Read Online Blind Landing (Flipped #1) by Carrie Aarons - Free Book Online

poking through the skin than they have. I bet I’ve seen more emergency room visits, fractured spines, premature arthritis and life-altering injuries.
    “I get it, Nat. I do. But you’re fine now. You’re here, on your way to the Olympics. Don’t let the fear control you.” It’s a stupid response, I know because of course you can’t just take the advice to get over your fears. Poof! Someone else says it and you’re not afraid. It doesn’t work like that.
    Those dark aqua orbs, the color of clear blue waters off Bermuda or Aruba find mine. Nat is gripping her honey blond hair tightly. “You don’t understand. I don’t get scared. I’ve never been afraid of anything in this sport. Not for sixteen whole years.”
    My stomach drops as I stare at the vulnerable woman in front of me. She’s a gymnastics unicorn. Fear has never been in her vocabulary. She’s one of the rare of us who can throw skills way outside of her skill range without so much as a thought.
    “That’s why this is so bad …” I trail off, connecting the dots.
    Nat nods. “I have no idea how to control this, because I’ve never been afraid of doing anything. Spence, I stand at the end of that beam and my body won’t let me move. I’m a prisoner in my own skin. I don’t know what to do.”
    There is so much pain in her eyes that I feel a twinge deep down in my own gut.
    “I’m going to help you. You’ll get over this, Nat, and I’ll help you. You deserve this, you deserve to go to the Olympics. You’re the best female gymnast this country has seen in decades. We’re going to fix this.”
    She nods at me, and I see it in her eyes. The admiration, the hope that I will be able to solve all of her problems. And the word that is ringing in my head.
    Together .

Eleven
Natalia
    T he first night without Peyton is rough. I head back to the dorm, where her door stands ajar and her room empty across the hall. That sends me into a downward spiral.
    The floodgates open, and the tears don’t stop for hours. I feel more alone than ever, my one real friend in this entire place has been kicked out, her dreams unfulfilled. I finished in the middle of the group during the mock meet today. I should have been first. Fucking first. I killed my routines, besides beam. Novak is punishing me for showing weakness. If he didn’t know what was up with me on beam before today, he surely knows now.
    It puts my entire eligibility to make the team at risk.
    “Fuck. FUCK!” I scream, jamming my head into my pillow.
    I hate him. Novak. Hate that he controls every little aspect of this world, that he calls the shots and screws with everyone’s fate like he did all of the hard work. We all got here without him, this is just the final test. He’s the gatekeeper to the Olympics. To victory.
    I guess it wouldn’t be the hardest test of our lives if there wasn’t a difficult fucking mission to get through before we get to see glory.
    There are rumors that he didn’t use to be this bad. That he had a heart, somewhere back there before his wife Anka died. When they came to America over fifteen years ago, she caught some kind of virus or disease that they apparently don’t vaccinate for over in Poland. Thinking it was just a cold, Novak told her to shake it off, and never took her to the doctor.
    Four weeks later, she was dead. They say, those rare people in the gymnastics community who dare to discuss it, that he blames himself. That he never got over it and so he takes it out on the gymnasts killing themselves for him at his facility.
    I’m beginning to think those rumors are true.
    And then Spencer. He had to come after me, pull at me and shove his nose in my business. He was so understanding, so supportive. I couldn’t bury the words anymore, so I told him.
    I’m afraid.
    Now that I’ve spoken them out loud, there is no going back. I have to confront it, there is no more skirting around it. And he says he is going to help me. I have no idea how, since I’ve