Page 149 of Balancing Act

“How are you feeling, kid?” Jamie asked, meeting her gaze.

Lily took a breath, shifting on her feet. “Good. A little nervous, but good. This is it, you know?”

Jamie grinned. “A little nerves are good. I want you to take all of those and use them. Let them push you to give it everything you’ve got.” She rested a hand lightly on Lily’s shoulder. “And most importantly, go out there and have fun. Because none of this is worth it if you can’t say you had fun doing it.”

Lily’s face broke into a brilliant smile, and without warning, she threw her arms around Jamie’s waist and squeezed her tight.

Jamie hugged her back fiercely. “Go crush it, Lils! Show them why they should pay attention—why everyone should know your name.”

With her heart thrumming with a familiar kind of excitement—the kind that reminded her exactly why she had fallen in love with this sport in the first place—she watched as Lily jogged toward the beam.

From the moment Lily took her first step on the apparatus, it was clear she was unstoppable. Every movement was precise when it needed to be but fluid when it mattered. The nerves that had been so visible just minutes ago were nowhere to be found.

Jamie watched in quiet awe, nudging Amanda beside her. “For all her complaining about how much she hates the beam, you’d never know it watching her.”

“She’s been nailing this set in practice.” Amanda hummed. “But she’s doing something different?—”

Jamie noticed it, too. The pacing of Lily’s routine had shifted. Her transitions between skills didn’t align with what she and Lily had planned, what Lily had practiced so many times.

Realization dawned on her, and she pieced together what Lily was up to.

“Is Lily about to do—?” Amanda started to ask.

Jamie couldn’t believe it, her grin already spreading. “Oh, yeah. She definitely is.”

She tried to contain her excitement as Lily moved into her final pass—the dismount.

A roundoff.

A back handspring.

And then?—

She went for it.

A double Arabian dismount, twisting through the air in a sequence so iconic it had been named after Jamie herself.

The Lyons dismount.

The entire arena seemed to hold its breath.

And then—Lily landed. Perfectly.

A deafening eruption of cheers split the air. Jamie and Amanda jumped to their feet, gripping onto each other as they screamed.

“She stuck it!” Amanda hollered, shaking Jamie’s shoulders. “Did you see that?! She stuck it! Goodbye Lyons dismount, hello the Gallagher!”

Jamie was already moving. Before she could process it, Lily had sprinted straight into her arms, colliding with a force that nearly knocked her backward, taking all the wind out of her.

“I did your dismount!” Lily gasped, still breathless.

“You did!” Jamie hugged her so tightly she could feel Lily’s heart pounding against hers. “That was incredible!”

Together, they turned toward the scoreboard as numbers flashed across the screen.

15.275.

Just enough to bump her combined beam score to the top of the leaderboard.