CHAPTER 47
Troy
THE ONLY OTHER person I’ve seen take practice more seriously than me is Ana.
I thought I already knew this about her.
But the extent of it has surprised me, now as her skating partner.
Just two more days until our one day off, and the fifteen-minute break we skipped today is making me wish Sunday was already here.
The rink’s Zamboni driver, Dean, needed to resurface the ice in half an hour due to safety precautions, so with the change in timing, Ana and I decided to skip our break. Which we’re both highly regretting now as we set up our short program’s death spiral again.
Approaching crossovers, my fingers grip over Ana’s right hip from behind.
There’s a slight fidgeting my hand picks up on as she rests a hand over mine.
The concern’s already spread over my face with the way her eyes lock on mine with a pretend kind of calm.
She lets go of my hand, the way I’m trying to let go of what she clearly doesn’t want to explain to me.
Ana turns toward me, skating face-to-face.
With my free hand, I hold onto her other.
She starts shaking again. It’s the same spiral.
And Ana’s hands—both hands—are shaking now.
Before I can suppress it, my bottled up worry spills out.
“You wanna tell me what the hell is going on?” I rasp.
“It’s nothing,” she says, dismissive, the way she’s reacted each time this has happened before.
Three times it’s happened—to my knowledge—and all in the span of 72 hours.
This time I don’t drop it.
“Yeah, I’m not buying that anymore. What’s going on, Ana?”
Ignoring me, she distracts by firming her hand over mine.
I exhale deeply, knowing I’m sure as heck not dropping this.
Even if we’re in the middle of our routine.
With a hand still tight against Ana’s hipbone, I pull her in before she drops her hand that’s holding mine and clutches it over her lower belly.
“Ow!” she wheezes.
“Shit.” I immediately skate around to face her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’ll be fine.” She says this, while continuing to grasp onto her stomach tightly.
I’ve thought about it. Plenty of times, including after my drive home after Andre’s birthday party.
When I was up those eight hours that I should’ve been asleep, still dying to know what her scar was from.
Then followed by how I was going to bring the subject back up, confessing what I saw at that party.
The few weeks that have passed—restlessly spent debating the best way to ease into it—led me to the conclusion that there is no great way, so I just blurt it out, “I saw a scar on your hip. At Andre’s birthday. Is it recent?”
Her hands still grasped tightly over her stomach, Ana flares her eyes up at me. “It’s none of your business.”
“Not knowing your injuries is my business when I’m responsible for your safety,” I grit out. “Now what happened?”
She sighs like she doesn’t want to tell me. Like this is the last thing she’d ever want to tell me. And my stomach feels like it’s being stabbed. Which makes me think the unthinkable.
“Is someone hurting you?” I barely manage.
“What? No, it’s just a scar from my surgery,” Ana blurts, panic illuminating her entire face. “Shit.”
The worry that was trapping my chest deflates, but then spikes up again. “You had hip surgery recently?” I ask.
She sighs, rubbing the back of her forearm across her temple, brushing off the sweat that’s gathered there. “Not recently. Two years ago.”
“Before or after your ankle?” I cross my arms. “Wait, I’m confused.”
“No, there was no ankle surgery. It was for my hip.” Her gaze still on me, her hands drop to her hips. She starts fidgeting with the waistband of her leggings anxiously, absentmindedly, as if I cannot tell. “I fractured my hip two years ago.”
She fractured her hip?
Two years ago.
She fractured her hip two years ago.
I swallow.
“How did it happen?”
“Ethan and I were skating—”
“Ethan did that? He fucking dropped you?”
I didn’t know that.
A pang of anger burst through me at the revelation; I thought Ana tripped.
“It wasn’t his fault,” she quickly defends.
“The hell it wasn’t.”
“Really. It wasn’t. It was all my fault. My head was somewhere else, and I got distracted and I slipped. End of story. I’m fine now.”
She’s not fine.
“Why do you look so concerned?” The words feel like a punch right to my gut. “Shouldn’t you be rejoicing? Thought you’d be happy I got injured.”
Rejoicing?
Rejoicing?!
Happy?!!
How dare she think I’d take any sort of pleasure from her pain.
Her confidence shreds, her face falling. “Please don’t tell anyone,” she pleads now. “Only Coach Yamamoto, my mom, Naomi and Donya know.” The desperation in her voice grows as I grapple with the news. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone.”
“Okay. I promise. I won’t tell anyone.” My gaze travels over to her hip, watching as her fingers soothe over her skin softly. “Does it always hurt when you touch it?”
“No, it actually rarely hurts. Just some movements randomly cause a strike of pain, but the doctor said that’s normal, and that it should go away eventually.”
“But it hasn’t yet.”
“Not all the time.”
Why did she not want people to know?
I voice the question out loud.
“My mom decided it would be best for me to downplay the injury,” she says. “You know how crazy rumors fly around the rink, and the last thing I needed was Fontaine rescinding my spot here.”
I don’t understand, but I also don’t want to downplay how she feels.
“So keeping it to myself was my safest option,” Ana continues explaining.
A sharp sting pierces through my chest without warning.
“You’ll keep it to yourselves, understood?”
Dimitri nods. My father turns to me, his eyes rid of any compassion.
“Understood?”
“Troy?” Ana sharpens, cutting the cruel memory short. Her gaze is shaken, though not quite like mine. Her voice isn’t clear. Or it could be my entire body that still feels as if it were submerged in water by those last few words that fell from her lips.
“Troy?” she repeats. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, uh. I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Her brows are still raised as I skate toward the gate.
_________
I rush into the men’s locker room and find an empty shower stall. Slumping down onto the floor, the panic attack strikes full impact.
10 years since the last one hit, I now realize.
Only when I close my eyes, the nightmare is just as vivid as that fall afternoon.
“Mom?
Mom.
Mom!”
I try and shake off the memory.
“No, mom, please say something! Help! Someone help!”
The sound of my father’s footsteps were drowned out until he stormed into the bathroom.
“Troy, what are you shouting on about?! Daphne!”
But Mom was already gone.
Holding her lifeless body in my hands, it was enough to spur on a string of panic attacks for a full year.
I can’t go there again.
Not with Ana. Not with anyone.