Jack found herself wrapped in Darren’s arms the next morning, their bodies pressed tight against each other for warmth in the cold morning air. Her fingers ruffled through his hair as he peacefully slept beside her. She kissed his cheek and rolled out of bed to get ready for the competition. Her right side still throbbed with pain, but she ignored it thinking that a few pills would solve the problem. Jack unwrapped the onion mix and stepped into the shower. The lump below her ribcage had grown smaller, but that didn’t mean it hurt less. Every drop of water made her cringe.
‘When is this going to end?’ Jack asked herself. She stepped out of the shower then dried off and dressed in her most comfortable pair of jeans and white competition jersey. As she walked back into her room to find Darren still sleeping, she realized that last night had not been as bad as she thought it would be. Just as he had promised, he had been very gentle with her.
Jack badly wanted to wake him and talk to him, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Darren looked so sweet lying in bed with the covers drawn almost completely over his head. Instead, she bent over and kissed his cheek again before slipping out of the house from the fire escape. Jack ran back upstairs after stashing it in the back of the car and wrote him a note telling him where she was, how to get there, and where to park. She also left her spare backstage pass just in case he needed it.
The day had started out well for Jack as she drove down the highway towards the arena. With the windows rolled down and P.O.D. blasting on the stereo system, she parked in the lot reserved for the competitors and walked into the registration tent.
‘Son of a bitch,’ Jack thought the second she saw Seth standing at one of the tables flirting with a receptionist. She tried to slip into one of the other lines, but only ended up getting spotted.
“Well, well, well…” Seth said as he walked over to her. “If it isn’t Jack Jones, my number one opponent.” He towered above her with his 6’5” body and deep blue spiked hair.
“What do you want, Seth?” Jack replied as she stood before him in line. She cringed just looking at him and his several piercings, the one on his lip and his eyebrow, and the three in his ears.
“Nothing,” he snidely replied. “I just wanted to talk to you, that’s all. What’s wrong with having a conversation with your ex-girlfriend?”
“Maybe because I am your ex-girlfriend,” she retorted, stepping up to the table and quickly filling out her papers. Seth was still standing near her when she finished and began walking with her towards her assigned tent.
“How convenient,” he added. “We’re right beside each other.”
Jack gave him an angry glance and walked into the tent, dropping her stuff to the ground in blind hatred. Seth walked in with her. “Look, I know you want something. What is it?” she nearly yelled.
“I want to make a little wager,” he calmly replied, his dark blue-green eyes twinkling.
“Go on.”
“We both know we’re too good to be competing against each other. My wager is whoever loses in the competitions must leave the sport.”
“Parameters?”
“Since we’re both entered in the same competitions, one of us has to win at least three in order to win the bet. If there’s a tie, then we’ll settle this another way. And once it’s over, everything is final.”
“No cheating!” Jack sternly replied.
“No cheating,” Seth promised as he stuck out his hand. They shook and he left without a word.
Jack ran her fingers through her hair. This was the first bet she knew she had to win or else it meant her whole life. She sat down on a chair in one of the corners contemplating what she would do if she lost and couldn’t compete anymore. ‘At least I can still do it for fun. Hey, I can move out to New York and compete out there,’ she thought.
“Jack?” came a voice from outside the tent. She looked up to see Darren standing at the entrance trying to get her attention.
“Daz!” she replied. “Come in.”
“I got breakfast if you haven’t already eaten.” He set two coffees and a brown bag on the table inside.
“Starbucks. You rock!” Jack took one of the coffees and sipped it slowly. “What is this?”
“Fat free latte,” Darren answered. “Sorry if you don’t like it.”
“No, it’s great. Thank you so much. I needed the energy boost.”
An uneasy silence encased them. Jack knew what Darren wanted to talk about. She had also been thinking about it since the moment she woke up. ‘What should I say to him about last night? It was a mistake?’ she wondered.
“How are you feeling?” Darren finally spoke.
“I’m good. A little nervous, but otherwise okay,” Jack said.
“I mean…” he began.
“Oh,” she replied, looking down. “About last night…”
“It was a mistake,” Darren finished. “I know. I’ve heard that line many times, but last night truly was a mistake and I want to apologize for taking advantage of you at a time when you really needed a friend. I’m sorry, Jack.”
“It’s okay,” she nearly wept. Jack stood up and wrapped her arms around him.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
“Because you’re so sweet about these kinds of things. I was just talking to Seth and he had to be so rude about it,” Jack said as she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.
“What did he do to you? I swear, if he did anything to hurt you, I’d kill him,” Darren angrily replied.
“It was nothing. We just made a stupid bet.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because the loser would have to leave the sport.” Darren slowly nodded, uncertain about what she was trying to tell him. “You see, if I lost, I’d never be able to compete. I love competing. What’s life if you can’t do the things you love? Meaningless. That’s how my life would be.”
Darren gently lifted Jack’s chin and kissed her. “You’ll win,” he whispered into her ear as he pulled away and walked out of the tent.
Jack stood there smiling as she watched Darren stride towards the grandstand. Suddenly, she heard the loud buzzer in the distance indicating that all competitors had ten minutes to get to the skateboarding ramp before the first competition. She dug through her pile of stuff and pulled out her skateboard then headed straight for the ramp.
Darren found his way to the VIP section near the front row and sat down. He quickly spotted Jack in her silky whiter jersey and helmet and waved to her. She waved back. The skateboarding competition started promptly at 9:00.
Jack was the third to go, Seth being placed first. She watched his every move and made sure she didn’t make the same mistakes he did when her turn was up. She nervously climbed the ramp ten minutes later and quickly jumped off to keep her nerves from getting to her. In her mind, she had done everything possible to get a perfect score. To the seven judges sitting near the center of the ramp, she had done better than anyone before her. “10, 10, 9.9, 9.9, 10, 9.9, 10,” the announcer called out.
Seth glared at her as she walked down the ramp and headed to her tent. Jack quickly grabbed her roller blades and began to put them on as someone walked up to the entrance of her tent. She looked up to see Dan shyly looked inside. She gestured for him to step inside.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” Jack said as she kept lacing up her blades.
“I didn’t think I was coming either, but I wanted to talk to you about what happened last night,” Dan replied.
“I’m listening,” she answered, slumping back in her chair as she finished with her laces.
“I was very angry last night about seeing you with Darren. I didn’t like the fact that my cousin was kissing my best friend,” he explained. “I couldn’t stop myself when my rage hit the boiling point and I lashed out.”
“No shit.” Jack sarcastically shot back. “Do you have any idea of what you did to me?” She lifted up her jersey to shot him the lump that was still prominent on her abdomen. Dan covered his mouth with his hand as he stared at her in shock. “Because of you, I might not have been able to compete today. You and your brotherly instincts have caused me so much stress in the last few days that I have barely been able to grab a hold of my sanity. Darren has been my lifeline for the last sixteen hours. And if you haven’t already guessed, we are really beginning to like each other. That might not be music to your ears, but you haven’t seen the torture that my last few boyfriends put me through.”
“I’m trying to keep you from getting hurt again,” Dan yelled.
“Don’t you see?” she screamed back. “You’re only hurting me more! By keeping me away from Darren, you’re causing me more trouble. He has been nothing but a gentleman. I have never had that in a relationship. All the other guys I went out with always took advantage of me and did things that I really didn’t like. You wanna know the real reason Seth and I broke up? He stole the money I needed for college and he hit me. The one fight we got into where he physically abused me was our last. After that, I broke up with him. I never wanted to see him again. Do you see why Darren is so important to me?”
“You are not going out with him,” Dan stubbornly answered as he walked out of the tent and towards the grandstand.
“You know what! I don’t give a flying fuck about what you say because I’m going to keep seeing him!” Jack yelled at him. She ran out of her tent as the buzzer rang and headed to the ramp. In her distracted state, she didn’t notice Seth sneaking into her tent. Instead, Jack skated her way towards the grandstand to her next competition. She knew she’d be waiting a while, but it helped in calming her down. By the time Seth finished his round, Jack had cooled off significantly. Unfortunately, a few moments later she decided to look up at the grandstand and saw Dan taking a seat beside Darren. Her rage grew again, and she did horrible in the skating competition placing almost dead last with three falls.
Jack had had enough. As soon as she walked off the ramp, she pointed to Dan and Darren, gesturing to them that she wanted to see them both. The three of them met in the tent a few minutes later, dead silence enveloping them all.
“I have had it up to here with both of you!’ Jack finally yelled as she held her hand up to her chin. “I can’t take it anymore. This is driving me nuts! Darren, I really, really like you, but if Dan is going to go spazstick every time I kiss you, then I can never see you again. Dan, I know you love me, and you want to protect me, but if you’re going to keep telling me how to live my life, then I never want you visiting me again.” Dan and Darren glanced at each other. “I want both of you to apologize to each other, then to me.”
Darren shrugged and immediately said, “Dan, I’m sorry.”
It took Dan a little while longer to make up his mind, but he finally responded, “Sorry, Darren.”
Jack let out a sigh of relief. A huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She turned to Dan and gave him a hug. “I’m sorry, Jack I promise I’ll never do this again,” he whispered into her ear.
The buzzer sounded again telling Jack that she had no more time left. “Come on, I want you guys to have the best seat in the house for the next competition. I’m going to make the best comeback in history,” she confidently said as she walked out of her tent with her bike in hand. Darren came up beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Instead of going to the ramp, they headed towards a large rink full of dirt mounds.
“Here we go,” Jack added, stepping into the rink and hearing the crowd go wild.
“Good luck!” Dan hollered as he turned towards the benches behind the steel fence around the rink.
Darren stayed a few minutes longer. He took Jack’s hand and squeezed it. “You’re going to kick ass,” he told her. She pulled him close and kissed him. “Good luck.” Darren walked off in the same direction as Dan leaving Jack in the middle of the dirt track to get ready. She was up in a minute and couldn’t wait to show everyone what she was made of.
Meanwhile, Dan sat on the bench watching his cousin as she stepped up to the starting line. Her face seemed tense as she moved her bike into position on the high mound. Her hands gripped the handlebars so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. She was nervous.
Dan knew his cousin wasn’t the type of person to chicken out of something she had been doing all her life. He knew Jack had always loved stunt riding, but today something was wrong. Dan could see it written all over her face. Was it because of her recent loss to Seth earlier that day in the roller blading competition? He didn’t know.
Darren sat beside him oblivious to Jack’s tension. He didn’t know her like Dan did. He couldn’t just look at her and see the fear in her eyes. Dan was ready to stand up and call out to her, but the buzzer sounded starting her time.
Jack flew down the ramp with incredible speed. She seemed almost weightless as she jumped over a small hill and towards the ground. Her confidence was beginning to come back as she rode through the course with amazing speed. Jack jumped over another round of hills and ramps until she finally reached the pinnacle of the track, a six-foot high ramp in which she had to perform a series of stunts from in a single round.
Dan knew the routine. He had gone through it with Jack several times the day before. He had been convinced that she had it down pat, but was now a little uneasy by the way she had started the course.
Jack sped up the side of the ramp and flew about 25 feet up into the air. It was then that Dan realized why she had been so nervous. The moment Jack had flown off the ramp, the chain of her bike snapped and whipped around, causing her to spiral out of control back towards the ground at a horrifying rate.
Dan and Darren both stood up and began running down the length of the fence to where the opening was. Seconds later, the say Jack smash into the packed dirt, her bike falling on top of her. Without thinking, Dan scaled the fence that held back the spectators and ran to his cousin’s side.
Jack lay motionless on the ground, her body a mangled mess of blood and bones. The side of her helmet was cracked indicating that the fall had probably knocked her unconscious. Cautiously, Dan gently slid the helmet off her head to reveal a blood laceration on the left side of her skull. The soft satiny lining of the inside of her helmet was stained red and Dan instantly knew that she needed medical attention.
It was at that moment he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders pulling him away for Jack’s side. He tried pushing away from them, but only ended up getting pulled back even further away from the people who had begun to gather around her.
“Jack!” Dan called out. He tried loosing the grip of the hands on his shoulders, but it was no use. He turned around to see it was Darren trying to hold him back.
“Don’t worry,” he somberly said. “The paramedics are here.”