Chapter 15
Apparently My Joints Have Unionized
I know the second I step onto the ice that something is wrong.
Not wrong enough to stop. Wrong enough to notice.
My timing feels slightly delayed, like somebody has inserted a fraction of a second between thought and movement.
The rink lights bounce off the ice too brightly.
My legs feel heavy before I've even finished warming up.
I ignore it. Obviously. The first jump lands rough. Not a fall. Worse, somehow. A mistake. The landing jars painfully through my ankle. I hiss under my breath and immediately circle back for another attempt.
Again.
Too fast into the rotation. Too cautious on the exit. My blade skids briefly sideways across the ice. I grit my teeth.
Reset.
Try again.
The frustration arrives much earlier than it should. Usually it takes longer. Usually I can separate myself from the mistake. Today every bad landing feels personal. Every hesitation feels obvious. Visible. The kind of flaw judges somehow always manage to find.
I push harder. A stronger takeoff. A cleaner entry. The landing still isn't right.
My wrist throbs sharply when I catch myself against the ice. The pain shoots higher than it should. I close my eyes for a second.
The wrist has been bothering me for weeks. The ankle too. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that would justify stopping. Just enough soreness to make every correction feel slightly slower than it should. Just enough fatigue to turn precision into effort.
I push myself upright. Reset again. Because stopping would mean acknowledging there's a problem. And acknowledging a problem makes it real.
My breathing sounds too loud in the empty rink. Too rough. Too fast.
I skate harder. Then harder again. As if repetition can force my body back into alignment. As if enough discipline can compensate for exhaustion.
The ice blurs beneath me. My timing slips again. A transition comes half a beat late. An edge change feels unstable. My concentration keeps fracturing. Thoughts scattering before I can hold onto them.
Panic begins creeping in around the edges. Quiet at first. Then louder.
What if this doesn't improve before competition season? What if this is the start of something? What if my body is finally demanding payment for all the things I've asked it to ignore?
The thought hits hard enough that my next edge catches. Just slightly. Enough.
"You're overcompensating."
Calder's voice cuts cleanly through the spiral. I turn sharply. He's standing near the boards watching me. Watching my landings. Watching my timing. Watching me. I hate how relieved I am to hear him. I hate it even more when the relief immediately turns into irritation. I force my expression flat.
"I'm fine."
His gaze drops briefly. My ankle. My wrist. The way I'm standing. Then back to my face.
"You're pushing too hard into the landings."
Not criticism. Not even concern. Just an observation. A simple statement of fact. Something tightens painfully beneath my ribs. The worst part is that he's right.
Calder goes quiet after that. No jokes. No comments about figure skaters being dramatic. No comparison to a shopping cart with a broken wheel. Nothing. He just watches. Attentive. Patient. The absence of teasing feels louder than anything he could have said.
I push into another combination too aggressively. Bad takeoff. Worse landing. My ankle folds slightly beneath me before I catch myself. Calder is moving before I've fully recovered. Not rushing. Just closer.
"You need to stop forcing the rotation." His voice stays level. Careful.
I hate that too.
I skate away before I can think about why. "I said I'm fine."
Calder doesn't argue. Doesn't push. He circles slowly instead, keeping enough distance that it doesn't feel like hovering. "You're exhausted."
The words land harder than they should. Because they aren't an accusation.
They're an observation. The same way he'd point out a missed edge.
A timing issue. A bad landing. Something objectively there.
I launch into another sequence. Halfway through, my concentration slips.
The landing jars painfully through my wrist. I suck in a sharp breath.
Across the rink, Calder's jaw tightens. Then he's closer again.
Not giving me space anymore. Not pretending not to see it.
"You're compensating for the ankle."
"You don't know that."
"I do, actually."
Certain. Infuriatingly certain. Because he does know.
Athletes spend years learning how to hide injuries.
Athletes spend years learning how to spot them too.
The corrections continue after that. Quieter.
More precise. Less like coaching. More like trying to stop me from hurting myself.
His hand settles briefly against my waist while adjusting my alignment through a transition.
Steady. Warm through layers of fabric. Gone too quickly.
"Again," he says. Softly.
The correction comes easier that time. Not perfect.
Better. Which somehow makes everything worse.
Because if Calder was teasing me, I could be annoyed.
If he was criticizing me, I could argue.
Instead he's being careful. And careful feels dangerously close to concern.
I miss the next landing badly enough that I nearly go face-first into the ice.
My blade catches. The impact tears violently through my ankle. Pain flashes hot up my leg.
"Fuck."
The word breaks out sharper than I intend. I push upright immediately. Too fast. Too angry. Too embarrassed. Somewhere behind me Calder says my name. I ignore him. Launch straight into the next attempt.
A terrible idea.
The takeoff slips. My timing falls apart halfway through the rotation.
I hit the ice hard. Pain explodes through my wrist when I catch myself.
For a second I stay there. One knee on the ice.
Breathing hard. Humiliation burning hotter than the pain.
The rink feels impossibly bright. Every light reflected back by the ice. Every mistake suddenly visible.
I hear skates cutting across the surface.
Calder. Coming toward me. The sound alone makes something twist painfully in my chest. Because I don't want him seeing this.
Not the fall. Not the frustration. Not the panic.
Not the possibility that maybe, for the first time in a long time, I don't have everything under control.
I push up too quickly.
"Jesus Christ."
The words crack sharply through the empty rink. I skate hard toward the boards before Calder can reach me. My breathing sounds awful—too loud, too uneven. I yank my gloves off more aggressively than necessary.
"Arabella." Closer this time.
Careful.
"I know," I snap. "I know my timing's off."
Calder stops beside me. Quiet. The silence stretches between us.
Then: "That's not what I was going to say."
Somehow that feels worse.
I grip the top of the boards and stare down at the ice. The surface blurs slightly before snapping back into focus.
"I look ridiculous."
The words leave before I can stop them. The second they do, I want them back.
My grip tightens. I never say things like that out loud — not here, not during training, not in front of another athlete.
Heat crawls immediately up the back of my neck.
Calder stays where he is. Doesn't interrupt.
Doesn't argue. Doesn't immediately tell me I'm wrong.
The silence stretches and stretches until it feels impossible to hide behind.
I press the heel of my hand briefly against my forehead.
"I can't get my body to cooperate today."
When I finally look up, Calder's gaze flicks briefly toward my wrist, then my ankle, then back to me.
No coaching. No analysis. No automatic correction.
Just watching. The realization lands somewhere low in my stomach.
Because I don't think he's looking at the mistakes anymore.
I think he's looking at me. And somehow that's worse.
The rink feels too bright, too exposed, every failed landing suddenly replaying itself in my head—every stumble, every hesitation, every correction I couldn't make. Calder waits a few more seconds, exactly long enough to let me pretend I've got this under control.
Then he reaches for me, not forcefully, not even insistently, just certain. His hand settles lightly around my elbow, warm through the sleeve of my jacket.
"Sit down."
Quiet. Calm. Not asking. For a second I consider arguing.
The impulse arrives automatically, then disappears just as quickly.
Because I'm tired. Because my wrist hurts.
Because my ankle hurts. Because I'm not sure I have enough energy left to pretend otherwise.
I sit heavily on the bench. Calder pushes away from the boards and heads toward the medical freezer near the hallway.
The sound of his skates fades gradually. The rink goes quiet again. Too quiet.
I look down at my hands, at the damp edges of my gloves, at the marks my fingers left against the boards.
The cold settles in almost immediately, stronger than before, as though Calder had been absorbing some of it without me noticing.
The realization is irritating enough that I refuse to examine it any further.
He comes back less than a minute later carrying an ice pack and athletic tape.
The sight of him hits unexpectedly hard.
Not the supplies. Him. The fact that he came back at all.
The fact that he looks completely focused on the task, like nothing else currently exists.
Calder crouches directly in front of me, broad shoulders, messy hair, eyes fixed entirely on me.
"You hit the wrist again?"