She was going to make sure of it.
* * *
Twenty-four days before the regional championship, Reagan woke at 4:30, fifteen minutes before her alarm.
She lay in the dark and listened to the campus. The particular quiet of a college at that hour. Not silent, exactly. A car somewhere. The hum of the building's heating system. Delia's steady breathing from across the room.
She'd been awake for a few minutes before she realized she wasn't anxious. That was worth noting.
In the years she'd been competing, there was a specific feeling that arrived in the days before something significant. A low-grade electrical charge in the chest.
Not fear. She'd learned to distinguish between fear and readiness a long time ago. Fear said, I don't want this. The charge said, I'm ready for this, and the readiness has nowhere to go yet.
The charge was there now.
She got up quietly, dressed in the dark, laced her shoes by feel. She'd done it enough times that her hands knew the sequence without her eyes needing to be involved.
She looked at Delia's sleeping shape for a moment.
Her roommate had a midterm today. She'd been up until midnight studying, and even then had looked at Reagan over the edge of her textbook and said, "I feel like I'm about to forget everything I know."
"You won't," Reagan had said.
"How do you know?"
"Because you've been saying things out loud in your sleep. Your brain's been reviewing while you rest."
Delia had stared at her. "That's either very reassuring or very disturbing."
"Pick whichever helps you sleep."
Delia had laughed. The first real laugh Reagan had heard from her since the academic integrity complaint. And turned off her lamp.
Reagan picked up her bag and went downstairs.
The gym at 5:00 in the morning was hers.
She worked for 90 minutes. Not the anxious, burn-it-out training she'd fallen into the night she found out about Delia's complaint. This was different. Precise. Technical.
The kind of training where you're not trying to work something out. You're putting the finishing polish on something already built.
She worked the spinning heel kick until the rotation was automatic. She worked the timing of the jump back kick until she could feel the exact moment of maximum extension. She ran combinations at full speed and then at three-quarter speed, because three-quarter speed showed you where the sloppiness lived.
At 6:20, she stopped. Stretched. Drank water.
She sat cross-legged on the mat and thought about the day.
Today was Thursday. Thursday was important for two reasons.
First, Coach Dunbar would call at 8:00. She had things to tell him. Not everything. He'd worry about things that weren't worth worrying about yet. But enough.
Second, she was going to talk to Walter Briggs.
She'd been thinking about this for four days, working it from every angle.