Chapter 14
The gym at the hotel in Los Angeles is deserted when Danny walks in, leaving him free to choose between a treadmill, an elliptical, and a weight rack.
Hopping on the treadmill, he brings up a podcast on his phone, scrolling to find a longer episode.
He’s going to be here a while, since Matt had pulled him aside after dinner and asked for some time alone in the room with Julia.
Judging by the look on his face, and the way Julia’s been a shell of herself ever since the IndyStar article came out, a hookup was the last thing on either of their minds.
Danny sighs and puts down his phone, no longer in the mood for a podcast. He hadn’t connected the dots while reading the accusations against the women’s national team doctor—the survivors interviewed were former gymnasts, talking about incidents from decades ago—but Matt had, his face turning chalk-white as he scrolled through the descriptions of what the doctor had done when those women were just girls.
“She—Jules—” he’d choked out, and before Danny could even wonder if that meant what he thought it did, Matt was gone, the door bouncing off the wall behind him.
Nothing’s been the same since then.
That article was basically an atomic bomb going off in their backyard, and it feels like every day there’s a new aftershock, rumors raining down like debris all over the place.
He can barely wrap his head around it—like, that guy?
Danny’s fucking seen him at competitions before, always hovering in the girls’ background; in fact, he’s pretty sure he spoke with him once, when he’d randomly ended up in an elevator with some of the medical staff at the London Olympics.
Small talk. Chitchat. Never would have guessed.
Danny’s called his parents a lot more than he’d expected to since tour started, and they’ve been great, letting him ramble about all of this in a way that he can’t around Matt; but what he really wants is to confide in Sasha.
Only Sasha’s gone AWOL—no warning, no reason, just “Sorry, I can’t talk” for two weeks straight.
Well, there was sort of a reason: the one time Danny managed to get him on the phone, Sasha had mentioned that Kirill was staying with him and his mom.
But what, he can’t sneak away for a phone call?
Danny doesn’t buy it. Unless something else is going on that Sasha doesn’t want to talk about, which Danny would totally understand, if Sasha would just tell him that.
And then they could talk about dumb shit instead, or Danny could send him gymnastics memes to cheer him up, or literally anything besides Sasha icing him out.
So now he’s getting ghosted or whatever by his boyfriend, which fucking sucks, especially since he’s dealing with it all alone.
The only people who even know he has a boyfriend are Matt and Allie, but there’s no way Danny’s bothering Matt with relationship problems right now, and he’s not going to call his ex out of the blue, either.
Which means he’s resorted to checking Sasha and Kirill’s Instagrams an embarrassing number of times each day.
Sasha hasn’t posted anything at all, unsurprisingly, though he’s viewed all of Danny’s stories (and sometimes, Danny finds himself adding a new story just to make sure Sasha watches it).
But what’s really weird is that Kirill’s gone quiet, too, mostly sharing sponsored content that would have been scheduled in advance.
Until this morning, at least. Danny opens Instagram, pulling up the story again like a detective reexamining old clues: a steaming bowl of soup, a heart emoji, a short caption.
He can’t read the Russian, obviously, but he recognizes that kitchen table, along with a very familiar set of forearms in the background.
As he stares at Sasha’s blurry outline, feeling shittier and shittier, an incoming call appears on his screen—and when he sees who it is, he almost drops the phone in surprise.
“Hey,” he says cautiously, hoping Sasha can talk this time; he could really use an actual, more-than-thirty-seconds conversation with his boyfriend. “What’s up?”
“I am sorry.” Sasha’s voice comes rushing into his ear. “I did not listen to you before. You were saying about this doctor, and I did not know.”
Danny had figured that was the case, but it’s still nice to hear—although a small part of him can’t help thinking it would have been nicer to hear it sooner, like if Sasha hadn’t blown him off for two weeks first. He reminds himself that Sasha had called back in the end, and that’s what’s important.
“It’s okay. Thanks. Are you free, or…” A glance at the clock—and some fuzzy math—tells him it’s early in Moscow, maybe five or six in the morning.
“I went to park. Kirill and my mother are sleeping.” Sasha sounds like he’s keeping his voice down, even though the rest of Moscow is probably sleeping, too. “Is it true?”
“I mean…” Danny exhales, fiddling with the safety cord on the treadmill. He wasn’t even one of the victims, and he still feels like something’s crawling under his skin whenever he has this conversation. “I don’t know the women who, like, came out against him, but… yeah. I’m pretty sure he did it.”
“Why?”
“Well…” Danny thinks of Julia, then thinks again. “So, like… after everything came out, a bunch of us were having dinner, and Yulien was asking the girls, like, ‘Did you guys know about this, did you have any idea he was such a creep,’ and they were all just, like… looking at each other.”
He’ll never forget the expressions on their faces, or the way they’d avoided the men’s eyes, none of them wanting to answer the question.
It wasn’t as if he’d doubted the article before, but seeing their reactions, he’d known that every last word was true—and a few seconds later, he’d realized something even worse.
“Like… don’t tell anyone I told you this, okay, like, not even your mom or Kirill, but…” Danny takes a deep breath. “I think he did it to a lot of other people, too. Like… people I know. People I’m friends with.”
Names and memories on a loop inside his head, like Lexi Wilson, a veteran from Beijing and London, getting drunk with him at a banquet last year and leaning over to whisper, “I fucking hate that guy” as the doctor walked past. Refusing to explain why and telling him later—sober—that she didn’t know what she was talking about, that it was probably just the alcohol, he’s one of the nicer ones, honestly.
Like Abby Jacobs, fifteen years old with braids and braces, and also a monster at Mario Kart, whooping his ass during a tournament in Rio and giggling the entire time.
Young enough that some of the other girls have “adopted” her, their words, carrying her around backstage like a toddler on their hips—the same girls he’d seen trying to comfort her when she broke down after their show in Seattle, sobbing that her father had read the article and was starting to ask questions.
Like Julia, withdrawing from Matt all summer without telling him why.
Going through the motions now on tour, smiling at the crowds, staying calm for the other girls—while Matt says she’s barely sleeping between shows, and Danny’s noticed she’s become even thinner than she was at the Olympics, her ribs pushing through her leotards.
But while he trusts Sasha, it doesn’t seem right to share stories that aren’t his.
Instead, he tells Sasha about the hush that’s fallen over the tour, with the girls forming their own islands at meals and none of the guys knowing what to say; the rumors flying around that the doctor’s house was raided; and the complete disconnect he feels, going onstage and waving at an audience when half the girls on the tour are walking around like ghosts.
Sasha doesn’t say much, but it’s a listening kind of quiet, like he’s waiting for Danny to finish getting everything off his chest.
“It’s just so weird, like, going out there and doing shows and acting like nothing’s wrong when, like, that’s not true at all?
It feels kind of messed up, honestly, like, I don’t know how the girls are doing it.
I mean, I shouldn’t be complaining, since they’re the ones who have to deal with that, but… yeah. It’s been really, really shitty.”
He breaks off, and for a moment the only sound is the treadmill pulsing underneath his feet.
“I am sorry,” Sasha says gently. “For your friends. And for you. I know… I know you wanted to have good tour.”
Danny swallows. He feels guilty for even thinking it, since his problems are nothing compared to the girls’, but all he’d wanted out of this tour was a distraction from Rio. Well, he’d gotten that, all right—and he’d never in a million years imagined how much worse it could be.
“Thanks,” he says, swallowing again. “I’m trying to, like, keep perspective, you know, but… yeah. It sucks.”
He’s not here to throw himself a pity party, though, so he quickly clears his throat, changing the subject.
“Anyway, um, what’s up with you? Why’s Kirill staying with you guys?”
Sasha takes a long time to reply, and something tells Danny he’s not just translating, but filtering. “He had… argument. With his parents. Now he does not live with them.”
“Oh. Shit.” Danny’s suspected, based on Sasha’s tendency of avoiding the subject, that Kirill doesn’t have the greatest family situation, but he hadn’t realized it was that bad. “I’m sorry.”
“It is my fault. I told him to… to do something… and they…” Sasha’s voice thickens, and he breaks off, drawing an unsteady breath.
“Whoa, hey, Sasha.” Danny stops the treadmill—if Sasha’s showing even this much emotion, he’s a lot more upset than he’s letting on.
“Look, whatever you told Kirill to do, I’m sure you had a good reason, and I’m guessing you didn’t force him to do it, either.
So whatever his parents did… that’s on them, not you. ”
After a long stretch of silence, Sasha says, suddenly and fiercely, “I hate them. They are horrible people. I hope Kirill never sees them again.”