Dream Girl

"I can't... I can't stay for very long. ESPN is getting people in for interviews. It's a whole thing. Mine is in, like, an hour."

"A thing about Paige?"

"Well yeah. I mean she..." Dani smiled and shook her head. "She's, like, the only athlete to ever be the whistleblower on their own doping scandal. Plus that whole thing last year."

Des smiled tightly and looked down. "Don't say too much about that."

"I won't," Dani said. "She didn't really want to tell anyone. She didn't think it was anyone's business but yours and hers."

"Thank you," Des croaked.

"She used to carry around this... this picture. Of you. I remember seeing it in... Raleigh, when we were training. And then I saw it in her locker again in... I can't even remember now."

"Of me?"

"Yeah, it was just this silly picture of you wearing really big shades and putting up the peace sign." Dani mimicked the pose, with her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth and her index and middle fingers extended in a V. "She never went anywhere without it."

"I didn't know that."

Dani smiled and put her hand on Des' knee, and Des started crying all over again. "I didn't know who you were for years. I didn't ask, and there's no way Paige would have said." Des laughed through the tears, snorting. "She was so stubborn."

Des nodded.

"I mean, so stubborn. I wanted to kill her when she gave up her medals because that... that forfeited our team Silver. The next time I saw her, I was ready to... " Dani shook her head. "But she was even more pissed than I was."

"She was stubborn," Des said softly, "but I loved her."

"She told me once that you were the only person more stubborn than she was."

Des broke down. "I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

Des took a moment to wipe at her eyes and shook her head. "I... I didn't really deal with any of this the last few days. I was just... in this..."

Dani nodded, tears in her eyes, too, and waited.

"She was just driving home. She called me right before she left. Wanted to know if I wanted anything from the store. And I just... I just pretended that she made it home."

Dani nodded.

Des looked down and sniffed loudly. "I don't know what I'm going to do now. I mean, she was..."

"She was special," Dani said.

"We were... we met in third grade. Third grade! I didn't just lose a-a-a girlfriend, I lost my childhood friend. My best friend."

"Me too... actually."

Des blinked and swallowed.

"She was..." Dani nodded and smiled, though there were still tears threatening to fall. "Even though we weren't super close,she was... She was the only person I could open up to, you know, if I was scared, or..." They both looked down, processing too many emotions too quickly to manage eye contact. "I should... um... I should get going."

Des looked at the clock. "Oh."

"They... um... they'll want to get me all..." She ran her hand in circles front of her face and smiled. "You know... pretty."

"Okay," Des said weakly.

Dani blinked and licked her lips. "I'm, um... I'm here through the weekend."

"Okay."

"Would you like to... like..."

Des stared back blankly.

Dani took a deep breath and looked down. "I haven't really been living my life, you know? It's been... it's been just gymnastics for so long, and now, with this, I'm just like... I miss her, you know?"

Des nodded. A very small shifting of her head.

"I could really use someone to talk to."

"Okay," Des croaked.

She moved mechanically, standing when Dani did and hugging her goodbye. Her mother swooped in to escort Dani back to the front door, and Des wandered tiredly back to her bed. The accumulated exhaustion was too much to put off any longer, and she gave a quick prayer that her sleep would be dreamless.

//Follow-up note: Votes and comments are dearly appreciated. This is one of seven stories I'll be uploading (hopefully) on successive days. If you liked this, stay tuned and be sure to check out the others!//