Chapter 22 #2
She opened the first-aid kit, rummaging through it until she found a tube of joint pain gel. She turned it over in her hand, squinting at the expiration date.
“Damn… two months expired…” she hissed, then tossed it into the trash with a defeated motion.
Standing there for a second longer, she finally gave up on fighting her body for the night and dragged herself back to bed, wrapping herself tightly in the blanket and pulling a pillow into her chest like it could substitute for warmth. Her thoughts drifted inevitably back to Tora.
If I weren’t here in St. Petersburg right now… I could be anywhere else. Somewhere quieter and warmer. Somewhere like Norway… with Tora. Fucccccckkkkk!
In the morning, Alisa woke up with the same unpleasant pain in her knees, that dull, lingering ache that hadn’t gone anywhere overnight.
She dragged herself to the kitchen, made coffee, and put together her favorite syrniki with raspberry jam and sour cream, sitting down to eat them out of habit more than desire, but sadly they brought almost no pleasure today.
She chewed slowly without appetite, staring somewhere past the table, and in the end she didn’t even finish her coffee, she just poured the leftovers into a thermos.
She packed her bag mechanically and went downstairs. Hermann was already waiting for her in the parking lot, leaning back in the driver’s seat, sipping coffee from his own thermos and lightly tapping the rhythm of something only he could hear against the steering wheel with his long fingers.
Alisa opened the back door, tossed her bag onto the seat, slammed it shut, and slid into the front beside him.
“Not even gonna say to me a good morning?” he raised his eyebrows, making a mock-offended face. “Did something happen?” He tilted his head, looking her over carefully. “You look… normal.”
“Knees…” Alisa exhaled tiredly, squeezing her eyes shut as she leaned back and clicked her seatbelt into place.
They pulled away.
“I’m sorry, kid… I’ve got some body gel in the glove compartment, want it?”
Alisa let out a slow breath. “Yeah… please.”
She leaned over, rummaging through his things until she found the tube, then rolled up one pant leg, squeezing a bit of gel into her palm. The sharp, familiar smell immediately filled the car, it was always something cold, biting, maybe menthol…
She rubbed it into one knee, then the other, sitting still for a few minutes until it dried and soaked in, the skin cooling almost painfully. Then she pulled her pants back down and shifted slightly in her seat, feeling that uncomfortable mix of numbness and cold spreading through her legs.
Outside, it wasn’t snowing, not raining, everywhere around them was just that dry, cruel cold. One fucking degree. The kind that got under your skin and bones.
Hermann reached over and turned on the heated seat for her, adjusting the airflow.
“It’ll warm up now. Sorry… forgot to turn it on.”
“It’s nothing…” she murmured.
He switched on the radio, and Sweater Weather by The Neighbourhood started playing.
Alisa turned her head toward the window, watching the city slide by with its gray buildings, gray sky, everything dull and washed out, like someone had drained the color from it overnight. It matched too well with how she felt inside.
She remembered how she used to listen to this song on repeat when it first came out… how badly she’d wanted to go to their concert when they came to Russia and she didn’t. And then… they just stopped coming to Russia altogether.
Funny how things just… stop.
She started singing along quietly, her voice a little hoarse, carrying that same tired sadness that sat in her chest.
Hermann didn’t interrupt, he was just listening to his friend singing.
“Are you sure you want to practice today?” he finally asked after a while.
“I don’t want to,” Alisa said honestly, still staring out the window. “But I have to.”
He nodded once, glancing at her with something like respect.
“Champion attitude.”
Hermann wanted to encourage Alisa somehow, but nothing he could think of seemed to land.
Alisa just took her still-warm coffee out of her bag and began to drink it in small sips, staring straight ahead at the road, unfocused, as if she wasn’t even really seeing it.
They were already approaching the arena, thankfully no traffic jams this morning, oddly enough, like the city had decided to behave for once.
They split up right in the parking lot. Hermann went off toward a small place near the arena to grab breakfast and clear his head with a walk, and Alisa headed straight to the locker room, because time was already pressing in on her, and today there was a short program run-through and then the free skate—everything at once.
And Alisa felt terrible in every possible way.
Even during warm-up, she already understood that today was going to be hell.
Her knees hurt mercilessly, despite the gel she had rubbed into them earlier, it didn’t seem to do anything at all, and the painkillers she had taken before going out barely dulled the edge.
She skated through both programs with clenched teeth, dragging herself through each element, half on technique, half on stubbornness.
The mood stayed bad the entire day and when Arkadiy finally said, “Well… it’s okay. But could’ve been better though,” she almost laughed from the absurdity of it.
No one noticed. No one saw how much pain she was hiding, how every movement came at a cost. She skated at maximum tension, like a wire pulled too tight, ready to snap.
And when she got home, she did snap.
Alisa didn’t even make it past the hallway.
She dropped her bag somewhere near the door, didn’t take off her jacket, didn’t take off her shoes properly, she just collapsed onto the floor and curled up, pressing into herself, letting out broken sounds as everything finally crashed down on her at once.
For a second she thought about quitting.
About pulling out of the qualifiers. About letting the Olympics go. But she had come too far. Too many years, too many injuries, too many sacrifices. To quit now would mean it was all for nothing.
Everyone skated through pain. Everyone.
Was I weaker?
No.
I couldn’t be.
She had to keep going, even like this.
The vibration of her phone dragged her out of the spiral. She hadn’t even heard it at first.
“What the…?” she muttered hoarsely, pushing herself up and reaching blindly into her bag. “Where the hell did I throw it…”
She hissed under her breath, digging through everything—clothes, skates, tape, random things—until finally her fingers closed around it.
Still vibrating.
Tora.
Is there connection now?! Oh my God…
Alisa sniffed, quickly wiping at her face, and answered the FaceTime call.
“Hey… babe, you—”
Tora’s smile disappeared the second she saw her, replaced instantly with worry.
“What’s wrong, babe?”
“Why are you sitting in the doorway?”
“Ah… well…” Alisa glanced around, suddenly aware of how she must look, and pushed herself up, shrugging her jacket off and letting it fall right there on the floor.
“Well, yeah… it’s just… a small break for a nervous breakdown, you know. Everything’s just… happening, like all at once.” She pressed her lips together, trying to sound lighter than she felt.
She pulled her skates out of the bag and left them near the door to dry, then walked into the kitchen, phone still in hand. Outside, it was already dark, snow mixed with rain, that disgusting in-between weather that promised slush by morning.
Great.
She’d probably have to ask Hermann for a ride again. Lately, taxis had only been making her more irritated and exhausted, and Hermann didn’t mind, he actually liked picking her up before morning practices now that their schedules overlapped, even if they trained on different ice.
“Alisa?” Tora’s voice softened, careful, almost fragile. “Look at me…”
Alisa lifted her gaze to the camera.
“I’m sorry I can’t be there with you right now… to support you properly…”
“Yeah… that sucks…” Alisa forced a small, crooked smile, but her eyes were still wet and shining.
“Don’t cry,” Tora said gently. “Tell me what happened.”
Alisa put the phone on the kitchen table, propping it up carefully against a vase filled with dried roses, the same ones from Beijing.
“Are those… the roses from China?”
“Yeah… those ones.” Alisa gave a small, almost shy chuckle as she filled the kettle. “I kind of… well… dried them, as you can see.”
She moved around the kitchen on autopilot, putting the kettle on, setting out her dinner: chicken breast, buckwheat and boiled eggs. Then tea with honey and lemon.
When she finally sat down, it was across from the phone, where Tora’s face hovered from the screen like she was actually here with her.
“Nice ass, babe,” Tora suddenly said, completely serious.
Alisa snorted, caught off guard by the timing. “Thank you… yours is fine too…”
She pressed her lips together, hesitating. Deciding whether to say it or not, because once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop, and who knew how long the connection would even last… fuck.
“Well,” she exhaled, “I kind of had a nervous breakdown. Knees again. Same old shit.”
She looked down at her hands.
“It started a long time ago, back in childhood… doctors couldn’t figure it out, threw around weird diagnoses, or just said they didn’t know how to help. And now it’s back, and it just—”
“Hey… shhh.”
Alisa broke mid-sentence. The tears came again, rolling down her cheeks before she could stop them.
“Babe… it’s going to be okay,” Tora said softly, and then paused, like she understood that Alisa wasn’t resting at all, not before something this level of important.
“Yeah… I’ll get through it,” Alisa muttered, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “It’s fine. I’m training on pills, on ointments… I’ll manage somehow.”
She swallowed, forcing herself to shift the topic.
“What about you? You probably have your internal competitions too, right… before the Olympics? Have they selected anyone yet, or do you already know you’re going?”