CHAPTER 24
Ana
GOING VIRAL ON TikTok is a curse.
Or, it could be your biggest break outside of competitions, as a figure skater.
All it takes is for an eye-catching thirty-second or less clip to stop the platform in its tracks.
If there’s enough passion, stamina, and attack, you have now earned yourself a golden ticket to the biggest following you could ever dream of.
One that’s more loyal than the Dupont family’s network at The Academy, itself.
The “curse” plays in when you go viral, but for negative reasons. Take the current video that an online troll, disguised as the ultimate figure skater account, has posted. No, that’s legit their username:
@ultimatefigureskateraccount101:
Ana Petrov before and after...
The video proceeds to show a “before” clip from when I was 15 and weighed just 115 pounds.
The “after” is when I weighed 135 pounds, during my first performance following hip surgery.
Now, I’ve managed to bring my weight back down to 125 pounds.
But (unsurprisingly) this part of the narrative isn’t included.
There’s a robotic voiceover for the video with the following script:
Ana Petrov at PyeongChang finals. Wow, oh my
goodness, look at that double axel and then the
iconic twist lift with Ethan Kasoff,
And now at 2023 Worlds...
What the heck? Is this the same skater?
And the comments (also not shockingly), are much worse:
Someone told me she stopped practicing as much. That’s why she gained all that weight.
Yikes.
That’s what happens when you skip practice
They could never make me like you, Ana
When’s the debate gonna end...
Violet over Ana ANY DAY
Free Troy Larsson
Those are the first six comments I find, out of the 1,537 in a video that reached 2 million views in just 17 hours.
I land on the seventh comment:
Ana’s ankle was injured during the “after” clip. You’re spreading vitriol about a girl for no reason. She skates just as well now
That’s supposed to make me feel better.
It doesn’t.
Instead, the crack inside me tremors like broken glass stuck together with fading, crafting glue.
I pull out my diary from my desk, inspiration now dawning for today’s entry. Mishi comes to rest beside me as I rapidly jot down my thoughts:
15 minutes. Troy left our practice yesterday just 15 minutes early.
And I lost it. I snapped at him.
When he left the studio, I sank to my knees and clasped onto my calves to calm myself down.
I felt like a lunatic for getting mad at him. For even showing weakness at something so dumb.
I was never the girl who freaked out about losing just 15 minutes of practice. But I’ve become the girl who’s worried everything she built is slipping from her fingers.
I’m drowning, and every free moment I have, I use it for practice.
But, it’s useless because no one can tell. No one sees how hard I’m trying.
I force myself to put the pen down. I have to get through a few chapters of my physics readings, since I have a shift at the diner after today’s practice. While opening my textbook, a loud thump makes the items by my nightstand crash onto the floor.
“Shit, sorry about that!!” Lucy yells through the wall, now making me drop my textbook.
I check the clock, and it’s 5:10 am. I’m probably better off studying at the rink, anyway, if I manage to have any extra free time before my shift.
It’s a hard pill for me to swallow that for several more weeks, Troy and I can’t learn our actual routines.
Two months behind from everyone else. Now add another week for his vacation that he just sprung on me.
The anxiety is ripping into me each time we have to continue the tango we’re learning.
Our ice dance that’ll never be seen by audiences.
This mess may be equally my fault, but it doesn’t stop the fact that I can’t stand where we’re at right now, and it just makes me hate Troy even more for it.
For being the one person who makes me snap when I’m the one who keeps my shit together and pushed away from others.
For behaving like the little girl that he used to infuriate by the prick of his thumb, when I’m a grown ass woman now.