CHAPTER NINE

The next morning Nick knew what he had to do. He got up, showered, got dressed and into his car headed for the mall.

 

Elana woke up and hugged her pillow thinking of Nick. She smiled to herself thinking how lucky she was. She still couldn't believe that after a year, after all that happened with Mandy, that they were together once again. Elana thought for a while. The 2000 Olympics and Olympic tours were over. She had
nothing left but going back to Russia to train for months before the next major meets. She sighed. Did she still want to do this? Was gymnastics all that was left of her? Truthfully, she was kind of tired of gymnastics. After all, she had been doing it most of her life.

She thought long and hard before she came to a decision. She was going to retire from gymnastics. She had thought about it before she had found Nick again, but this was just one thing
to make it sure. She smiled, then got ready to go see nick.

 

Nick looked at the case. "It's perfect!" he exclaimed. He was talking about the huge diamond ring sitting on the pillow in the case.

"It's a 2 karat," the sales man pointed out.

"Let me see it please," Nick asked studding it through the case once more. The man took it out and handed it to Nick. Nick studied it as if it held the answer to the world. Then he looked up. "Ok I'll take it."  Nick and the man began to talk about what kind of box to put it in. Nick smiled to himself. Yes I'm sure this will all work out.

 

Elana pulled up to Nick's house just as his car did. She got out of her car and went over to hug him. He hugged her then pulled back. "Come on. Let's go inside we need to talk."

Elana agreed. They walked inside together and sat in the living room. "So who should go first?" Elana asked.

"Um," Nick was suddenly afraid, "why don't you go first?"

"Ok," she simply said. "Well Nick, I've been doing a lot of thinking and over this past year, after finishing the Olympics and all of the tours, I've realized that I'm just really tired of gymnastics and all of this training and stuff." She looked up at him.  "Nick, I have decided to retire." (Authors note: Elana really did retire after the Olympics and Olympic tour)