CHAPTER 77
Ana
HOCKEY ISN’T THAT violent.
If you were to say that to a hockey fan, you’d probably receive a dirty look followed by a long lecture to try and convince you otherwise.
But figure skating is the violent sport.
On the surface, the idea might seem funny.
With all the sparkly dresses and flesh-toned tights. The buns all peaked high with more glitter and things that are not associated with strength.
But you have to be strong as hell to balance your weight on two strips of metal that are as sharp as knives, to keep every muscle in your body steady, while shaping yourself in ways that could risk your whole life.
And the fights, the quarrels that burst mid-game at an arena, yeah we might not have those.
But we have this.
Bloody moments that don’t reach the cameras. Pain that’s covered awfully well in expensive and shiny fabrics once we reach the ice.
We hold it in, they lash it out.
Well maybe not right now.
More skaters have started to crowd around the rink, Scott still on the phone probably dialing for help.
Meanwhile, the girls are fighting again.
At some point during the race, Sasha catches up to Tatiana, tugging at the strand sticking out from the platinum blonde’s bun, pulling on it with a detonating rage.
Isabella glides onto the ice, immediately jumping in for assistance. Only for the blonde. Chloe and Isabella worship the Icy Trio, after all.
Ignoring Sasha, whose shoulder is already striped in more red than a couple of seconds ago, Emi runs without her skates on and to her friend.
I tell myself to spring off the seat, advise myself to get the fuck up and help Sasha, but the shock has reached all my limbs, the sight of blood pooling to the side of her neck souring in my mouth.
So I observe the scene just outside the ice.
The guys, so many of them, in hockey, in figure skating, in ice dancing, they either float by through the lobby or snicker off to the side, but none of them step in to help. Not when they know if they do, it would unravel into a full blown war.
Because that was an attack.
Not an accident.
Not a random coincidence.
But a calculated move by an athlete who knows her ranking is about to shift.
By Sasha.
It’s a game I’m all too familiar with.
Ana, wanna play a game?
By the time a few coaches have entered the rink and our academy’s physical trainer has come in to help clean the wound on the senior skater’s shoulder, Tatiana combs through her perfectly sleek hair, Isabella and her acting like they are in complete distress by the moment and what just happened.
When Sasha sees a glimpse of the charade before her, her eyes bulge, wanting to pounce toward them before Emi places a hand on her friend’s shaking stomach, holding onto her belly for support.
“Suka,” Sasha hisses viciously after the girls as her and Emi move into the tunnel together.
My Russian isn’t that great but I know what that means.
Bitch or rather slut.
Sasha pulls back her wounded shoulder like she wasn’t just cut there a second ago, tosses her long, light brown hair to her side, her blue grey eyes as fierce as ever.
And she exits the rink alongside Emi with the kind of strength you’re never told a figure skater has.
_________
“A D?”
No, that can’t be right.
Parting my eyes wide to make sure I’ve read the grade of my physics exam correctly, I shut them when the letter looks the same.
“How did I get a D?” I mumble under my breath, though unfortunately Professor Beckham hears me.
“I told you dancing on the ice would eventually catch up with your grades, Ana,” she says, her tone dry. “It was only a matter of time.”
“But,” I defend, “I’ve been studying for weeks for this test. How is this possible?”
“May I suggest a tutor?”
A tutor?
I am a tutor.
Or rather I was a tutor for years before I had to quit when my latest injury happened and it was between that and more skating practices.
“You still have an A,” she says, “but it’s borderline. So I suggest you take finals seriously and your winter paper if you want to keep your grade where it’s at.”
Shit. And double shit.
Because I forgot about the paper entirely.
_________
After my Calculus lecture, thankfully without a shift scheduled at the diner today, I drop my books onto the counter so quickly that I startle Troy, who’s on the sofa working on some notes for his skating coaching sessions.
Still in shock about that.
The notion hits me. That I’m running as fast as it seems humanly possible, but somewhere in the middle none of it feels enough, and so much is slipping through the cracks.
Just shutting my eyes feels crowded when all I see are the limitless expectations I’ve set for myself and convinced myself that I need to meet for other people’s recognition.
But here I don’t. Not with Troy. Not when he’s touching me. When I’m touching him.
I slide my books away, striding right up to him without missing a beat before I crash my lips onto his mouth.
It’s so easy to forget about all the pressure I’m under when Troy’s weight is over me. When he’s playing with my tits, running his hand through my wet slit, shoving three of his fingers in at once, while he sucks on my neck.
And when I remember something sad, something troubling, it’s so easy to forget about it when he starts whispering naughty things in my ear.
“Baby, I found it, didn’t I?”
And I forget.
“Fuck, that’s pretty.”
And I forget.
“Are you going to be a good girl and come all over my cock, Ana?”
And I forget some more.
But then he starts saying things like,
“That’s my girl.”
And when he changes the angle and flicks his gaze to where the permanent mark from my injury lies,
“Does it hurt here, baby when I do this?”
And I start remembering again.
Pretty soon, we arrive at that point where our movements grow sloppy and needy, when he decides to look into my eyes, feeling my climax on the horizon.
Personal, it’s too intimate.
So as we both feel my walls start to clamp I turn my face enough to cut his gaze, enough to forget how satisfied his doe eyes glimmer.
“Faster,” I demand when my scar meets his hand in a caress and I remember how he keeps doing that, how I’d never tell him it rips at my chest a little each time, wondering why I can’t seem to forget how he made me feel that night at the diner in high school every time we do this.
_________
Troy
I wake in the night to the sound of a raspy, dry groan coming from my bathroom.
Still groggy, but one glance to my side and the sight of wrinkled, empty sheets, the adrenaline hits immediately, springing me out my bed.
The door is parted open when I enter before finding Ana in my t-shirt on her knees, coughing into the toilet.
Running up to her, seeing her not mutter a word, the panic in my chest grows but I push it down to make sense of what’s happening.
I reach for the waves covering her face, gathering the damp tendrils away in one hand as she finishes vomiting.
My throat twitches—not by the food she’s throwing up—but by the way her back continues to shake against my other palm. Smoothing my fingers down the column of her spine, nerves fill my chest as she falls to the floor, wheezing.
Laying an arm out underneath her neck for support, I slowly lift us up again, turning her to face me.
Her eyes frantic, her mouth parted wide, she stares at me like she wants to speak but can’t.
“Breathe with me, Ana.” She’s nodding. “C’mon, breathe in. Breathe out.” I see her trying, shutting her eyes tight to keep calm.
“In.” With the pad of my thumb, I press my skin against her temple, cooling down her warmth, wanting to relax her. “Out.”
When a surprised gaze drops to mine like the words are finally reaching her ears—thank God—I encourage, “You’re okay, Ana.”
Her breathing is still jagged but I feel the way it starts slowing down a bit. “You’re okay,” I say, rubbing her shoulders.
Now that I know she can hear me, I add, “I shit my pants in third grade.”
Her chest still rising, Ana’s eyes pop wide open.
Good, it’s working.
“I wanted to talk to Amanda,” I explain, “and had practiced all day. But I panicked and shit my pants, and then she plugged her nose and ran away.”
“Amanda?” she blurts out, surprising the shit out of me. “You liked Amanda?”
I stare at her not believing my ears but happy and relieved as fuck that she’s okay. “I just told you I shit my pants.”
“Yes, I heard that. Very romantic of you. Back to Amanda. You had a thing for Amanda?”
I sit back, my chest deflating with a gigantic level of relief in knowing that she’s okay now.
“Yes,” I admit, “I was planning to propose and everything.”
“I didn’t know you liked her,” she says, still surprised by the reveal, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand like she’s suddenly self-conscious at what I just saw. “She had the biggest crush on your brother, I remember.”
“Dimitri never liked a girl who liked him first,” I say.
“We might be related then.”
I smile, lifting to my feet. “Let me get you a glass of water. I’ll be right back.”
But when I return, she’s already asleep, lying on her side on the cold floor.
I scoop her up in my arms as carefully as I can, praying it doesn’t wake her, gently resting her weight over my sheets.
When my eyes land on the scrunch of her temple, I reach over her for my pillow, delicately tucking it beneath the back of her neck, moving her hair out the way.
And my heart cracks when her cheeks soften, relaxing a bit in her sleep by the extra comfort.
Then I raise the covers to her chest, hurry into the bathroom to grab the two cups I brought for her, resting the water and cranberry juice on the nightstand by her side.
Returning to my side of the bed, I hold onto her shoulders when I feel her frantically move here and there in her sleep, staring at my ceiling, wide awake, my mind confused.