Chapter 16
“The hospital kept her overnight. It’s a concussion and a partially torn ACL,” I say, and Dad frowns beside me from our seats at the arena as the pairs program gets underway.
“That’s a year, maybe more,” Elisa chimes in from his other side.
“But it could have been so much worse. She’s lucky,” Brayden says. He’s all the way over on the end of the row, as far away from me as he can get. I don’t think he did it on purpose. Elisa sort of maneuvered her way beside him as we were sitting down.
“When are they going to release her from the hospital?” Camille asks from my other side.
“Not for a couple of days, and she can’t fly right away, so she’ll be sticking around Paris with us.”
“Well, why wouldn’t she want to stay in Paris, regardless? It’s Paris,” Elisa cuts in.
I stifle a retort about how that’s exactly what she did after she lost in Beijing, not staying and waiting through the closing ceremony, but returning home and hiding from the spotlight.
She doesn’t wait for me to answer, though, just turns to Brayden.
“Did you see the boots I snagged yesterday at Dior?”
She extends her leg as far as she can without kicking the man sitting in front of her in the head.
He takes his time perusing the length of her leg before he says, “They look good, Lis, like always.”
She lets out a soft giggle and he grins at her, but then her eyes flick to me. She’s trying to make me jealous, and if any of this were real, maybe I would be.
“Représentant les états-Unis d’Amérique, Maria Russo et Charlie Monroe!
” the arena announcer calls out, cutting into my thoughts.
The crowd applauds. It’s as full as the Opening Ceremony, easily one of the biggest audiences I’ve ever seen for a junior figure skating competition.
It was the same for the singles’ short programs yesterday, and this morning it’s pairs and then ice dance tonight.
I hope the International Skating Coalition takes notice and has competitions in bigger cities from now on.
There’s nothing better than a packed arena to skate to.
Charlie and Maria skate onto the ice and get set in their starting positions, but Elisa is still giggling at Brayden. She swats at his chest and he lets her, but when he looks up and meets my eyes over her head, I look away.
It’s annoying how she flirts with him like this and even more annoying that he’s letting her. Like there’s anything between them beyond a one-sided crush and maybe a physical attraction.
I could probably put a stop to it, if I wanted.
I could go all in, move to the empty seat on his other side, grab his hand, interlock our fingers, and rest my head on his shoulder.
I could pull him away from the group and give him a long, lingering hug in full view of everyone and their phones, setting off another social media deluge.
It would be so easy. Everyone in this arena knows who we are and fans in Europe have zero chill.
Charlie and Maria’s music filters through the speakers, a remix of songs from Aladdin, Maria’s favorite Disney movie. I hold my breath as Maria and Charlie perform side-by-side double axels and land them with no problem.
So what’s stopping me from doing that, from marking my territory?
Elisa wouldn’t hesitate.
I sigh and then answer my own question. We’re not exactly close and if we weren’t sisters, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t even be friends, but…
that doesn’t negate the fact that she is my sister and that it probably hurts her to see me with Brayden.
It might be a fake relationship, but she doesn’t know that.
Her feelings for him are genuine. I can tell the difference easily enough.
She’s unsure around him; the confidence she normally carries herself with is a shadow of itself when he’s around.
Her laughs are a little too loud. Her tone is a little too insistent when he doesn’t respond as enthusiastically as she’d like.
So much physical contact is initiated by her and never by him.
And I’m the one standing in her way. At least, that’s what she thinks.
Charlie lifts Maria up into the air and spins beneath her as he holds her over his head, her legs extended out and an arm up to show how much control they have over the skill. Not one wobble. They’re strong out there, a solid partnership, like me and Brayden.
The audience applauds and I do too as realization washes over me.
That’s what I want. That’s what matters.
Riley went down on the ice yesterday and her dreams are put on hold, at least for a year, maybe more.
Life is too short and figure skating careers are even shorter.
Maria and Charlie pick up momentum on the ice as they move into the throw jump, the same thing that Riley fell on, though they handle it with no problem and the fans cheer.
This is what I want. A crowd cheering as I skate and afterward, a gold medal.
I want to win Junior Worlds, and now that I’ve had time to let the idea settle for more than a split second, I want to go to Senior World Championships.
I want to see where we rank among the best of the best, regardless of age.
I want to know how far we need to climb from now through four years from now when we’ll be in Milan for the Olympic Games.
For now, I’m going to try to focus on that.
And because I’ve decided to do that, green eyes and chestnut hair and strong arms and a warm embrace slide through my memory.
Freddie.
The program is almost over, my little sister and her partner spinning side by side, and then they grab hold of each other, twirling at the center of the ice as the song finally crashes to an end, and finish with their arms raised over their heads, breathing hard, but sheer joy plastered on their faces.
That’s it. That’s the ending I want for Brayden and me tonight. That feeling, knowing you went out and hit the way you’ve been training, doing your best at the exact right moment. That’s everything.
“C’mon,” Brayden says, past Elisa and Dad, looking directly at me and standing up as Charlie and Maria skate off the ice. “We should get going.”
He’s right. We should. We have to warm up. I have to get my hair and makeup right and then get into costume. They’ll clean the ice after pairs and open up the ice dance competition.
We warm up in silence, both of us with earbuds firmly in place as we pace around the dressing room we’ve been assigned to prep before the competition begins.
I try to clear my head and replace everything swirling there with nothing beyond each and every moment of our rhythm dance.
“Vienna” is on repeat and every stroke of the piano keys pulls me further and further into the character I’ll be playing out on the ice. Brayden is doing the same, I think.
Camille comes in the room and nods. That means we should get our costumes on.
I unzip my garment bag and stare at my dress.
It’s as gorgeous as I remember. The cream color will set off my hair and eyes, especially since I really nailed the smoky eye I’ve been trying to perfect for a long time for this routine.
I take out my earbuds and change quickly, not even concerning myself with Brayden in the far corner of the room.
Checking myself in the mirror hung on the wall, I make sure the dress is sitting correctly, no tears, no undone buttons, and then nod before moving to get my skates on.
Stretching my feet and ankles as I do it, I wrap the back of my heels for support and then lace up my skates tight, like I do every day, before standing and testing how they feel.
Perfect.
“You good?” Brayden asks.
“I’m good,” I say with a nod.
“Good,” he replies, and then steps forward.
He’s handsome in his gray trousers that look almost like casual dress pants and a burgundy shirt that’s a little more open at the neck than most people would wear normally but looks a bit disheveled and flat-out hot on him.
I turn and see us in the mirror, our eyes making contact and holding.
We look older somehow, too old to be juniors.
It really is time to move on, like we planned.
His arms skirt around my waist and he tugs me back toward him and slowly we breathe together.
Then he leans down and whispers, “We’ve got this. ”
Nodding, I bring my hands up to rest on his and we stand there for another moment before Camille comes in.
“Five-minute warning,” she says, eyeing us carefully, and then nods at whatever it is she sees, like she approves.
Walking toward the mouth of the tunnel underneath the area that leads to the rink, Brayden grabs my hand and squeezes. Whatever happens, we’re in this together.
The area announcer is introducing the ice dance competition and the rest of the athletes in this subgroup are milling around, waiting for the signal that we’re allowed on the ice to warm up.
Camille holds out her hands and we give her our skate guards.
Warm-ups are a blur except for the shrieking that echoes the reaction we got the other night when our names are introduced as part of the group and our images are splashed on the huge screen hanging from the arena’s ceiling.
It’s something we’ll have to get used to.
I’ve never been a fan favorite before. Hell, I’ve never had fans before.
It’s so surreal.
A chime rings out and the rest of the skaters finish up their last bit of practice and then retreat off the ice, but we simply skate to the gate to where Camille is waiting.
“Go out there and do what you do in training and you’ll walk away today in the lead.” She holds out two fists and I bump them. Then Brayden follows before holding his fists to me too. I knock mine against his and then grab his hand.
“Représentant les états-Unis d’Amérique, Adriana Russo et Brayden Elliot.”
The shrieking is back, somehow even louder now than before.