You Will Know Me Read Online Free Page B

gymnasts. Ripped and peeling from the beam. Deformed, clawed, just like that nightmare Drew once had ( Devon was a chicken hawk, Mom. With needles instead of feet ).
    “I’m the worst mother ever,” Katie said, and Eric shook his head, reassured her.
    That’s what parenthood was about, wasn’t it? Slowly understanding your child less and less until she wasn’t yours anymore but herself. Especially Devon, who kept so much inside.
    “She’s a thinker, a worrier,” Eric sometimes said. “She never stops.”
    A serious girl, that’s what all her teachers said. An intense one.
    Old beyond her years; they said that too.
    That was what gymnastics did, though. It aged girls and kept them young forever at the same time.
    And the face Devon wore at three years old, full of stiff determination and a native opacity, was the same one she wore at BelStars today, her nimble body spearing over the vault.
    Ice Eyes , the other girls called her. Staring at her from the sidelines. They all wanted to be like that.
    Look at Devon , Coach T. always said. She doesn’t give away any of her secrets.

Chapter Two
    First the Foot, then the Fall. Katie would always wonder if the first begot the second, but she was certain both begot what came next.
      
    “Whatever happens today,” Katie assured her, Devon’s face drawn and ancient-looking, the oldest thirteen-year-old in the world, “we’re so proud of you.”
    “But I don’t know if I’m good enough, Mom,” Devon whispered in the muffled dark of the garage, waiting for Eric and Drew. “I really don’t.”
    It was the day of Junior Elite Qualifiers.
    At last, Devon Knox would compete and become a Junior Elite gymnast, as the Track had prophesized, set in Sharpie.
    And so what if it was happening a year later than they all wanted? That hamstring injury, which Devon concealed from them for months until after one long practice, the back of her leg turning an angry violet. It looks like a grape jelly , Drew had said. Or a smooshed beetle . But now the hamstring was long healed, and this was Devon, after all. She would make up for lost time. She was still on the Track.
    “You can do anything,” Katie promised as Devon finally slid into the backseat.
    “That’s what Dad said,” she whispered. “You guys always say the same thing.”
      
    The four Knoxes, Drew swinging from his parents’ hands, entered the building, a conference center, a hundred girls and their twitchy, caffeine-palsied parents hiving everywhere.
    Today: Elite Qualifiers. Registration to Left. The banner so modest, like it had been rushed off at the copy center moments before.
    This next step was a big one, but they were all big. Everything with Devon was big.
    “Bye,” Devon said, waving as she walked backward, slight as a grass blade, into the Gymnasts Only area.
      
    Next up, Devon Knox!
    High in the stands, Eric clasped Katie’s hand.
    There Devon stood, on the competition floor. Four feet ten inches tall, nary a curve on her, but her dark eyes heavy with history, struggle. Squinting down, body pressing forward, Katie wondered at those eyes, that face. It was as if this weren’t her teenage daughter but a woman deepened by experience, a war-battered refugee, a KGB spy.
    She has a sense of mystery, she’d heard a judge say once about Devon. Like a sphinx.
    And it was true. Where did it come from?
    A nearly fourteen-year-old girl but with a voice like Minnie Mouse who still slept with her good-luck stuffed animal, the same plush tiger she used to hold, age eight, between her knees on the horizontal bars, trying to keep her legs together.
    Except out there on the competition floor, her eyes like hawk slits, that little girl was gone.
      
    Beam, floor, bars. She was achieving.
    Yes, there were a few stumbles, which were surprising but nothing that couldn’t be overcome. Katie could barely breathe, Eric kneading his jean legs with red hands. More than ever, watching Devon had become a profound