CHAPTER 75
Ana
EMI AND SASHA slide next to me on the rink’s bench.
I do a double-take when Emi and Sasha slide next to me on the rink’s bench.
Ignoring the extremely bizarre, random move by the skaters, and my shaking legs this entire morning—courtesy to Troy’s bedroom spectacles—a warmth flickers in my chest.
Maybe the girls have changed. Maybe they’re cool with us all being friends.
All ideas I fabricate in my head by two girls sitting across from me at a table. Having never had a seat at the table, the tender emotion lingers around a bit longer than necessary.
“Hey, Ana,” Sasha says first. “I’m throwing a party right after Skate America. Do you want to join?”
Emi slips out a Stanley and spoon, digging through a hot batch of chicken noodle soup.
“Um, that Saturday, right?” I ask.
“Yup,” Sasha says, while Emi blows over the hot liquid, both of the girls staring at me.
Maybe they’re not staring, and I’m the one who’s doing that, but to have their gazes stay on me at the rink for anything other than a simple hello feels so unexpected, my reflexes hardly know how to behave right now.
“Yeah,” I accept, “that sounds great. Thanks for the invite.”
“No problem,” Sasha says with a smile.
“So Yukari totally stood Haru up,” Emi shares once the topic’s changed.
“No?” I gasp. “Are you serious? What happened?”
“Well…”
The girls go on to share about the details of Emi’s pair and their competition, and somewhere in the conversation, I find myself dazing away from the words in our circle, hearing my own narrative again.
Maybe they have changed. And we’re all friends now.
_________
Intro: You’re on air with the Faerieladle Waves Pod!
Tessa: Pippa Collins is going to the Larsson Ice Rink tomorrow, apparently to interview a few of The Academy’s top skaters in preparation for Skate America. Do we think Ana or Violet’s winning that Grand Prix Event, guys?
*Silence*
Philip: No comment.
*Laughter*
Yeah, right.
Seems like every time I tune into the campus radio station these days, they’re spewing out even more ridiculous nonsense than the last, but this, this one’s a new clownfest.
Everyone knows that Pippa Collins makes one visit to our rink per year and one visit only. And that’s only after Worlds.
The exception is the Winter Olympics, which aren’t until next year.
So rumor debunked.
Except, when I walk through the rink’s doors the next morning and catch a glimpse of the stacks of cameras and tripods crowding half the lobby and string of journalists filling the room with anxiety and lies, my breathing starts to grow erratic.
_________
The one time—the one fucking time—I disregarded a Campus Radio rumor, it’s turned out to be true.
You could say I’m devasted (or borderline hysteric) whichever one best describes the fact that I’m currently experiencing a level of dreariness that I haven’t felt since my hip surgery recovery two years ago.
Sasha and Marc, Violet and Ethan, Emi and Haru, Tatiana and Nathan, Katya and Max, and Me and Troy, the pairs figure skaters just from Team USA—who have received the most Olympic buzz this training season from Collins, fans, and the press—stand in a neat, chaotic line waiting to be hounded by Pippa and her team.
Chin up. No expression.
It’s the only motto I had managed to think of at the golden age of 15, one that’s bleak enough, effective enough, to work around the sports journalist who used to be the biggest person that I had hoped to please once upon a time. A time before she showed her hand and her true face.
A disloyal lady who only traveled where the gold glimmered.
Aka: away from me and Ethan when we were degraded with silver medals.
When it’s finally our turn and Violet and Ethan shove past me and Troy like they’ve already won the Milan gold, chin fucking up! shouts into my ears.
Unnecessary bright lights angle above our faces, making it incredibly difficult to see anything other than shadows of other skaters in the background.
Meanwhile, Troy sits to my right, both of us in fold-up chairs that Collins’s team shuffled with them, Pippa wearing her signature maroon turtleneck with a giant broach of a gold pair of figure skates.
One question in, and the interview has already gone to shit.
Because what kind of a question even is—so how did you do it?
Actually, the full question tagged along with a few seconds of her laughter dipped entirely in sarcasm but my brain tried to ignore that part in order to answer her trap.
Traps, they are all traps, not questions.
Something else I learned at the young age of 15.
Troy does most of the talking, and not because he wants to. After the first few, I barely know how to answer, not realizing my knees have begun to shake uncontrollably until I feel the comfort of a palm that’s started to feel way too comfortable than I expected. Than I’ve wanted it to.
As her team gives us the green light that our interview has concluded, I spring out of my seat following Troy toward the rink’s lobby before Pippa stops me—and only me—gesturing for Troy to leave.
I look at him like it’s fine for him to go because he’s not my crutch and I’ve been managing just fine without him all these years.
And Pippa is just another person.
I think.
“So, Ana, I asked Violet who she thinks will win in Milan for pairs skating, and do you know what she told me?”
No, I don’t, and don’t want to know except you will tell me right now, won’t you?
“You and Troy,” she says.
What.
“Excuse me?” I say, forgetting we’re being recorded and this will be used against me somehow.
“She told me she thinks you and Troy are going to win,” Pippa repeats with a smile fit for a maniac. “Isn’t that sweet?”
More like disturbing.
Still, it’s a trap because if I say yes then someone will say that was sarcasm and if I say no someone will say that I am a bitch.
But someone asked me a question so of course I have to answer. It’s what us girls do.
“Yes,” I say with a tiny, scared smile.
“Who do you think will win?” she asks.
My mistake, this was the trap.
And while I wonder how to respond, all I think is why she didn’t want Troy to be here alongside me to answer, why she wanted a fellow girl to answer the question when we are all in pairs.
But I already know the answer.
_________
I prefer not to answer that.
Six words and the Internet is burning me alive.
The interview went terrible and then it exploded into hell when Troy left.
A new sea of hate comments wait for me in my inboxes when I’m back at the apartment following my afternoon shift at the diner, and I try and convince myself that all is well because why shouldn’t it be? They’re just words online, not real.
I wish my trembling hands could understand that fact.
When I walk into the kitchen to find Troy smiling wide and chatting with someone on his phone, the sudden feeling of hatred returns.
The one I felt for him since we were little kids where he always had what he wanted while I was drowning.
While he still has everything he’s ever wanted while I’m still drowning.
And even during the times I would forget, he’d remind me of it by flashing everything he had in my face.
A couple weeks of sex—albeit the best sex of my life—can’t be enough to push all that out.
It isn’t.
“So how did it go?” Troy asks me as he slides his phone back into his pocket.
How did it go?
The question stabs at me because of the evidence all over my social media that’s currently harassing me online and this guy hasn’t even heard of the question that the journalist asked?
Same old Troy.
“Pippa asked me who I think will win,” I reply, hoping my pain doesn’t slip into my voice. “For pairs skating. She told me Violet’s answer was us.”
“Yeah, I saw that,” he says. “That was annoying.”
He saw it.
Oh right, he just didn’t care.
Why would he when he’s not involved, not affected by any of the hidden baggage that comes with our world?
“Are you okay, though?” he asks.
What?
“What do you mean?” I say.
“Your knees,” he clarifies. “They were shaking during the interview. Are you alright?”
The same knees start to wobble in stress just for the fact that he noticed enough to remember.
“Yes, I’m fine. Just had some coffee earlier.”
He looks at me like he’s trying to decipher if that was a lie or not so I change the subject to cut his train of thought.
“We’re still practicing tonight at the rink, right?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “But only an hour. We need our rest.”
“Yeah, that works.”
_________
It’s a quarter to 10’oclock when we arrive back at his place, covered in sweat, so tired that we both collapse onto opposite sofas.
“I can’t feel my feet,” I groan, knowing I’m the cause of all this.
“Mm, same,” Troy says facedown into the prickly smaller couch.
A good fifteen minutes later of us both catching our breaths, I watch as he drags himself up the couch, stretching his arms wide enough I get a peek of what’s underneath. Bare, golden skin, all abs and tight sinew.
I close my mouth when I’ve realized its opened and roll my eyes when he smirks at my gaze lingering around the strip of his exposed skin.
“I’m going to shower, Annabel,” he yawns out, “see you later.” He ruffles my hair before he moves out of the living room.
I close my eyes deeply when he exits, feeling conflicted again at why my body keeps doing this to me.
Why it feels any positive reaction to the one person it’s not supposed to want.
The only cure to cut the foggy, deep thoughts is one glance at my phone.
That turns out to be an awful solution.
When I see the comments.
People noticing Troy touching my knee during the interview with Pippa earlier today, his fans losing their shit over it, and Violet’s fans outraged that I didn’t reply to Pippa’s question saying Violet and Ethan would win.
And as sad as it sounds the tamest comment I come across still sends the chilliest buzz down my spine.