Chapter 3 Ari
Ari
If her dad hadn’t skipped out on her family when she was a kid to run away with a new woman to a different country, Ari would have never become an Olympian.
The money he’d sent to assuage his guilt sent her to an elite private school where everybody’s parents were wealthy and well connected.
She’d gone into it expecting to feel out of place.
After all, she’d gone to a state school from the ages of five to eleven and was one of the only Black girls joining her private school in the middle of the year.
But she hadn’t expected to feel so lonely.
However, after a few weeks of roaming the halls alone, she’d met a half-Trinidadian girl with braces and a halo of brown hair, named Sienna, who had invited her to tag along to the after-school ice hockey club.
At that point, Ari’s only experience of ice skating was the time her mom had taken her and her younger sister to a pop-up ice rink at an annual Christmas market.
But to everybody’s surprise, Ari took to the ice like a duck to water.
Playing ice hockey for the first time with Sienna and her new school friends felt like finding the missing piece to a jigsaw puzzle she’d spent her whole childhood trying to assemble.
And Ari almost immediately excelled. She skated faster than any of the other girls on her team, plotted out each move to set her teammates up for success, and played with the kind of strategy that made her one of the most valuable players on her team.
Ari lived for the thrill of scoring the winning goal and loved each second she spent on the ice.
But being a great player at eleven and a great captain at twenty-one were two entirely different things. Only one of which she felt equipped to do.
She needed to cast that to the back of her mind, though, because she’d promised Coach McLaughlin that she wouldn’t tell any of her teammates about Gracie’s injury or her new role as captain yet.
The bad news could wait until January 1 because tonight was her and her teammates’ last chance to celebrate before they flew to Switzerland.
So, Ari forced herself to succumb to the heady atmosphere taking over the seventh floor of their boot-camp hotel.
Every single door in the hallway was wide open as music blared out from speakers in different bedrooms. There were old-school R Sienna was one mistimed dance move away from a twisted ankle. If anything happened, the team would be without one of their best shooters.
“I love Gracie, but I’m kind of glad her flight was delayed.
Because if she was here doing up team captain, we definitely wouldn’t be going to a party right now,” said Yasmeen.
The other girls began to laugh along with her, blissfully unaware that Gracie wasn’t coming to boot camp.
And that their new team captain, Ari, was right there in front of them.
Noticing every small choice that could jeopardize their futures.
Ari was usually easygoing. Joked around with her teammates, danced on every occasion, and gave herself the freedom to occasionally indulge in small bursts of recklessness.
But now that she was their team captain, it was up to her to get them to the party, through the party, and back from the party without any injuries, runaways, or dumb decisions that could affect their performance.
The responsibilities that came with being the team captain now rested on her glitter-covered shoulders.
But one hour, three mocktails, and a ridiculously expensive Uber ride later, Ari’s worries were slowly, temporarily, beginning to retreat.
She and her friends spent the journey passing the aux cord around, convincing the driver to sing along to their favorite songs.
They drove into London with the windows down, playing Raye and Jorja Smith on full blast. Laughing, gossiping, and dancing their way into the final hours of the year.
The car sped past a skyline of tall, spectacular buildings, big groups of late-night revelers, and city lights that pointed them in the direction of the party.
But when they arrived, Ari began to question if they’d typed in the right address.
The building they pulled up in front of was in one of the strange dystopian parts of Canary Wharf where all the skyscrapers were tall, expensive, and seemingly empty.
The kind of apartments you knew belonged to mysterious oligarchs who bought a London postcode for business purposes but didn’t pay taxes.
The buildings were glossy, the streets were eerie, and there wasn’t a parked car in sight.
But their Uber driver needed to pick up his next round of passengers, so they got out and followed Yasmeen.
“Yas, are you sure that this is the right place?” Ari asked as they stepped into the lobby. The building was silent except for the sound of their footsteps. Yasmeen turned around and led them to the other side.
“This is the right place,” she said as they stepped into the elevator.
Yasmeen pressed the button for the fifty-first floor.
Ari looked out of the window as they went up.
From this height, they could see the entire city.
She liked imagining the lives of people who lived in buildings like these.
Tall, multimillion-pound apartment buildings that stretched out into the sky like private hands reaching out to the heavens.
The girls were quiet by the time the doors opened, in silent awe of the view that welcomed them on the top floor.
Yasmeen led them down the corridor until they reached an unassuming door marked by two men with headsets and iPad guest lists.
Yasmeen walked over and said a few words to them, and then the guards instructed them to hand their bags over for a search.
“Have a lovely evening, ladies,” one of the security guards said with a nod once he was done.
Yasmeen walked down the corridor, pushed the door open, and led them into a room where they were instantly engulfed by colors, lights, and sounds.
The room was packed with some of the most beautiful people Ari had ever seen, and they were all swaying along to an intoxicating beat.
Ari stood mesmerized as she watched them under the light of a mirror ball that was slowly spinning around the room, reflecting specks of light that looked like stardust. Eyelids glittered, dresses twirled, and a perfectly curated soundtrack lifted backs from the dark shadows and out onto the dance floor.
“Where are we?” Ari asked, locking eyes with a handsome server as he offered her a tall, shimmering glass of champagne and winked before turning his back.
Yasmeen turned to her with a glint in her eyes.
“The best party of the year.”