“The kids are fine. Bunch of Goody Two-shoes, a couple of class clowns, mostly smart kids,” he says. “You know how this town is.”

I do. The suburb’s strong public school system attracts a wildly overachieving, goal-oriented population. When I was in elementary school, nobody thought it was weird that I spent sixteen hours after school every week training in a gym because everyone else spent that amount of time on horseback riding lessons, piano lessons, theater classes, or all three.

I don’t know what else to say, so I cast around for anything we might have in common.

“Is, god, what’s her name? Mrs. Marcotti? Is she still teaching math these days?”

He nods and rolls his eyes. “Yep. With a stick up her ass.”

“She was a tough teacher,” I say, ignoring the rude comment.

“You had her?” he asks.

“Yeah, in seventh grade? Eighth, maybe?”

“Me, too. What year did you graduate?”

“Uh, 2010? I mean, technically. I was kind of homeschooled the last few years.”

He cocks his head and really stares at me. For a few stretched-out seconds, neither of us speak.

“You’re that girl,” he says, squinting like he’s trying to recall the details. “The gymnast.”

“Yeah,” I say quickly, sipping my beer in an attempt to shut down this line of conversation.

“You were that girl in that video!” His voice gets louder.

My blood runs cold. In my most pathetic moments, I’ve watched the damn video alone. But Lucas is jubilant, leaning in closer but talking louder than ever.

“I knew you looked familiar!” he says cheerfully.

I feel cornered. I shrug and try to cast around for another topic of conversation to distract him.

“So, do you ever—”

Lucas opens YouTube on his phone and starts to type in “worst gymnastics crashes.” It doesn’t take him long to zero in on the clip he’s searching for. He gleefully hits play, and I hear the familiar roar of an athletic arena cut through the bar’s din. I can hear the faint, singsongy chant of my name—“Let’s go, A-ve-ry, let’s go!” I don’t need to watch; I know it by heart: me, nineteen years old, in a shimmering red leotard and a ponytail, performing the sharply sultry opening dance moves of my floor routine at the 2012 Olympic Trials. Even all these years later, the music stirs my muscles; this is where I pirouette; this is where I roll my hip. I ground myself back into reality on the bar stool, willing myself into stillness.