Chapter 28
I Stopped Waiting
The weirdest part about success is how quickly strangers start acting like they've always known your name.
A week after Worlds, somebody recognizes me in a grocery store. Not dramatically, I'm standing in front of the yogurt section wearing leggings, an oversized hoodie, and absolutely no makeup when a girl who looks maybe fourteen stops abruptly near the end of the aisle. Her eyes widen immediately.
"Oh my God," she blurts before visibly panicking at her own volume. "Sorry. Sorry. You're Arabella Vale, right?"
The question still catches me off guard every time. I shift the basket higher against my hip.
"Yeah."
The girl looks genuinely overwhelmed.
"I watched your free skate live. You were incredible."
Heat climbs into my cheeks. Not embarrassment exactly.
Still something difficult to fully absorb.
Because no matter how much media training or public attention happens lately, some part of me still emotionally feels like the girl practicing alone at six in the morning while nobody noticed anything except mistakes.
"Thank you," I say.
She glances at the skating logo on my hoodie.
"I skate too. Well. Not like you. Obviously."
I laugh before I can stop myself.
"Hopefully better than me at fourteen."
She stares at me like I've said something impossible.
Then asks nervously if we can take a photo.
By the time I leave the grocery store ten minutes later, my yogurt has gone warm and my chest feels strangely full.
Not because of recognition. Because somewhere along the way, I became somebody younger skaters watch now.
It settles heavily through me during the drive home. Less glamorous than I imagined. Heavier. Like responsibility arriving disguised as opportunity.
The attention keeps growing after that, interviews, sponsor meetings, feature articles, every day another version of someone asking me to talk about discipline, pressure, mental resilience, the journey to Worlds.
The strange thing is that none of it feels fake.
I earned this. That matters. Every brutal training session.
Every injury. Every lonely early morning.
The recognition did not appear out of nowhere.
Even now, the scale of it feels surreal sometimes.
At a sponsor fitting later that week, the stylist greets me by name before I even fully step inside.
"We're so excited to work with you."
The words land oddly in my chest, work with you, not good luck, not keep trying, not maybe next season.
The room buzzes around me while assistants move garment bags between racks. Fabric brushes against my arms as somebody adjusts sizing near my shoulders. The entire thing feels polished and professional and slightly unreal.
At one point I catch sight of myself in the mirror wearing tailored cream trousers and a fitted black top while people discuss branding around me like my future suddenly became something tangible enough to build.
For a second I barely recognize the woman staring back, not because she looks different, but because she looks bigger somehow. More certain.
The thought unsettles me unexpectedly. Because Calder should have been part of this.
Not professionally. Emotionally. He would have teased me endlessly about the photoshoot lighting.
Complained about the coffee. Looked at me afterward with that quiet devastating pride he never fully knew how to hide.
The ache arrives instantly, sharp enough that I briefly look away from my reflection.
The stylist mistakes it for discomfort.
"Too tight?" she asks immediately.
"No," I say quickly. "It's fine."
And it is. That's the strange part. The grief still exists. So does the growth. Both things keep surviving simultaneously inside me.
The dress fitting finishes twenty minutes later in a blur of pins, measurements, and polite conversation I barely process.
I thank the stylist automatically, change back into training clothes, and head straight for the rink afterward because routine still feels safer than sitting alone with my thoughts too long.
The arena smells like cold air and sharpened blades the second I walk inside.
Familiar. Grounding. Coach is already waiting near the boards when I step onto the ice.
I focus on that instead. The work. The rhythm. The repetition.
I land the combination cleanly for the first time all morning and immediately turn toward the boards before I can stop myself.
The movement happens instinctively, automatic.
My chest tightens the second I realize what I'm doing.
Because for months now, every good run ended the same way: looking for Calder first. Some part of me still expects him there occasionally, tall against the boards, arms folded, watching me with that intense focused expression he got during training sessions.
The space beside Coach stays empty. I look away quickly before the ache settles too deeply.
"Again," Coach calls.
I nod once and skate back to my starting position while cold air burns in my lungs.
The rink gives way to a different kind of noise that night.
The dinner is louder than I expected. Not chaotic. Just full, athletes, coaches, federation staff, sponsors, everybody pressed into a low-lit private restaurant overlooking the harbour while conversations blur together beneath low music and the constant clink of glasses against tables.
Three months ago this kind of event would have exhausted me within twenty minutes. Now I move through it easier somehow. Still awkward occasionally. Still overwhelmed sometimes. But not drowning in it.
I stand near the bar talking to two other skaters about travel schedules when one of them laughs at something I say hard enough to nearly spill her drink.
"You are so much funnier than your interviews make you seem."
I blink at her. "My interviews make me seem funny?"
"No," she says. "That's the problem."
I laugh before I can stop myself. Actual laughter.
Warm and surprised enough that it catches me slightly off guard.
The sound feels unfamiliar in my own chest for a second.
Not because I haven't laughed since Calder.
Because grief changed the shape of joy for a while.
Made every good moment feel temporary. Careful.
Now the laughter arrives naturally enough that I don't notice it until afterward.
Something warm settles through me while conversation continues around the table.
The night moves easily after that, stories from competitions, terrible travel experiences, one pairs skater dramatically reenacting a warmup collision from junior nationals while everyone nearby nearly cries laughing.
At some point I stop monitoring myself emotionally altogether.
No careful checking to see whether happiness means I'm betraying grief somehow.
No guilt over enjoying myself. Just ease. Small. Fragile maybe. Still real.
A media coordinator I vaguely recognize eventually appears beside our table.
"Vale," he says with a grin, "I need to know if you're always this intimidating in interviews on purpose or if that's just natural talent."
I stare at him flatly.
"I am literally holding a mocktail with glitter in it."
"That doesn't answer the question."
The table laughs. I feel heat climb into my cheeks while he drops into the empty chair beside me briefly to complain about event scheduling disasters. The flirting exists lightly underneath the conversation. Harmless. Easy. Not loaded. Not emotionally dangerous.
And strangely enough, I don't recoil from it.
I also don't emotionally attach to it at all.
That distinction feels important.
Another person paying attention to me does not feel impossible. It just feels human. Temporary. Warm. Uncomplicated.
Not because it means I love Calder less.
God, I still love him enough that certain songs physically ruin my day.
But sitting here laughing while harbour lights shimmer through the restaurant windows and conversation rises warmly around me, my emotional world is opening outward again.
Not replacing him. Expanding beyond the shape of the loss.
One of the younger skaters leans across the table afterward.
"You seem happier lately."
The comment catches me off guard.
Happier.
The word settles strangely into my chest, because I'm not happy all the time. I still miss Calder constantly. But maybe happiness and heartbreak stopped being opposites somewhere along the way.
"I think," I say slowly, "I'm just learning how to exist again."
The skater smiles like she understands more than I intended to reveal.
And later, while laughter rises around me again and somebody across the table argues passionately about edge technique like it's a life-threatening issue, I'm enjoying myself without forcing it.
Not pretending. Not performing recovery.
Just living for a few hours without grief consuming every available space inside me.
The feeling doesn't make me feel guilty.
It makes me feel alive.
The city is quiet by the time I get home.
Not empty. Just softened around the edges.
Streetlights blur gold across wet pavement while I walk from the parking garage toward my apartment building with heels dangling loosely from two fingers and exhaustion humming pleasantly through my body.
The night air feels cool against my skin after hours inside crowded warmth and conversation.
I'm still smiling faintly when I step into the elevator.
That's the part that catches me off guard.
Not the happiness itself.
The fact it lingered afterward.