Chapter 12 #2
There were already ten boys sitting along the boards and another five girls gathered nearby.
Alisa recognized some of them vaguely from competitions and passing glimpses in the corridors of the rink, but she had never skated with them.
Singles skaters. It still felt strange to think that now she was one of them.
There were no coaches on the ice yet. Apparently, the rink had been split between two groups today, divided between Arkadiy and another coach, all of them singles. After so many years of pair skating, it was unsettling to see an entire arena full of people skating on their own.
At the other end of the arena, the hockey players were still finishing their practice. They tore across the ice in a blur of black and red jerseys, chasing the puck and sending sprays of shaved ice into the air with every sudden stop. The figure skaters watched them with open irritation.
No one liked skating after hockey players.
Even after only an hour, hockey carved deep grooves and rough scratches into the ice, turning the clean surface into something uneven and unpredictable. For skaters, especially singles who needed perfect edges and flawless landings, it felt like trying to dance barefoot on a broken glass.
Alisa walked over and sat carefully on the bench beside the girls. They were all watching the hockey players with identical expressions of suffering and annoyance.
Then one of them turned toward her.
She had dark cherry-red hair twisted into a messy bun and wore a black training dress with long sleeves and tiny rhinestones glittering at the collar. She warmly smiled at her.
“Hi. First time with us?”
“Are you new?” another girl asked, peeking out from behind ‘Cherry’, as Alisa immediately decided to call her in her mind.
Alisa pressed her lips together, unable to stop a slightly awkward smile. “Kind of.”
“Oh my God, are you on our team?” another girl asked, leaning forward eagerly.
Before Alisa could answer, one of the others suddenly gasped so loudly that everyone turned to look at her.
“Wait… aren’t you that pairs skater? Alisa Voronkova? You’re with the boys now?”
“Apparently,” Alisa said with a helpless little shrug. “Arkadiy decided to take me into the group for a while.”
Immediately the questions came.
“What happened to your old coach?”
“Are you leaving pair skating?”
“What about Lev?”
Cherry instantly turned to them with a look of pure outrage.
“Oh, hush, you crows,” she said sharply. “Don’t attack the poor girl.”
She pulled off one black glove and held out her hand.
“I’m Anfisa.”
“Alisa. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
Anfisa shook her hand firmly, and then the others introduced themselves one after another.
“Anita.”
“Violetta.”
“Annabel.”
“Anastasia.”
Alisa repeated their names in her head, and somehow, without noticing when exactly it happened, she felt the tight knot inside her loosen just a little.
At that moment the hockey players finally skated off the ice.
They passed the figure skaters sitting casually on the bench with their usual lazy arrogance, carrying sticks over their shoulders, grinning at the girls in a way that made several of them roll their eyes. One guy lingered behind the others.
Hermann.
Alisa looked up in surprise.
“Wow,” he said, stopping right in front of her with a grin. “Are you really in singles now?”
Alisa laughed quietly, suddenly shy. She still hadn’t told him.
“Well… sort of. Today’s my first day.”
“Congratulations, Alisa,” Hermann said with a sincere smile.
Alisa stood up from the bench with the others, and she immediately felt every single pair of eyes on them.
The girls were watching the conversation with intense interest, but Anfisa especially looked furious.
She had crossed her arms tightly over her chest, glaring at Hermann as if she were physically restraining herself from marching over and punching him.
Alisa blinked, glancing from Hermann to Anfisa and back again.
What on earth had happened between them?
Herman only grinned wider and threw an arm around Alisa’s shoulders.
“Good luck, little one.”
Then he winked at Anfisa, that turned out to be a mistake. Anfisa snorted loudly and turned away from him with theatrical disgust. “Your charm doesn’t work on me, Hermann. I still hate all of you. You only ruin the ice with your stupid blades anyway.”
She spoke without even looking at him, but Hermann immediately got that dangerous, amused expression on his face that clearly meant well, now you’ve done it.
“Oh, really?” he said, stepping closer. He nudged her lightly with his chest.
Anfisa glared at him and shoved him right back. Then he pushed again and she pushed harder. Within seconds they were standing chest to chest in front of the benches, arguing and shoving each other like angry children who had forgotten they were adults.
“Get away from me!”
“You started it!”
“You ruin every rink you touch!”
“And you complain more than anyone I’ve ever met!”
By the time Anfisa looked ready to actually swing at him, Arkadiy appeared out of nowhere, caught both of them by the shoulders, and physically pulled them apart.
“What, did you two get your rinks mixed up again?” he barked. “Enough already. Alyona! Deal with your girls!”
At that exact moment Alyona came hurrying across the rink toward them, waving one hand in greeting as she approached.
“All right, everybody calm down,” she barked, then without missing a beat she clapped her hands sharply. “Warm-up! Now! Everyone on the ice!”
The girls groaned, still glaring murderously at the hockey players, while the hockey players only laughed and headed toward the locker room as if they had won some invisible battle.
“See you later, Alisa,” Hermann called over his shoulder one last time before disappearing down the corridor with the rest of his team.
Alisa watched them go, and then Arkadiy turned to her.
“Well? Are you waiting for a personal invitation?” he asked sternly, though there was still the trace of a smile in his voice. “Get on the ice.”
Alisa nodded quickly and stepped through the gate. The moment she glided onto the rink, several of the boys noticed her and waved immediately, delighted by the appearance of a new face among the same familiar ones they had seen every day for years.
After the warm-up, they gathered around her in a loose circle.
“Hi.”
“Welcome.”
“Glad you’re here.”
They were all surprisingly kind and Alisa did not know why that made her want to cry.
“The ice is awful after hockey,” one of them warned her with a grimace. “Nothing new there, but just don’t jump in the corners or over there.” He pointed toward one end of the rink. “They always destroy that patch the worst.”
“Come on,” another boy said, taking her gently by the hand. “We’ll show you.”
And together they led her across their half of the rink.
The other half belonged to the girls, who were skating slowly with identical looks of irritation, peering suspiciously at the surface for deep scratches and holes left behind by hockey skates.
In summer the ice was always worse. The machine did not come out after every session or every break because there were too many people and too little time.
Other arenas closed for the season, so everyone came here instead, cramming into one rink, one patch of ice, until the surface became worn and uneven beneath their blades.
From the boards Arkadiy shouted after them.
“Be careful with our girl, boys! Don’t hurt her!”
The boys laughed and saluted dramatically.
Then the practice began. They spread out into groups and started the warm-up together, one after another, gliding across the ice in long arcs, repeating the same exercises.
Alisa knew them all by heart. She had learned them when she was small, before pairs, before Lev, before her whole life had narrowed down to being half of someone else.
And suddenly it felt as though she had returned to some forgotten part of herself.
Training in a group was strangely joyful. Everyone copied one another, repeated steps and stretches and movements in rhythm, blades scratching softly over the ice.
Then Arkadiy stepped onto the ice and immediately the atmosphere changed. The boys began repeating difficult elements after him, listening carefully to every correction.
Soon the first jumps began. Triple jumps first, then quads.
Alisa slowed for a little bit. A familiar, ugly anxiety rose in her chest. She had not done a quadruple jump by herself in so long.
A jump where you had to launch yourself into the air, spin four full times, sometimes four and a half, before you touched the ice again, and trust that your body still remembered how to land.
She stood there for a second too long, staring at the empty stretch of ice in front of her.
And suddenly she was terrified.