Okay, I'm editing this post after I sent it it. Just saying, I did better with sticking to present-tense.
Here's what I'll send in:
I’ll never be able to, I thought in my mind as I watched Chloe fly off the runway and into the air, landing gracefully in the snow-white sand.
I tried to look as if I didn’t care what her mark was, but I gave in and strained to listen. The wind was blowing across my face, carrying our coach’s voice away from me, just so I could barely hear, “Twenty five feet, six inches.”
For some reason, I’ve always wanted to do the triple jump. I could do the long jump just fine, but it wasn’t as significant.
The first time I tried I messed my steps up. Chloe cut back on a laugh. Sure, she could do it terrifically. She even held our district’s middle school girl’s triple jump record. When she jumped, her cleats made the wonderful “click, click-clack” sound before she landed in the pit, the sand sifting down the small indentions of her footsteps as she walked out.
Everyone knew Chloe as the track star. She won the mile, 100 meter, and the jumps. But no doubt every time she would win the triple jump by at least half a foot. But she was tall and I was short. Her legs were long and mine weren't. With my size, I bet I was just the same as her, but of course no one cares about that. No one at all cares about the short kid who puts all her effort into what she does.
But when I tried I would trip over my heels and mess up my footing, landing with only a jump of thirteen feet.
Hopeless, that’s was I was, to everyone else. But inside, to me, I was hopeful.
I fixed my gaze and narrowed my eyes at the runway, red-painted clumps of rubbery material that stretched before me, with half tennis balls marking other’s starting points. I began to sprint as fast as I could, head down against the wind. Out of the corner of my eye I watch as the whole world whirls by, not stopping so that I could see what was going on. All my concentration had to go to what I was doing. Without thinking about it, I would mess up epically. When the last white streak came up, I pounced up from it and landed in the cool, smooth sand.
“Scratch,” Macy called.
I look up at her and wipe the sand off my shorts. I scratched? That meant I missed the line and went too far. My jump wouldn’t have even counted if I was competing.
“But how far did I get?”
“Let’s see… You jumped twenty three feet and one inch. Nice jump.”
“I’ll try to jump on the line this time. I’ll have time to give it another shot before school starts.”
I take another jump again, concentrating on the white line approaching. I hop, skip, and then finish it off with a giant leap off of my right leg. I fly through the air, still cool in the morning breeze. I like to practice in this weather, with the clouds in thin streams streaking the sky and the air with the slight scent of wildflowers. I often come to practice my jumps on the track before school, when there’s no one around except for my track friend, Macy.
Then my thoughts come back to what I’m doing as I land with a thump.
“Scratch.”
It was competition time at state, and two years later. I prepared myself for the triple jump. I stretched the proper muscles and took a drink of ice-water, refreshing on the scorching hot day. I could smell the heat, the scent just like dry dust. Out on the track, Chloe was showing off by triple jumping in the unused pit. She was still ahead of me with her record.
I sat down and ran my fingers through the clumps of grass, still new from the spring and as soft as a tiny kitten. Where the grass wasn’t the ground was dry and scratchy.
I heard the second call for the Middle School Girl’s triple jump.
My first two jumps are far for others, but not enough to reach my satisfaction, On my third jump I started form further back on the runway, then sprinted with the wind, hopped, skipped, jumped—I sailed through the air, the wind carrying me towards the end of the pit. I began do descend, but as I fall I pull my legs up under me. Then I land in the sand, this time grainy and hard.
I hear my measurement.
“Twenty nine feet and eleven inches.”
Chloe won by one more inch. I came in third.
The next meet I won. Then I never jumped again.
