattress squeaks, and her sheets rustle. Score.
"Kyla, we won team gold."
Kyla grunts, but it's clearly a defeated grunt, because when she says, "Shut up," it doesn't sound like she means it. The squeaking and rustling get louder, too, so McKayla reminds Kyla again that they won team gold, and before she has a chance to shield her eyes, a switch clicks and the room lights up.
"Ow." She covers her face with her arm, but it's too late to avoid the first glare from Kyla's bedside lamp.
"You deserved that." Kyla still sounds a bit sleepy, but when McKayla lifts her elbow high enough to get a look at her, Kyla's smiling. "We did win team gold," Kyla says, and her grin grows wider, and McKayla forgets about the light long enough to wince again when she bounces up into a sitting position. It's not enough to put her off letting out a deep, happy squeal, her hair flying around as she flails, because she has a gold medal. God, it's never going to get old.
Kyla's laughing when McKayla opens her eyes, her eyebrows slightly raised and her grin trembling as though she doesn't know whether to join in McKayla's ridiculousness, mock it, or simply sit back and let McKayla get it out of her system.
"I was sleeping, you know." Kyla looks pretty gleeful for someone who's complaining.
"I know," McKayla says in the most serious tone she can manage, all while she flings her sheet over itself and kicks it off her feet. She draws her knees up and leans against the headboard, looking at Kyla. "I don't know how they expect us to go to sleep after that."
"It is three in the morning," Kyla points out. It's true.
It's also true that they should be exhausted, and at some point McKayla's sure her body will crash, and then her sleep schedule will go back to normal with plenty of time to prepare for event finals. Sleep deprivation will probably carry her through watching the all-around, plus it's not like she could just sit there and not care while Aly and Gabby are competing and Jordyn is sulking and pretending she's already okay with the fact that her worldview kind of just tilted on its axis. Which, whatever works for her, McKayla will support completely, and it looks like what's working for Jordyn is focusing on the fact that both Gabby and Aly have a fantastic chance at medaling. It is really a pretty impressive choice of coping mechanism, go Jordyn.
Go Gabby and Aly, too.
A little voice in the back of her mind screams, Team gold! With multiple exclamation points and all caps.
There is clearly way too much energy in her body right now. If she could, she'd do Amanar after Amanar, just to burn it off, but her body probably wouldn't take well to that, what with the injury and all.
She slides off her bed and jumps onto Kyla's, startling her into a gasp. "Let's sneak into the gym," she says, low but full of intent, conspiratorial.
Kyla looks at her with a blank expression. "It's three in the morning."
McKayla groans loudly as she pushes Kyla aside with her butt so she can sit cross-legged without falling off the narrow hotel bed. "Killjoy," she says, and pokes Kyla in the thigh with a finger.
"There is something wrong with you," Kyla says, and pokes her back.
McKayla snorts. "Yeah, you. You won't come to the gym with me. Or we could go for a run! Or a swim, but the pools are probably closed by now." She sticks her bottom lip out in a sad pout.
Kyla lets out a laugh. "Yeah, probably." Her chest rises and falls with a breath, and then she slowly sits up, her knee knocking against McKayla's as she folds her legs under herself. "We can go early tomorrow, though. Get some of that manic out before you do something crazy."
"Like what?"
"I don't know," Kyla says, shrugging lightly, "like throw a firecracker at AA finals tomorrow or hit on a swimmer or something. Or like try to speak Russian again. I don't think you should do that."
"I would never," McKayla says with a hand on her chest.
"That would be a lot more believable if you weren't touching your boob." Kyla tries to grasp McKayla's wrist, but McKayla twists it so she can grab Kyla's hand instead, their fingers tangling together against her shirt. She scrunches up her nose childishly.
Instead of laughing, Kyla glances down at their hands, her lips parted and her eyes narrowed in—curiosity, or confusion, or something else that McKayla suspects starts with a C. She doesn't let go, and neither does McKayla.
Then Kyla blinks, looks up, and McKayla kisses her.
It's soft and careful, tentative, a flat touch of their lips. McKayla does it again, kisses Kyla's bottom lip, waits for a reaction while their noses brush each other, breathing a little too fast to call what McKayla did an accident or the way Kyla's responding unaffected. All Kyla actively does, though, is idly stroke McKayla's knuckles with her thumb, which isn't exactly what McKayla was hoping for. Or what she'd have been hoping for if she'd been hoping for something—she's nearly as surprised as Kyla is, surprised that she took this step, surprised that she wanted to.
But she did, and now she knows she wanted more than this.
"I'm sorry," Kyla says when McKayla pulls back, and McKayla's not even sure what Kyla's apologizing for. Not kissing back? Not wanting McKayla at all?
McKayla forces herself to grin and shake it off. "What for? It's cool. It's not, like, a big deal or anything." It can't be a big deal if she hadn't even realized she wanted to kiss Kyla this much before. That she wanted to kiss Kyla enough to actually do it.
She digs her fists into the mattress and bounces off of Kyla's bed. If there's a chance to save this from total friendship-ruining awkwardness, by god McKayla will take it.
"I just need to think about that," Kyla says, still sounding like she's apologizing.
"Sure," McKayla says. She bounces on her bed when she sits down. "It's fine. It doesn't have to be weird." This is probably where she should say— "I know this is probably where I should say that I didn't mean that, or that it was an accident or something, but. It wasn't. I mean, if I just totally freaked you out, at least I want things to be clear."
The corner of Kyla's mouth turns up into a smile that looks awful grim from where McKayla's standing. "Okay. Thanks for... explaining."
McKayla nods, and reaches for the bedside table. "Let's just go to sleep," she says, and switches off the lamp.
*
McKayla has really just two options here: act like nothing happened or be an asshole about it and pushy and not give up until Kyla decides she can't take it anymore and she can't even stay friends with McKayla. So McKayla picks the former, to an extent.
"Pass me the toothpaste?" she says, walking blearily into their shared bathroom, where Kyla's already spreading body lotion over her arms. Kyla takes a moment longer than usual in handing McKayla her toiletries bag, but there's nothing else weird about it. Except maybe the silence. "About yesterday—"
"It's okay," Kyla says.
"I know it's okay," McKayla snaps, and that's the thing that gets Kyla to look at her. "Look, I'm not going to do—what I did again. Not without permission." Kyla opens her mouth, and McKayla has a feeling she's going to hear an I know, but Kyla's lips close before any words come out. "Ugh, I know I've made this super weird, I just don't want it to be weird because we didn't talk about it."
"I'm not sure what there is to talk about," Kyla says softly. "I mean, I'm not sure what I think, yet."
"Neither do I?" McKayla tries, but the thing is, she does know what she thinks. She makes quick decisions; she's always been more impulsive than Kyla, and a lot more likely to stick with her first thought and not second-guess every little detail. Standing in this weirdly clean hotel bathroom, all she wants to do is take a step forward, grab the string of Kyla's sweatpants and pull her closer, so close she can smell Kyla's shampoo and the moisturizer she uses on her face, so close she can back her against the counter and kiss her until Gabby starts banging on the door because they have to go.
There's nothing else on her mind, nothing else good. Everything else is a worst-case scenario: Kyla not only saying no but becoming awkward around McKayla, or deciding she needs a break, or that she can't be best friends with someone who's only a few more hours of pain away from accepting she may well be falling in love with her. She can't imagine not loving Kyla, and if she loves Kyla, and she wants her, then—
"You don't have to feel bad," McKayla says. "Like, if you want to say no or whatever. You can say it. We've been best friends forever, I'm not going to stop loving you just because—" She shrugs wildly, not knowing how to phrase the end of that sentence, not sure she phrased the beginning right. "Well, I'm not."
"You don't have to be super stoic about this," Kyla says. "I know it's—I know I'm not making things easy. I just need to think about it, you know? We have been friends for so long and— I don't know. I just—"
"You need to think about it," McKayla echoes. Kyla responds with a shrug and a shy nod.
"I just need some time." Kyla seems to realize now that she's still carrying her body lotion in one hand and the cap in the other; she closes the bottle and leaves it on the counter, under the mirror. "But I am here. I'm not going anywhere."
Maybe not, McKayla thinks, and she believes Kyla. She believes that Kyla believes that.
But she's also scared it's only true because Kyla's already out.
*
The all-around final is—weird. It's weird for pretty much the whole team. Not bad weird—they're in London, they have two girls going to AAs with a very good chance of medaling, they won team gold—but there's something slightly off anyway from where McKayla's standing. Jordyn spends half of breakfast trying to pump up Aly and make her process that she's made all-around fair and square before she has to go out and compete, which mostly serves to prove why Aly's their team captain. Gabby yawns through two glasses of orange juice and the thieving of Jordyn's muffin, at which point she stops waking up slowly and lights up all of a sudden, sort of like a firework someone just remembered to ignite.
Gabby and Aly leave a while before the rest of them to get ready for competition. A different car picks Jordyn, Kyla and McKayla up later. The ride is kind of boring, Kyla taking in the streets of London as they drive, Jordyn watching Teen Wolf on her iPad, and McKayla listening to music and browsing twitter like that will be enough to ignore the silence in the car. At least when they get to the stands, it's not just the three of them that look like they could slip into a nap at any minute.
It's not even drowsiness. McKayla would be the first to admit she's perfectly awake. This is exciting, and the second the competition starts, she's going to be cheering, they're all going to be cheering and on their feet for Gabby and Aly. They're in London, at the Olympics, and under any other circumstances McKayla would be gossiping like it's her job, but instead she's silent, and Kyla's scrolling through her phone.
It's ridiculous.
Even Jordyn seems to think so. "Is something wrong with you guys?" she asks while the gymnasts competing go to their respective apparatus to begin the first rotation.
"Nothing really," Kyla says so quietly McKayla barely makes it out, and isn't sure Jordyn can.
"I'm kind of nervous for this to start," McKayla says, and it's not a lie. She's excited for her team, and she's nervous for them, and she's nervous because Kyla's distancing herself and she's excited because deep down she really hopes Kyla's taking time to think things through because she wants to say yes.
Because she wants McKayla back.
"Yeah, I get that," Jordyn says, looking down at Aly, who's warming up by the vault runway while Viktoria Komova waits for the all clear.
Then it's Aly's turn, and everything's a little less awkward when they do what they're here for: cheer.
*
On the way back to her room a couple of days later, McKayla bumps into Aly, who's carrying a bag of takeout and looks like her entire purpose in life is to slip into some pajamas and do nothing for the foreseeable future.
Shame about those event finals she qualified for.
"Have you eaten yet?" McKayla says, and Aly looks around midway through sticking her card in the door. Then she glances at her hand.
"Ah," she says, somewhat dazed, "no. I was going to order room service. Nutritionist-approved, of course." She rolls her eyes. "Wanna join me? Jordyn's out and Gabby went to sleep, so."
And that is how McKayla ends up having a second dinner in Jordyn and Aly's room, lounging on their couch, eating Aly's food, and watching their TV. It's all working out great until the food kicks in and Aly looks away from the screen to ask, "Where's Kyla?"
"Not sure," McKayla says.
Aly frowns. "You don't know where Kyla is?"
"We're kind of going through a thing." Understatement of the century, McKayla thinks, but Aly doesn't need to know that. McKayla's not up for one of Aly's break-up wallows today. Or tomorrow, or really any time until the Olympics are over. Besides, it's not like she broke up with anyone. There was nothing to break up. And she and Kyla are still friends.
And there is no reason why Aly should squeak like McKayla just said something scandalous.
"What?" McKayla asks, raising an eyebrow.
"I knew it," Aly says, and the way she presses her lips together contains way too much excitement for McKayla to deal with right now. "You're like, totally into her, aren't you? I told Jordyn but she wouldn't believe me!"
"You told Jordyn?" McKayla gasps, because that's like, the only part of what Aly said that doesn't make her want to toss herself off the couch and bang her head on the rug.
If shoulders could talk, Aly's just now would say duh. "We're best friends; we tell each other everything." She pauses to look around the room like she's taking it in or something, which is ridiculous because it's her room and they've been in London almost a week. "It's probably easier when everything doesn't include 'I have a big fat crush on you,'" Aly says, her seriousness cracking halfway through and giving way to a grin that reaches her eyes and that McKayla has no choice but to smack with a pillow. "Hey, it's not my fault you're totally cuckoo for Kyla. That should be her slogan. Someone should hire her and make that her slogan— Ow!"
McKayla smiles angelically as she brushes imaginary lint off the cloth napkin she hit Aly in the thigh with. "Shut up and eat. You're missing the movie."
Aly twists around until she finds the remote and switches the TV off. "I've been missing the movie since you got all weird when I asked where Kyla was. Do you need to talk?"
"No," McKayla says firmly, her eyes widening.
"Oh, just fess up. Is it because of that guy that asked her out last night? Are you jealous? Because she totally sent him packing, so you shouldn't be."
McKayla frowns and shakes her head because she doesn't even know how to respond to all of this. "I know that. That's not—this has nothing to do with that."
"Okay, so what does it have to do with?" McKayla responds by picking at her fries, and Aly cocks her head. "You know I'm not going to stop until you give me something."
"Ugh," McKayla grumbles.
"You can't even really be jealous if you won't even tell her you're in that race," Aly says. "Like, it's not like she's choosing someone over you, it's not like she knows she can choose you, right? I think she'd totally choose you if she knew."
Aly sounds so earnest and sincere that all McKayla can do is laugh, because Kyla totally knows now, and Kyla hasn't chosen her. Kyla hasn't chosen anybody, but that's not really a consolation. "Actually, you know what you said about best friends?"
"No," Aly says, "what did I—" Realization crosses her face, and her giddiness drains out of her grin in a slow trickle. "When?"
"It doesn't matter," McKayla says. "Can we just eat and watch the movie?"
"But did she say—"
"She needed time to think, okay? I'm giving it to her. Now give me some time to watch a movie and stop freaking out."
Aly's face scrunches up like she's not sure whether to listen to McKayla or just try to comfort her against her will, but they're already doing half of Aly's break-up thing, even if the junk food isn't ice cream and the movie isn't a romantic comedy. McKayla likes explosions better anyway. They're a more efficient distraction.
After a few scary seconds, Aly leans back against the couch and digs into her food. Midway through the movie, she shifts and rests her head on McKayla's shoulder, her arm squeezing between the couch and McKayla's back so Aly can wrap her in a loose hug. McKayla feels like crying for a moment, but then she takes a deep breath, lets it out, and leans into Aly.
*
The thing is that McKayla has a vault final to get ready for, and training goes well, but mostly it goes well because she's done about three million of each of her vaults and everything is fine except for her stupid tibia, which is just going to have to deal. That's what she's worked all year for. She just didn't realize she'd been working all year on this so she could spend her gym time at the freaking Olympics wondering why Kyla was at breakfast when McKayla woke up and why she kept sneaking glances at McKayla downstairs but said all of six words to her, five if you count the 'good' in 'good morning' and the 'good' in 'have a good day' as one.
McKayla tries to reassure herself that all that means is Kyla's really, honestly thinking about—whatever, about what McKayla did and what McKayla wants and about how Kyla feels about those things, feels about McKayla. It means Kyla hasn't run off—not that she could, McKayla guesses, what with being tied to the Olympics and in Europe and all—and it means Kyla isn't brandishing a NOT HERE FOR THAT sign. Yet.
Besides, they're still friendly, mostly. There's usually someone with them, Gabby or Jordyn, or Aly when she doesn't have some other professional-athlete-type commitment, but Kyla doesn't smile or talk any less than usual, and McKayla's known Kyla for a long, long time, a long time where she's had and seized many chances to give Kyla the kind of space McKayla desperately fills when it's her who has it. Because that's what best friends do, know each other inside out and respect the things they know, use them to make life easier and better for each other.
And maybe that's precisely what Kyla's doing: working the knowledge that McKayla likes her like that with her hands, passing it back and forth and kneading it in hopes that it will shape up like an answer or a line of advice, that it will tell her how to use that knowledge to make things better for both McKayla and herself.
That's the optimistic theory. It takes up about ten percent of McKayla's freakout time, the other ninety percent being variations on oh my god I have ruined our friendship forever.
She's still rooming with Kyla, but several afternoons Kyla sneaks into Gabby's room for naps instead. It's not new—Kyla's done that before, claiming Gabby's a lot quieter and actually naps when she says she will—but after the thing that happened, McKayla can't help reading it as a statement. A statement it probably isn't.
Whatever. If the press is allowed to read made-up theories into whatever Jordyn says and whatever Gabby does, then McKayla's allowed to interpret Kyla's behavior a little wildly. At least she actually knows Kyla, even if she doesn't know what exactly is going on in her head right now.
"How are you?" McKayla says, her voice not entirely void of malice, when Kyla steps into their room the evening before the vault final. "I feel like I haven't seen you in ages."
Kyla looks up and says absently, "I'm—fine. I'm good." She closes the door behind her and heads for the dresser, opening a drawer to leave her earrings and watch.
"Are we just never going to talk about this?"
Kyla turns quickly and says, "Of course not. I mean, of course we are. I just thought—" She stops talking suddenly, and McKayla shakes her head questioningly. "I just thought it's the Olympics, you know. It's not over yet."
"Yeah, you don't have to tell me," McKayla says. She means it to sound a lot more cutting than it does. It's hard to talk about getting to compete on vault at the freaking Olympics and not light up a little. Plus McKayla's not looking for a fight; she just wants an explanation.
"I just thought it'd be better if I waited until we get home. So I don't ruin this for you."
McKayla's face falls. "Oh."
Kyla opens her mouth, and it goes wide at the same time as her eyes. "No, no, that's not what I'm saying."
"Then, I mean, wouldn't it be better if you told me now? So I don't have to worry? Is it really going to be a better time after I compete tomorrow? Like, if you're planning to let me down easy, it's still going to hurt, and that would probably go all—" She punches her palm with her fist and rubs her knuckles around to mimic crushing metal. "On my high. And if you wait for after, well, we're going on tour, so might as well get it over with as soon as possible."
A soft breath leaves Kyla's nose. "I hadn't thought of that." She's leaning against the dresser now, her feet shuffling on the floor, her eyes jumping around the room and never staying too long on McKayla.
"Just please get it over with. If you've made a decision or something. Put me out of my misery."
Kyla's face turns determined all of a sudden, much more confident as she stands up straight. "See, the problem is, there is no good time to say anything. If I said it tomorrow, then you might think I wanted to add to the victory high, and if I do it now, then it's going to be like I'm just trying to pump you up for tomorrow, and I don't want you to think that this—this between us has anything to do with the fact that we're out here and everything's kind of crazy. That this is just about us."
"Okay," McKayla says, waiting. "Hang on, you said pump me up." Hope begins to spread over her face, and she lifts herself to her feet, stepping toward Kyla. "Does that mean you're saying yes?"
Kyla bites her lip, bites a shy smile, and nods very, very slightly. "Well, I can't say yes if there's no question. What am I saying yes to?"
"This," McKayla says, using her finger to point back and forth between them.
"I just don't want it to be like, experimenting. I'm pretty sure I do like girls—"
McKayla's jaw drops. "Since when?"
Kyla makes an apologetic face, nose scrunched up and everything. It's adorable. "Couple of months? I wasn't sure how to tell you."
"Uh, how about 'hey, McKayla, guess what I just realized about myself?'"
Kyla laughs and doesn't answer, which in Kyla world means 'that doesn't make enough sense to dignify it with an answer,' and also sometimes, 'god, Mac, you're ridiculous.' McKayla feels herself grin in response, and that alone is an exercise in self-control: what she really wants to do is scream.
"It's not experimenting for me either," McKayla says, because she feels like Kyla needs it pointed out, even though she had thought it would be obvious. McKayla wouldn't risk hurting Kyla, wouldn't risk hurting her best friend, the one person who's been with her all along, hand in hand through this crazy, ridiculous, amazing journey. She couldn't have come up with anything she wanted more than to be with Kyla at the Olympics, to compete alongside her, which seemed like such a pipe dream at the beginning of the year. Now that's happened, and they've medaled, they've won gold, and this—the notion that she'd realize here in London that she wanted more than friendship from Kyla, things other than friendship, and that Kyla would maybe want those things too...
She takes a step forward, putting her close enough to Kyla that their toes—McKayla's bare ones, Kyla's in flats—touch. This is it, isn't it? Here's where she leans in and—
—pulls back.
Kyla's eyes open confusedly—McKayla hadn't even realized they were closed—and she says, "What?"
"I just realized. I took the first step. I think it's your turn now."
Kyla laughs in disbelief, eyes still shining despite herself. "That is such a lie. I just told you..." She trails off, and McKayla cocks her head just to drive her point home. Even though she's pretty sure Kyla's taking her point to mean—well. Things McKayla would rather not analyze. She did kiss Kyla once. And Kyla didn't kiss her back. "This is a terrible decision and I'm going to regret it," Kyla says, still smiling, her eyes still bright. This is routine: this is what Kyla says every time she agrees to go along with something awesome that McKayla's planned.
McKayla knows her part like the palm of her hand. "I'll make it worth your while," she replies, but leaves aside the eyebrow waggling, the exaggerated winking. "Promise," she adds.
"Yeah," Kyla whispers, her hands sliding over McKayla's sides, over her top. "Yeah," she says again, meeting McKayla's eyes, and McKayla can't wait. She just can't.
She leans in, and Kyla rises on her toes. "Team work," McKayla jokes an inch from Kyla's lips.
Kyla tightens her hands on McKayla's ribs, and this time, when McKayla kisses her, she kisses back.