“I’m just jealous that you get to go out there and deliver the hell out of your next routine,” I say. “You’re living my dream.”

She sighs dramatically.

“I’ll go slay on floor if you promise to stop talking like a corny Oprah knockoff,” she says.

“Deal,” I say, extending my hand.

She shakes it. “Deal.”

An event coordinator waves Hallie over to start warming up for floor. I shout ridiculously supportive comments as she walks away. But once she’s gone, the pit in my stomach returns.

Floor warm-ups fly by. Brit delivers a surprisingly lovely performance to a delicate piece of classical music, and Hallie whispers to me that she must have gotten new choreography. Up next, Delia strides calmly onto the floor to perform a knockout routine that inspires the audience to give her a standing ovation. On the big screen, you can see tears glittering in her eyes as she waves to her fans and hugs her coach. The moment is powerful and heartbreaking. When the judges award her the breathtakingly high mark of 15.275, it’s clear she’s earned every bit of it.

Meanwhile, Hallie is trembling. She rises from the bench and shakes out each leg so her knees don’t buckle beneath her. More than any other moment in her life, the pressure is on.

“Let’s go, Hallie!” I call out.

“Come on, Hal, you got this,” Ryan says loudly.

“We had a good talk while you were gone,” I say. “I think she’ll be okay.”

“If she’s not, I think her parents will skin us alive,” Ryan mutters.

Hallie’s name rings out over the loudspeaker, and the judges flick to new sheets of paper in their notebooks. She salutes at the edge of the blue mat, then struts into position. There’s a high, clear beep to signal that she should prepare herself, and then the opening notes of her new floor music. This is her first time performing the routine I crafted in competition, and I’m anxious to see how it’s received.

Hallie throws herself into the first few fierce steps of her choreography, just like we practiced, and I am so proud. She’s a swirl of limbs and piercing gazes as she pivots, backs up into the corner, and lunges into her first tumbling pass. She whips across the floor with enough energy to power a fleet of Maseratis, rocketing skyward at the end into the stag jump we drilled on the trampoline. Her leg levers up elegantly behind her, and she lands on beat.