Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
SIERRA
THIRD. brONZE. DEAD last.
I’ve been skating for sixteen years, save for the time I spent in hospital rooms. But I’ve never placed last. Not even during juvenile competitions. In figure skating, third is technically not last since there are at least eight teams here, but it is in every way that matters.
“How?” I whisper more to myself.
But Lidia levels me with a look so serious, I hold back my tears.
She knows I don’t mean how we scored so low.
I know why that happened, I felt it all in my body.
I should have taken my propranolol. I mean how am I going to make up for so many lost months in the next couple of weeks?
How can I improve more than this? I know I’m resilient and determined to a fault, nothing has ever stopped me before, but this new voice in my head that’s clawed into my resolve is hard to shut off.
I try to quiet the viscous doubt that drips all over my thoughts.
“Like we always do,” Lidia simply says. “We’re not quitters.”
There’s so much conviction in her words that I can’t refute it.
But a part of me wonders why I do this. If it’s worth the pain.
I used to think about that possibility, even dreamed about it some nights.
It was more prominent after the accident, when I’d sit in bed for hours imagining where I’d be if I didn’t choose this life.
If I could just be someone else. Do something else.
But this sport is a part of my very being, and you can’t walk away from your soul.
A warm, firm touch lingers on my arm. Dylan’s been watching me with a cautious look that’s driving me a little crazy.
I never expected it to be me who sucked out there.
I’d been so hard on him for every mistake that now, having him try to maneuver through the skate to salvage whatever points we could, just so I didn’t fuck it up, makes my chest hurt.
“I’ll be fine.” I swallow the pain of failure that bitters my tongue in hopes that no one else will ever have to taste it.
“I’m not asking you to be,” he says.
My gaze lifts to his, and it’s like the tension finally melts off his shoulders.
“I get it, okay. The first time we lost an important game, it took me a week to recover. I played a shit game, and my anger got the best of me. So, trust me, I get it. But this performance doesn’t dictate what happens next. We still have time to improve before the next one.”
My competitions are spread out over a year. For Dylan, he’s played nearly forty games in a season, it’s a competition every time. If anyone gets it, it’s him.
The announcers call out our names, and I try to wipe the grimace off my face as we skate toward the podiums, the third place stand looming like a slap to the face.
I grit my teeth, swallowing the sting of disappointment, but it doesn’t go down easy.
Justin and Julia glide up, hand in hand, arrogant as hell, taking their spot on second place.
My chin quivers, more from anger, and I tamp it down because Dylan’s watching me so carefully, I know he’ll see it.
His hand fights through the tight fist I’ve made, gently threading his fingers between mine. His grip is so tight it feels like it might break me open. I can’t move. I can’t pull away.
Then I catch sight of Justin, and I wish I hadn’t. He looks at Dylan’s and my intertwined hands, then flicks his eyes to me before he mouths, Anchor.
The word lands like a heavy blow that would have knocked me off the podium if Dylan hadn’t been holding me so tight.
Anchor.
It sinks deep, claws its way down into my chest, and gives an unforgiving twist. It was ours.
A promise, something we clung to when everything else felt uneasy.
But that’s not true. I don’t know if it ever was.
Yet the word comes with the memory of each time it was said, and made me feel like I mattered enough that someone would hold me down, keep me steady, stay with me. Now it’s a taunt.
When I look away, I see Dylan glaring at Justin, who immediately looks away, probably realizing he wouldn’t stand a chance defying the six-foot-four hockey player who starts brawls.
After that, the awards ceremony is a blur because the pressure in my chest is unbearable. I drop the flowers on the bench, and Lidia doesn’t stop me when I pull off my skates and head for the door. I go straight for my car, before the rush of people crowds the exit.
“Sierra.” Dylan grips my elbow just as my fingers brush the door handle.
“I’m fine,” I say, sharper than I intend, forcing a breath through my tight chest.
He steps closer, my breath catching and quickening, falling in the silence between us.
He’s close enough that I can smell him. Then his fingers trail across the bare skin of my back, dancing along the lace, igniting heat wherever they touch.
He hooks a hand around the fabric at my neck, his grip firm before he tugs and it comes undone.
The sudden rush of air fills my lungs, and I nearly slump forward against my car, finally breathing again.
“I just need some space,” I whisper.
I see the shake of his head in the reflection of my car window, that helpless, almost resigned movement that makes guilt coil tighter around me.
“You can cry, or scream, or break things if you need to. Whatever it is, you’ve got me to do it with. All of it,” he says.
I don’t move. I don’t think I could if I wanted to.
When I don’t speak, he drops his forehead to the back of my head so softly, I wonder if he’s even there. But when his voice rumbles low, warm against the cold bite of the night, goose bumps erupt on my skin.
“Don’t do this,” he whispers, the warmth of his breath stirring the stillness between us. “Don’t go where I can’t follow.”
His words hit me like a dull skate blade cutting too close to my throat.
Is this really who I’ve become? A person trapped inside their own mind, too high up in the tower to escape?
“I don’t do this. It was never like this before. Justin never let me—”
“I’m not him.”
“I know.” With that I pull the door handle and slip into the car, closing the door between us. As I drive away, I avoid looking at him in my rearview.
Dylan: I took a house poll, and we’ve reached the consensus that Dale Thunderman is, in fact, hot.
The text makes me smile. Dylan’s been sending me his random thoughts since last night, none of them having to do with the competition or my outburst. He also sends pictures of himself.
I expected him to be angry or hurt—both would be valid.
But he doesn’t make me feel guilty in any way; he’s treating me like he always does.
As though I’m allowed to be the way that I am, and it won’t drive him away.
There’s still a pointy branch shoved into my sternum that followed me on the drive home after he practically begged me not to ice him out, but I appreciate the sentiment, even if I can’t get myself to give him anything other than a half-assed emoji response.
I didn’t let it sink in last night. I couldn’t.
The only way I could move forward was by pushing the loss aside, so I’ve dodged it all day.
When my alarm went off this morning, I headed straight to a Pilates class in West Hartford.
After that, I drowned in pop-up quizzes for forensics and kinesiology, barely having time for lunch before it was time for the university ballet class.
I chose to do a kinesiology degree because it aligned best with skating, but in my final year, it doesn’t feel like it. On days when my schedule doesn’t line up, I pull up Sage Beaumont’s videos and follow her quick tutorials for moves that work on ice.
But today I decided to attend the class. I couldn’t go back to an empty dorm and ruminate on all the mistakes I made last night.
As I stretch before the class starts, the door opens.
Justin Petrov steps through, wearing tights and a long T-shirt.
He looks larger than I remember. Even bigger than he looked a few weeks ago.
I noticed it at the performance too. But he still feels so familiar, someone I saw nearly every day for four years, that my hand twitches to wave.
But I pull back, back to the girl I’ve become after him.
Justin slides into the spot next to me anyway, like he still belongs there. “Hey, ice queen.”
I want to tell him to stop calling me that, but I don’t give him the satisfaction. He would do that a lot, try to push my buttons until I burst, then tell me I was too reactive.
“Come on, you’re still not talking to me? You’re better than that, Sierra.”
The memories of his taunt make me tighten my fists. I breathe out, appearing unaffected. “Hi, Justin.”
“How’s your jock?”
The question catches me off guard. It’s the first time he’s shown any interest in Dylan. Justin’s always so proper, so polite, that the jab at my partner makes the corner of my lip lift.
“Great,” I reply.
“Sorry about last night. But what did you expect from a stoner hockey player? He chuckles dryly as the class settles in. “At least it seems like he’s going back to his roots. Though it’s only matter of time before he fucks that up just like your performance.”
His words sting. Dylan saved our performance. He’s the only reason we made it onto that podium. A fierce protectiveness sears through me like fire.
Fuck being the bigger person. I step closer, eyes locked on his.
“Talk about my partner again, and you’re going to regret ever opening your mouth,” I sneer.
“I never want to speak to you again, Justin. It’ll only make it harder for me to pretend you’re not a fucking coward.
” My voice cracks, and this time I don’t care if he hears it.
“You don’t mean that, Sierra. I care about you. We’re each other’s anchor—”
I grab my bag and walk right out of the class. A part of me hates to give him the satisfaction, but I can’t do it today. And even as I tell myself not to think about his words, something still pulls me to the arena.
Hockey practice is loud and in full swing, and I spot him instantly.
Maybe because I’ve memorized how his body moves on skates.
Or how Dylan’s presence fills the whole space, larger than the arena itself.
He’s fast, ruthless on the ice, maneuvering around the cones with the puck glued to his stick, slamming into defenders, firing shots into the net.
He looks happy. Exactly where he belongs, doing another thing he’s great at. All I have is skating, and that means I’ve let him into every aspect of my life. The thought of doing it without him makes my chest burn.
Sometimes there’s a rare occurrence where you’re lucky enough to achieve the thing you’ve dreamed of.
But even if I take the accident out of the equation, it’s hard to pinpoint whether I’ve achieved my dream or if I’m still trying to find it.
It feels like I have to choose between being happy and my dream, when all this time, I thought they were the same thing.
The weight of the loss hits me then. I have to be better on my own. And there’s only one way I know how to do that.