Chapter 21
My eyes fix on the score up on the screen, listed under the Canadian team who just finished their program, smiling and hugging their coaches in the Kiss and Cry and generally seeming happy with their performance. And why shouldn’t they? They’re sitting in first place with one team to go.
Unfortunately for them, we’re up next.
“Représentant les états-Unis d’Amérique, Adriana Russo et Brayden Elliot!”
As one, we skate out onto the ice and raise our hands to the crowd. The noise they make now is still astoundingly loud and sends a chill down my spine the way the actual ice hasn’t in a long time.
At the center of the ice, we stand back-to-back and lace our fingers together and wait for the music to begin. The harp strings are being plucked softly and then two cellos join it as “Rains of Castamere” starts off the medley, slowly and tragically.
Brayden and I move around each other, hands twining and then releasing, back and forth, our actions mirroring each other until a drum rolls in the distance and the deep bellowing of the main theme builds and builds.
He grabs my hand, twists and pulls me into his arms and then we’re off across the ice as I pull away into our twizzle sequence, spinning in perfect unison, our footwork as aggressive and forceful as the music.
As we reach the other side of the rink, our hands find each other again and we’re waltzing, cutting a perfect pattern across the ice before our first lift, a simple one, me in his arms as he spins.
The music reaches another crescendo and then pulls back as my skates hit the ice, and the song slows a fraction before building again.
Then it’s full-out all the way through the end, every part of our bodies working together to tell the story of Daenerys and Jon, and maybe, somehow, of Adriana and Brayden too.
As the music finds its peak, I move into his grasp and he lifts me, my knees pressing into his chest as he circles the ice, holding me up toward the rafters as I lean back, arms extended, and the crowd gasps at the right moment.
But my legs give a little, a fluke, nothing to do with betrayal or trust, just a weird shift of my weight and I’m destined for the ice, where I’ll crash headfirst and knock myself senseless, probably worse than Riley did, but instead, Brayden’s grip is solid at my thighs.
He has me.
He’s not letting go.
And then I’m down again, my skates on the ice, finding my edges, secure and firm as always, and the music is coming to an end; we go into a spin, the same pose as the lift, except this time, it’s part of the choreography as we fall together and Brayden mimes a sword stabbing me and together we’re down and breathing as the music ends.
There’s silence for a split second and then the crowd is back, louder than I’ve ever heard them, somehow, but I’m still able to hear Brayden say, “That’s what I’m talking about! ”
I laugh, wrapping my arms around his neck as he stands and pulls me with him.
“Yes!” he yells again as we raise our joined hands together to take our bows to the judges and the crowd. They’re on their feet applauding—the fans, not the judges, they’d never—and we make sure to turn to each corner to send them the same amount of love they’ve shown us this entire time.
After our final bow, Brayden pulls me to him again.
“Thank you,” he mumbles in my ear.
“We did it,” I mumble back, hugging him tight.
We skate off the ice as the crowd is still cheering, throwing stuffed animals for us, and I head straight for Camille, who is hysterically crying, like a full-on ugly cry of joy. She hugs me tightly and then grabs Brayden and we rock back and forth together for a moment.
“You two, that was incredible!” she shrieks.
I try to catch my breath once we get to the Kiss and Cry, but it’s almost impossible. It’s not the routine. It’s the moment. The scores will come up in a second and I don’t know exactly what they’ll be, but I know we’ve done what we set out to do.
“I almost went down there for a second,” I say as we settle onto the couch.
“Yeah, I felt it, but I had you,” he says.
“You did.” I grab his hand and hold on tight as the announcer interrupts the music playing to entertain the fans while we wait for the score.
“The score, please,” she says, almost sounding like a robot.
“Le score d’Adriana Russo et Brayden Elliot est de 104.32, ce qui les place à la première place de la danse libre, avec un score total de 179.81, un autre nouveau record du monde junior!”
My brain still can’t translate the French, not completely, but that last part sounds familiar and I look up to the scoreboard and see:
RUSSO, A./ELLIOT, B. (USA)
TECHNICAL ELEMENTS: 53.11 PRESENTATION: 51.21
TOTAL SCORE: 104.32
TOTAL: 179.81 (1)
We won.
Holy shit.
We were always supposed to win. We were the favorites coming into the competition, but after everything we’ve been through, after the impossible highs and lows of the last few weeks, we actually did it.
I can’t breathe because I’m squashed between my partner and my coach and I think maybe I’m crying?
Which is insane and impossible because I never cry.
Ever. But there are hot tears running down my cheeks and my throat is thick and I can barely breathe and my eyeliner is probably streaking over my face and I don’t care at all.
“Your mom would be so proud of you,” Camille says, and I know it’s true, which just makes me cry harder.
When we finally pull back, the lights in the arena are going down. Event workers are rolling out the red carpets over the ice and the podium is in one corner, waiting for us to stand atop it.
“Here.” Camille shoves a box of makeup wipes into my hand.
God, I probably look like a total mess. We race back to the locker room, with everyone we pass shouting congratulations at us along the way and right before we get there, through my blurry vision, I think I see a tall, dark-haired figure disappearing down the long tunnel toward the exit, but then we’re at the locker room door and Brayden is leading me inside so we can get camera-ready for the medal ceremony.
Was that Freddie? Did he watch? Why didn’t he sit in the stands with everyone else?
I don’t have time to think about it because I have to get my face looking like I didn’t spend the last few minutes snotty and gross.
I smooth back my hair when I look in the mirror and take a makeup wipe to the edges of my eye makeup, which mostly fixes the major issues, and then I reapply my lipstick.
I have to be done, though, because a man with a headset is knocking on the door and speaking rapidly in French, waving us out of the room.
Brayden grabs my hand and we walk together back to the black curtain that blocks off the rink, and there’s some kind of orchestral music playing that sounds like it should be backing an epic battle in a fantasy movie.
The announcer is introducing everyone and it’s mostly a lot of French blending together, but then I hear “Walter Russo” and it occurs to me, though why I didn’t realize it before is kind of ridiculous, that Dad is out there and he’s going to be the one to put the medals around our necks.
My grip on Brayden’s hand tightens and he squeezes back.
“It’ll be okay,” he says, and I believe him. Besides, this is my moment. Not Dad’s.
“Médaillés de bronze Vera Petrova et Alexi Volkov de Russie!”
“Médaillés d’argent Rosalie Martin et Thomas Nelson du Canada!”
“Médaillées d’or et nouveaux champions du monde juniors de patinage artistique Adriana Russo et Brayden Elliot!”
We skate out onto the ice hand in hand, pulling up before the podium, where we stop and wave to the roaring crowd. Then it’s easy. A kiss to each cheek for the bronze medalists and then to the silver medalists before Brayden holds out his hand and helps me up onto the podium and then follows.
We stand tall as the event workers walk out with the medals on their trays, holding them for Dad to put around the necks of the Russians and then the Canadians.
The movie trailer music is still playing as he approaches us, but all the air and sound and people seem to be sucked out of the building and it’s just us.
Brayden leans down first and Dad puts the medal around his neck with a smile and a firm handshake.
Then he turns to me and meets my eyes firmly, but it doesn’t feel like he sees me, not really.
Not that that’s any different from normal.
I thought maybe, though, in this moment, things wouldn’t be normal.
“Well done, Adriana,” he says as I lean down for my medal. “Very well done.”
He kisses each cheek and then he’s stepping back. The world returns to normal, the music still playing, the crowd still cheering.
“Mesdames et messieurs, veuillez-vous lever pour l’hymne national des états-Unis!”
“The Star-Spangled Banner” begins to play, like it did for Ben earlier this week, and I have a pretty good view of where our friends are sitting.
They’re all standing, singing along, and so I do too, focusing on the flag rising above the others toward the rafters, slowly but surely as the music swells.
I mouth the words to myself, but Brayden sings, mostly off-key, and we laugh as the music ends and the crowd cheers again.
Then we’re being led down from the podium, a worker ushering us toward a row of photographers all bunched together off the ice.
We pose with our medals held up, with our medals down, with our arms around each other, and with flags they have for us to put around our shoulders.
Then they send off the Canadians and Russians and the pictures are of only us, the clicks and flashes and their instructions, mostly in languages I don’t understand, blurring together.
The worker doesn’t let us pose for long and eventually, he calls off the small on-ice photo shoot and motions for us to leave the ice.
That’s it.
It’s over.
All that work and it’s over.
And the work begins again.