47. Nico
The only thing holding me together was Adrian.
His arms were wrapped around me, warm and solid, and I was sitting in his lap on the floor of a cooldown room in my competition costume, crying into the feathers on his shirt like a child.
I could feel his heartbeat against my cheek—racing just as fast as mine but his arms never shook and his voice never wavered.
I couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t stop the wave that had been building for months—maybe years—from finally breaking.
Because the truth was, I didn’t want this anymore.
Not the way I was supposed to. Not the way everyone assumed I did. Not the way my uncle had mapped out for me since I was five years old and he’d placed his gold medal in my tiny hands.
Nobody had ever asked me what I wanted. Not once.
Not my uncle, who had built his entire coaching legacy around the assumption that I would be his masterpiece.
Not the federation, who had invested years and resources into the narrative of Nicolas Fontaine, Olympic hopeful.
Not the press, who had been writing my story since I was fourteen—the golden prince, the heir apparent, the boy who was born for this.
They all just assumed. Gold medal. Olympic podium. National hero. That was the dream. That was the only dream. That was the thing I had sacrificed my childhood and my friendships and my sanity and very nearly my life for.
And maybe it had been. Once upon a time.
When I was young enough to believe that standing on a podium would fill the hollow space inside me.
When I thought that if I could just be perfect enough, good enough, golden enough, the loneliness and the exhaustion and the constant, grinding pressure would all make sense.
But I’d almost died.
I’d swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills on my parents’ bathroom floor because I was so tired I couldn’t see any other way to rest. The pressure was too great. The expectations were too heavy.
The dream didn’t shine the way it used to.
I still loved skating. I loved the ice. I loved the feeling of a clean landing, the poetry of a well choreographed program, the way music and movement could say things that words couldn’t hold.
But the competition—the scores, the rankings, the relentless pursuit of a medal that was supposed to justify everything I’d given up—I didn’t love that anymore. I wasn’t sure I ever had.
Maybe all those sacrifices weren’t worth the end goal. Maybe the end goal had never been mine to begin with. Maybe it had always been someone else’s dream wearing my face.
And now I was sitting on a concrete floor in Ottawa with vomit on my breath and an 92.91 on the scoreboard and the free skate tomorrow and three Olympic spots and five men and the entire country watching, and the only honest thought in my head was I don’t want to get back on the ice.
I wanted something different. Something that was mine. A life that wasn’t built entirely around the next score, the next competition, the next step toward a finish line someone else had drawn.
I wanted mornings with Adrian where we argued about breakfast and he ate cereal out of the box.
I wanted dinners at my parents’ house with Margaux kept up a steady stream of chatter.
I wanted to skate because it made me happy, not because my uncle needed a legacy and the federation needed a narrative and the country needed a prince.
I wanted to be Nico. Just Nico. Without the weight of the crown.
Adrian’s hand moved slowly up and down my back. He hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t tried to talk me down or minimize it. Just held me and let me fall apart.
“I don’t want my mom to see me like this. Margaux is here. Oh my God.” My voice cracked. “I can’t do this, Adrian. I don’t want to get back on the ice.” The words came out small and terrified and truer than anything I’d said in years.
His arms tightened around me. His lips pressed against my hair. “Shh, it’s okay, baby. I’ll find your family. And I’ll take care of Renaud.”
He held me for a moment longer. Then he shifted, tilting my face up to look at him. His eyes were fierce.
“Adrian—”
“Trust me.”
He eased me off his lap and onto the floor gently, shrugging off his team jacket and wrapping it around my shoulders. It was warm and smelled like him—sandalwood and something faintly sweet from his vape.
“I’ll be right back. Just stay here? Everything will be okay, I promise.”
He was at the door when I called his name. He turned.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I said.
“The only smart thing I’ve ever done is falling in love with you.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
He slipped out and the room went quiet. I pulled his jacket tighter around me and pressed my back against the wall and focused on breathing.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
Five things I could see. The physio table.
The stack of towels. The trash can. The fluorescent light buzzing overhead. My hands, still trembling in my lap.
The door opened less than three minutes later. Not Adrian.
Kat.
She didn’t say a word. Just crossed the room, sat down on the floor beside me, and put her arm around my shoulders. I leaned into her and she pulled me close, her hand rubbing small circles on my arm the way she’d been doing since we were kids.
“He found me lurking in the hallway,” she said quietly. “Told me you might need a friend.”
“How did you get past security?”
“Have you seen me? This facecard can unlock any door.”
“Fair. What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know. But he looked like a man on a mission and I’ve learned not to get in the way of those.” She pressed her cheek against the top of my head. “You okay?”
“No.”
“It’s okay not to be okay.”
“I don’t think I can do the free skate tomorrow,” I whispered.
Kat was quiet for a moment. Then she squeezed my arm.
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple. Renaud—the federation—the fans—”
“Nico. Fuck your uncle. Fuck the federation. If your uncle has a problem with it, he can take it up with me.”
“Kat—”
“I mean it. I will march up to Jean-Pierre and tell him exactly where he can shove his Olympic medal. I’ve been waiting a decade for an excuse and I would genuinely enjoy it.”
A wet, broken laugh escaped me.
“You've given this sport everything,” she said, softer now but no less fierce. “It's time to put yourself first, Nico. If you need to stop—for a day, for a season, forever—that is your right. And anyone who tells you otherwise can go through me.”
“You’re a very petite ballerina.”
“And I’ll clobber a bitch with a pointe shoe.” She wiped a tear off my cheek with her thumb. “You don’t owe them a free skate. You don’t owe them an explanation. You don’t owe them anything. The only person you owe anything to is yourself.”
I looked at her—this fierce, loyal, force of nature who had been in my corner since day one—and for the first time all night, the tightness in my chest eased enough to let me breathe.
“Will you stay with me?” I asked.
“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away, Nico.” She pulled me back against her shoulder.