Chapter 1 #2
“Ice dance?” he clarifies with what I’m sure he thinks is a purely neutral voice, but Dad’s never neutral, not about what counts as real figure skating, anyway, and ice dancing definitely doesn’t. It never has.
“Yeah. Anyway, I was gonna take a nap and then shower and get ready,” I say, not in the mood to rehash that old argument. I’m too exhausted.
“Ugh! Where is Adriana? I need her!” Elisa’s voice carries over the din before she pushes through the crowd.
Elisa is my opposite in every way. Even though she’s a year older than me, at five foot eight I tower over her by more than half a foot.
Her hair falls in honey-blonde waves over her shoulders, a stark contrast to my dark curls.
The only thing we have in common are our eyes, hazel, exactly like Mom’s were.
“I’m here,” I say, stepping out from behind one of the burly cameramen, who swings around to get us both into the shot.
My sister grabs me by the wrist and tugs with insistence toward the stairs, and even with the advantage of my longer legs, I have to hurry to keep up with her.
“I need you to look at my luggage. I don’t know how I can be expected to pack my things for the Olympics and prepare for the party tonight.
Like, there’s no way I’m going to remember what I need.
This list they sent us is so overwhelming,” she says as we pass through her bedroom door.
She swipes the list off her dresser and shoves it back at me before shutting the door in the face of the cameraman who was struggling to follow us.
I guess she doesn’t want this on camera.
I take the list and then look around her bedroom. It’s a total wreck. There are clothes everywhere, across the floor and her bed and her furniture. Every drawer in her dresser is empty, and hangers hang in her closet with nothing hung on them.
“Um, how much did you get done?” I ask, but I can answer my own question. Her two suitcases are in the center of her bed and completely empty. Nothing. She got nothing done.
“I took everything out,” she says, flopping back onto the chaise lounge in the corner of her bedroom.
With a sigh, I glance at the list. It’s nothing crazy.
Just an itinerary of their training plans leading up to the Games and the events they’ll need nice clothes for along the way.
Mom used to always sit with us to pack for our competitions, but after she got sick, and then after she was gone, we started to sit with each other.
For Elisa, though, it usually turns into me packing while she supervises.
I place the list down in a free bit of space on her bed. “Okay, I’ll help, but you’re sitting on a pile of leggings.”
Giggling, she reaches underneath and pulls out a ball of black fabric and tosses it to me. Before I catch it, her phone is out and she’s tapping away at the screen.
“Has Brayden said anything?” she asks, not looking up as I detangle the leggings and roll them neatly into a corner of her suitcase.
“About what?” I ask, wrinkling my nose. Brayden Elliot is my ice dance partner. He’s eighteen, and he and Elisa had a thing back when he and I started skating together two years ago.
It did not end well.
Not that any of the things Brayden has ever had with any girl end well.
I don’t know the exact details—and never, ever want to know them, thank you very much—but I do know he was the one who ended it.
He’s always the one who ends those things.
Yet somehow, despite that, my sister, who could probably have any guy she wants, never seems to give up hope that he might change his mind.
Personally, I don’t get it. Brayden’s a great partner, a cool guy and undeniably hot, but when the word fuckboy gets into the dictionary, his picture will be right there next to it.
“Did he ask about me?”
“I haven’t seen him since training this morning.” That’s not really an answer, and I hope she doesn’t notice. I don’t want to tell her no, Brayden hadn’t said anything, because Brayden isn’t interested anymore. “You shouldn’t worry about Brayden. You’re going to the Olympics.”
“Yes, and I’m currently trying not to think about how our entire family’s legacy is on my shoulders now, thanks. So…Brayden, did he ask about me?”
Ah, so she did notice, and yeah, that’s fair. Okay, distractions.
“He didn’t say anything,” I tell her. “Sadie Mortenson’s mom wishes you good luck, though.”
Yeah, that’s probably not that helpful.
Elisa sniffs and continues to scroll through her phone. “He never said whether or not he was coming tonight. Did he mention the party at training?”
“He said he was going to try to stop by.”
What I don’t say is that Brayden said he’d try to stop by after he met up with the girl he’s having his most recent thing with. There’s no way I can tell Elisa that without a total implosion, though.
“We’ve been training really hard. He might want to crash tonight.”
“He at least owes me a ‘good luck.’ I’m going to the Olympics.” She sighs heavily, but then pivots, clearly remembering she doesn’t want to think about that. “Don’t you wish you hadn’t switched to ice dance? You won’t get the chance for another four years at least.“
It’s a very old conversation that always comes back to one important point.
“You know I’m too tall for anything other than ice dance,” I say dully, like I have every time anyone has brought this up in the last decade.
Elisa’s gaze flicks up from her screen. “Whatever. If he doesn’t come tonight, tell Brayden that—”
Whatever I’m supposed to tell Brayden is cut off by the bedroom door swinging open. Our younger sister Maria flies through it, flinging it shut behind her so hard the walls shudder.
“Charlie is the worst, and I am so sick of him,” she whines, marching straight for Elisa and throwing herself into the empty space on the chaise beside her. Maria is only two years younger than me, but sometimes those two years feel like twenty. Charlie is Charles Monroe Jr., her skating partner.
She skates pairs, which is nearly as acceptable as singles skating, according to Dad, at least. My sisters both inherited our dad’s blond hair, our mom’s tiny stature, and the firm belief that ice dance doesn’t really belong in the sport of figure skating.
Apparently, it’s only a real sport if you hurl your body through the air while spinning like a top.
Unlike Dad, however, they’re both totally fine with my chosen discipline, since it conveniently never puts any of us in direct competition.
Mom loved that part of it, that she never had to worry about who to cheer for on the ice, that if her girls all went out there and did their best, then she knew we’d come home with three gold medals.
“What now?” Elisa asks as Maria curls into her side, but she meets my eyes over her head and rolls them dramatically. Elisa doesn’t usually have patience for our youngest sister’s drama, but apparently, it’s a decent enough distraction for her right now.
“He’s just there and hot and so nice and…why does he have to be gay?”
“I know it’s tough,” Elisa says, squeezing our little sister’s shoulders. “Maybe it’s better, though. Mixing a partnership with romance can be tricky. That never really works, right, Adriana?”
I freeze. My stomach lurches and the air prickles around me.
Elisa stares, waiting for me to agree and tell Maria she’s better off not dating her skating partner because it is actually good advice.
There’s no innuendo in her voice. She’s not talking about…
him. She probably doesn’t even remember the crush I had on him before he left, before I made him leave.
In fact, knowing Elisa, she probably doesn’t remember him at all.
He is Freddie O’Connell, my former partner, former best friend, and first crush.
Two years ago, I sprouted up to my current height, and he barely matched it, with no guarantee he’d ever grow enough for us to be successful together. So I had to decide.
It was the toughest choice I’ve ever made in my life, to leave Freddie and partner up with Brayden Elliot.
Now he skates with a good friend of mine, Riley Monroe, and they’ve been pretty successful. So much so that they’ll be headed to Junior World Championships too, after training here at Kellynch, starting tomorrow.
I push that thought away, like I have since Dad told us about the arrangement with the rest of the Junior Worlds team, ignoring the fact Freddie will be here soon, at the same rink as me.
The ice dancing world is small. I haven’t been able to avoid him completely, but we aren’t friends anymore.
I can probably count on one hand the number of words we’ve exchanged since his last day training at Kellynch.
The last time I saw him was at Nationals, when Brayden and I beat him and Riley out for gold. He’d done what you’re supposed to do, shook my hand and mumbled congratulations before I stepped up onto the podium to get my medal. He didn’t even look me in the eye. Not that I can blame him, really.
“What do you think?” Maria’s voice cuts into my thoughts. Only seconds have passed. I blink away the memories and focus on her.
I pick up a dress from Elisa’s bed, a red sequined minidress that I’m pretty sure actually belongs to me. Folding it into a neat square, I place it in my older sister’s suitcase and then turn to my little sister.
“You deserve someone who wants to be with you as much as you want to be with them.”
Maria blinks at me once, then twice before her face crumples and tears start to gather at the corners of her eyes, her cheeks flushing bright. “But I can’t help it. I love him.” She launches herself off the chaise and starts pacing the room.
Elisa stands, moving by me with the grace of the Olympic figure skater she is.
She reaches into her suitcase to pick up the dress I put there.
“Here,” she says, holding it out to Maria.
“Wear this to the party tonight. I’m wearing white, and the dress I got for Adriana is blue.
It’ll be so perfect for pictures. I’ll do your hair and makeup and we’ll find someone who will appreciate how absolutely gorgeous you are. ”
Maria drags Elisa out of the room and across the hall into hers, leaving me with two nearly empty suitcases. Glancing around at the stuff that needs to be in them before tomorrow morning still strewn everywhere, I sigh before getting to work.