Going for Gold Read Online Free Page B

watch us play. In any other
setting it would have terrified me to be the center of attention of so many
people. Public speaking in front of all these people? Forget it. But volleyball
was different. I had practiced volleyball for years. I knew I was good at it.
Damn good. When I was on that court, it was my time to shine.
    Kristen served a practice ball low and hard right over the
net. I easily dug it to our setter and got ready for the next serve. We did a
few more of those to get comfortable and make sure the other team was watching,
and then Kristen started serving high to my left. I lunged for the ball and
missed. Not because I was bad, but because we were setting the other team up.
High and to the left was actually where I preferred the serves. A little
gamesmanship never hurt, right?
    After a half hour of warm-ups, we lined up in two parallel
lines. The bench players were called first, and then they got to my name. I ran
between the two lines of my teammates, them all slapping my ass as I ran. At
the end I jumped up to high-five each of our coaches and then took my place on
the back line. God, I loved the feeling of the announcer calling my name and
everyone cheering. It was such a rush.
    While I waited for that to finish, I looked around to find
Chris in the audience. Usually it was pretty easy, but normally the crowd was
nowhere near this big. Before I could spot him, the introductions ended and it
was time to high five the other team under the net.
    Including Gabriela Santos.
    I went down the line giving high-fives. When I got to
Gabriela, she locked eyes with me and smiled, just like she always did when we
played each other. And just like always, it crawled under my skin. God, I hated
that bitch.
    I took a deep breath and tried to channel my hatred into
positive energy for the game.
    And it must have worked, because we crushed them in the first
game of the match. I was getting all my digs, and Kristen was nailing all her
spikes. It seemed like it only took a few minutes for us to take them down 25
to 11. The match was best out of 5, so if we could just keep it rolling for two
more games, we'd win the match and knock Brazil and Gabriela out of the
tournament. After Brazil was gone, there weren't really any other teams that
would pose much of a threat to our bid for the gold medal.
    Coach Hammond high-fived me as I walked over to the bench to
sit down for a second and grab some water. There was an envelope on my spot, so
I pushed it onto the floor and... Wait a second. Did that have my name on it?
    I grabbed the envelope off the floor. Sure enough, ALINA was
written on it in bold letters.
    "What's that?" asked Kristen.
    I shrugged. "No idea."
    "It's probably a cute note from Chris. Open it!"
    Aw, he's so sweet! I flipped the envelope over and
pulled out the contents. At first I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
"What the hell?" I mumbled.
    Kristen leaned over to get a look. "Oh my God. Is
that...?"
    "Chris sitting next to a topless girl at Club Blue? Yes,
it is." I flipped to the next photo, which was a selfie of Chris and the
girl, who I could now see was Gabriela Santos. That bitch!
    "Alina! Kristen!" barked Coach Hammond. "Get
out there!"
    I looked up and saw the second game was about to start. I got
into my position and prepared for the serve, but my head was still spinning
from what I had seen. How could he hang out with Gabriela after I left? He
knows how much I hate her! How far did he go with her?
    "Alina!" Kristen yelling my name brought me back to
reality.
    "Huh?"
    "Why didn't you go for that? That was your ball."
    What ball? I looked up and saw we were losing 1 to nothing. Shit, the game already started? "Sorry, I thought you had it."
    Brazil hit another serve at me, but this time I was ready. I
bumped it to our setter, who set Kristen up for a spike. Her spike was saved,
and then Brazil set it up to Gabriela for a back-row spike. No way I'm going
to let her win this point. Not after those photos.
    Just as