You Were Always on My Mind

“Hey Jake! Can you help me with something?” Sammy calls into the house. I walk out of my room and head to the living room where I hear her voice.
“What do you need?” I ask.
“I need someone to spot me on my gymnastics flips so that I don’t hurt myself. I have mats out here, but it’s not enough.”
“I can try and help.”
For twenty minutes I attempt to spot her, but I just do not know what to do with her body and how exactly to flip her.
“Ummm this isn’t really working. Want me to give you a ride to that little gymnastics place in Port Angeles?”
“That would be great,” Sammy says. She puts the matts back in the shed then we get into Henry’s car and drive off to Port Angeles. Sammy sips on her water the whole ride trying to rehydrate from our failed attempt at gymnastics. Once we reach the small gym, Sammy is greeted by almost all of the instructors.
“You’re in luck, it’s free open gym tonight,” the front office lady informs Sammy with a grin.
“Thanks Robin. How have things been around here?” Samantha asks, giving Robin her full attention.
“We’ve been doing really well this year thanks. Are you going to volunteer here again this summer. The kids and the parents love you. Ian can retrain you and catch you up on all the names.”
“I think I can make time to do it again, but for tonight I need to get this guy to learn how to spot me. Jacob, this is Robin. Robin, this is Jacob.”
“Pleased to meet you. Maybe if you’re a quick learner you could help out too. Work alongside Samantha maybe so that you have someone who really knows gymnastics.” Robin suggests.
“That sounds like fun. You wouldn’t mind me joining, would you Sammy?” I ask.
“No, it would be super fun. Plus you can hold more weight than I can so that would be super helpful,” Sammy assures me.
“Just tell me how he does Samantha,” Robin says.
We walk into the gym and Sammy is greeted by even more people. I think I’ve been here a few times before to watch her practice and to pick her up from work last summer, but that’s it.
“Hey Ian! Do you have a class right now?” Sammy asks this muscular tall guy, I get slightly jealous but remember that he’s here to help me.
“Not for another hour; what do you need?” Ian asks.
“Well I wanted someone who can spot me at home and I was hoping that you could teach Jacob here. Plus, he may be my little assistant when I start working here again,” Sammy informs him.
“I can definitely do that. Jacob seems to have a lot of potential strength wise,” Ian comments.
Sammy makes me start with the basics like spotting on a cartwheel, then a backhandspring. These are super easy to do since Sammy has perfected these moves. Next we work on spotting back tucks which is very difficult. She’s not exactly a fan of these either, but seems to do them right. Randomly, we are interrupted by little kids or staff members greeting her.
“You really need to support their weight and touching their lower back is usually the best way to support them and flip them,” Ian informs me. He places my hand on the lower of Sammy’s back. We practice spotting back tucks more this way and it’s a lot easier for me to maneuver her. When it comes to the moves that Sammy really needs help on, Ian does all of the spotting. I stand off to the side, trying not to get in the way and watching in amazement all of the things that Sammy can do.
“Hey Samantha, can you come over here and show Casey how to do a certain set of a bar routine,” one of the coaches call out while he walks toward her.
“Definitely!” Sammy answers then turns to me, “care to join me and watch?”
“Of course,” I respond. She takes my hand in hers and leads me through the gymnasts, to the bars. The coach, whose name I learn is Eric, explains the routine and Sammy nods listening to all he says carefully.
“Need me to spot or do you think you have it?” Eric asks.
“I ended high school gymnastics three months ago and haven’t really been to the gym so you might want to stand by near, but I shouldn’t need a spotter,” Sammy answers. She puts on the grips, applies some chalk and gets on the bars. I watch as she easily goes from move to move, bar to bar. I am in complete awe and I bet my mouth is hanging open the whole time.
“Lauren, do you want me to go through it again?” Sammy asks the gymnast who was watching her in deep concentration.
“No, I think I got it. I just really needed to see hand placement,” Lauren states.
“Hey Sammy, do you mind helping me with a floor routine since I know thats your specialty,” another gymnasts asks.
“Definitely Taylor,” Sammy says following Taylor. “Jake just stand behind the white line or even off of the floor and you’ll be fine.”
I watch as Taylor performs first insisting that it just doesn’t feel like it’s flowing right. She takes Sammy step by step through the routine, and she learns fast enough. She adds a few moves, a few flips, and takes some of the easier ones out.
“You’re a really good gymnast, but I think you’re relying too much on the basics because you feel comfortable there. You need to step out of your comfort zone and it’ll flow a lot better.”
Sammy goes through the routine twice with the music playing to see if she needs to add any more. In the end, she has very few things to add and even fewer to take out. She goes through the routine with Taylor and Taylor is exuberant about the routine.
“It’s perfect, thanks so much!” Taylor exclaims hugging Sammy.
“Anytime, I’m going to try and be around most of summer.”
Sammy walks back toward me and now its open gym. We goof around with some of the other instructors and kids. The guy instructors actually teach me a few things and help me learn how to instruct and spot kids. Sammy, of course, is my practice dummy but she seems completely content doing all of the flips. In the end, they all tell me that I should definitely work with Sammy. We end up practicing with a few kids at open gym.
“Good teamwork,” Sammy comments as we get back into Henry’s car. I am completely exhausted and Sammy has signed us up for every day this week to help so I can get enough practice, but this time it’ll just be working with kids instead of completely goofing off.
Once we get back to the house, Sammy convinces me to stay up and watch movies with her. I go home first and change into my PJs then find Sammy in the extra room. She has all of her favorites out on the coffee table. We curl up on the couch like old times. I quickly fall asleep, exhausted from all of the hard work. I wake up in the middle of the night to a bright black screen and Sammy curled up against me. I gently move her, turn off the TV, and readjust on the couch then fall back asleep with Sammy perfectly fitted between the couch and myself.
~~~~Next Day~~~~
I wake up alone in Sammy’s guest room and hear chatter from the kitchen. I get up and walk over to the kitchen seeing Alex, Sammy, and Tim talking.
“You knocked out last night,” Sammy comments greeting me with a smile.
“You tired me out with gymnastics,” I accuse her.
“Jacob, your dad stopped by looking for you. He just wanted to let you know that,” Tim informs me.
“Breakfast?” Sammy offers.
“Of course,” I answer.
We spend most of our morning hanging out; Sammy, Alex, and I. Alex teaches me some more moves on spotting since he’s worked with Sammy a lot. Around 3 o’clock, we head over to Port Angeles to the small gym. This time, everyone from yesterday greets me as well.
“Samantha you can work with the beginners from 4:30-6:00 with Jacob,” Robin informs us. We head over with one of the binders and wait for the kids to line up. A few of the kids remember Sammy and seem very excited to be in the class with her.
“Okay you guys, follow us to the big trampoline for warm-ups,” Sammy instructs them. We head to the big trampoline and Sammy shows the kids what she wants them to do. The kids listen for the most part.
“Aren’t they just so cute?” Sammy whispers in my ear smiling as she watches them do straddle, tuck, pike jumps.
“They sure are,” I say watching the smile on her face and in her eyes.
Sammy lets the kids have some free time on the big trampoline to do as they want. Some want to try back handsprings, while others want to try front tucks. Since they are all small, Sammy takes care of spotting them. Next, we head over to the the long trampoline, preferably called the tumble track according to Sammy. The kids are instructed to do cartwheels and round-offs and Sammy makes me show them the moves. Luckily she made me practice them last night so I had an idea of what to do.
“Look how his hands face toward each other when he does a cartwheel. It helps him push off with his right hand to get back up,” Sammy points out.
We move on to the big floor after about twenty minutes of the tumble track. The kids do similar stuff that they did on the trampoline here. Sammy puts out mats and lets the kids do different things at each station. She makes some kids work on cartwheels, while others work on handstands. She puts me to work with the more advanced students who need to be spotted on back handsprings. I help them on what looks like Pac-Man. They sit on Pac-Man’s mouth and push off so that their hands hit the ground and they push their feet over.
When we finish with the beginners, we are placed with the more advanced class. Practice for them begins with jumps that are much more complex and well done. Next, they do back handsprings all by themselves, except for the ones who crazily toss themselves over. Sammy spots those kids and almost gets hit in the face a few times. While Sammy has a handle on everything, Ian calls me over to help me with spotting tricks.
“So are you and Sammy dating?” Ian asks nonchalantly, but smiling.
“Nope,” I reply hoping that this will end the conversation. I glance over at Sammy and watch as she shows a girl how to do a front tuck correctly.
“Well you should ask her out, before you miss the chance,” Ian suggests following my gaze. “She’s a pretty special girl.”
“Yes she is,” I whisper, but I can tell that he hears me. He drops the subject and goes back to helping me with gymnastics.
The next group of kids come in, most of them are young boys in our group. Sammy works really well with the younger girls and the boys seem to like me. The guys trail behind me as I lead them to the beam. Sammy shows them on the highest beam what she wants from the girls. Ian helps me work with the guys on the rings. Ian even lets me try to do some moves, but I fall on my butt quite a few times. After this class, we are completely done with gymnastics for the day and I am very sore. I watch as Ian spots Sammy on a few moves and we jump into the pit from the rope in the ceiling a few times. We head back to my house tonight. Sammy and I pick some more movies to watch. This time, we watch more action movies and I don’t fall asleep first. When Sammy falls asleep halfway through Rush Hour, I carry her back home.
“I’ll help you,” Alex tells me. He opens the door for me and takes care of Sammy once I put her on her bed.
“So how have your past two days together been?” Alex asks once we leave the room.
“It’s been fun, I’ve never done gymnastics before,” I answer, “spotting is hard.”
“It gets easier. She made me go to that gymnastics place with her a few times, but it wasn’t really my thing.”
“I like it a lot more than I thought I would.”
“Do you like gymnastics or the opportunity to be with Sammy?”
“You know it’s both, you don’t have to bring it up so often,” I respond shoving Alex playfully.
“Just kiss her. She rejected Nick for a reason, she wants you.”
“Want to help me with the car? It’s only 10.” I say avoiding the subject.
“Why not.”
We head to my garage and work on the car for about an hour then call it a night.
“You spent the night over at Samantha’s yesterday,” my dad states, “and yet you won’t ask her out?”
“I just don’t want to scare her away.”
“But you may never get the chance if you keep waiting.”
“I’ve been told.”
“Then do something about it.”
“I’ll try.”