CHAPTER 102
Ana
ONE GLANCE BACK at my phone’s music app, and the sticky note resting beside it on his counter has me smiling like a fool.
Dearest Ana,
Here’s a list of good music.
Yours,
Troy
And the selection is extensive, each tune by the same artist: Coldplay.
The realization draws an even more embarrassingly loud chuckle from me without warning.
Back at my own place now with the leak repairs being ready since mid-November—and because Troy and I no longer have a reason to share a place, or a bed—I dropped by his apartment for a night skate tonight at The Avalanche—it’s what I’ve labeled the ginormous chunk of ice that he gifted me just last week.
Yeah, still not over that...
But first, we agreed to take a detour, the long way back to its trail, deciding to pay a visit to the kick-off of Faerieladle Winterfest.
Which meant that tonight’s evening session to practice our revised long program ahead of Milan would have to be replaced with the trip to the winter carnival.
And even in the passenger seat of Troy’s Porsche on our way there, when I catch the glimpse of small ponds of frozen ice from the window, the decision is still adjusting in my head.
The promise I made to myself ever since hitting rock bottom. To balance my life so that I wouldn’t feel so cluttered, so disconnected from the things that matter most.
My friends, my coaches, Troy—yeah, still not used to that...
My mom—who after a long talk a couple of days ago and several weeks of much needed distance—made me remember every sacrifice that she endured to make sure I could have more than she did.
The anger I felt, the frustration I still can’t help but feel a little, for being so in the dark about my father, it turns out it wasn’t enough to sever our bond.
But with heaps of questions and more unknowns than I can still count, when the anxiety tried to cut through my progress, the memory of just how low I hit, how much I pushed myself until every limit in me had snapped, a simple reminder from the tiny puddles out the car’s hazy glass warned me that it’s alright that not everything is fixed.
That it might take some more time to get there.
_________
Conrad and Sasha are already by a booth when Troy and I step foot onto the iconic grounds of Winterfest.
They’re throwing darts at a board, Conrad’s eyes turned up in what looks like fear by the precise aim of Trusova’s throw.
Before they can even greet us, by the pure confidence and gloat lifting her cheeks and Conrad’s shocked frown, she just beat him and—they could be a thing?
I wasn’t exactly thinking that until he leans near the side of her neck, whispering something that must be funny because the soft brunette laughs, and I’m suddenly very interested to see that story unfold, but I also have a game of my own to win.
Because to my left, Troy’s brows are scrunched with an intensity that makes my back drop in a sweat, snorting when my illuminated ring misses the soda bottle.
“I told you,” he says, his voice all wise-assery. “Bend your knees a little, Petrov.”
Instead said knees buckle at the sultry undertone in his voice.
But I ignore it because this is important and he can’t win this easily—yeah, I’m still working on that part of the “new and improved” Ana.
The festival’s classic glow-in-the-dark rings stack one over the other, his side, then my side, until the number finally matches.
And I would’ve won.
I was so fucking close.
As if the asshole knew that, Troy reaches a hand out, and with the pad of his thumb brushes a small snowflake off the corner of my cheek.
And with the touch, I forget that we’re not together or at his place or tangled in his silky bedsheets.
Or that I’ve just lost.
The concept of losing, bitter it may be, still sours over my tongue.
Ring toss at Winterfest or Olympic Gold.
But he is the winner, so congratulations are in order and whatever, so I pat his back with the side of an arm before he hands me a plush toy. The prize that he earned.
A fluffy penguin wearing a tiny top hat.
“You can name him ‘Gingerbread,’” Troy says cleverly.
“And why the fuck would I do that?”
He shrugs, tugging me in the direction of the candy floss stand before bright pastel blues and pinks are sugaring the air with vanilla and winter spice.
He’s such an idiot, I tell myself, as we stand in the line, waiting for the pillowy dessert. An idiot who I keep wanting to crash my lips into.
_________
The Avalanche will never not feel this big.
Stared at it a whole bunch and then skated on it a shit ton more, and yeah, still a monolith of frozen ground.
A long—mile’s worth, to be exact—strip of narrow yet somehow wide dreamscape of icy blue, glossy and smooth.
During the day it’s beautiful, but at night, it’s hypnotizing.
The sky is covered in silver dots, the moon full and bright and sitting right between the stars. The pine trees underneath guard the rink on each side, fireworks of red, green, purple, and gold glittering the onyx air from above.
Practically hearing the cheers still whistling from the festival, I grab Troy’s hand, while hooking an arm around the illuminated gate that’s covered in white fairy lights—and magic—unclasping it free.
Feeling the cold winter frost melt away my nerves, one trouble at a time, I slip out my phone from a pocket of my thermal jacket, searching through it for one particular song.
And while Troy watches me, his warm breath misting into the air, his plush bottom lip jutting out in a wonderful kind of excitement, I gesture for him to slide out his phone too.
_________
Troy
“Are we doing something dirty, Petrov?” I say with a smirk but quickly feel a reservation kick in because that’s how we used to speak to each other—before we partook in the said dirty shenanigans.
But it’s Ana, so the comment quickly snaps at her patience, earning myself an immediate eye-roll.
While I breathe a sigh of relief for not messing things up.
Because things are good between us now.
Sure, I kind of want to pull her into me and make out with her stupidly pretty face at every passing corner but other than that—things are great.
Better than great. Because she seems happy and peaceful and it’s all I ever wanted for her.
She grabs my phone, scrolling through hers simultaneously, when a smile begins to tug at my lips once I see the song.
“What are we doing, Annabel?”
God, stop flirting with her you little shit.
Maybe that was a good move, though.
Because Ana’s cheeks start fucking glowing with a bright cranberry tint before she shakes her head to gain back her focus.
“Did you bring your AirPods?” she asks me.
I nod, reaching for my pants pocket to retrieve them.
“Good.” I watch as she takes hers out from her jacket, plugging them in as I do the same. “We’re skating.”
With our devices still in her hand, the opening wild rush of “A Sky Full of Stars” starts to play, watching as the damn girl I fell for—I’ve fallen for—glide backwards once she’s handed me back my phone.
Her arched brows raise in freedom as I tag along behind her, her pouty, full lips curving high when I pull her in for a spin, her cheeks gleaming in fervor as her and I sail across the river of ice, feeling the rhythm together, turning into the other on the—how can that even be possible—exact same beat, her long, chocolate waves swaying in raw ferocity and strength, some moment in the dance drifting away into her own world.
Watching in awe as she skates like the girl who first found this sport.
I saw her the way I did a snowflake. Sharp. Quick to impale. Melts if you get too close.
But she comes back to me.
Pushing through each force from the wind and the snow that has started to fall again, Ana comes back to me.
Grabbing my hand, taking me with her to wherever the hell she wants. And I’d follow.
Spinning one second, then mucking around another, when I throw her into the air for a jump and she lands like electricity that just found its circuit, the flickering in my heart grows harder to ignore.
But we’re good now, which means the sappy shit stays with me.
But if I could just say…
If these skates could map the thoughts whirling in my head right now, they’d engrave the ice with every truth I’ve kept from you.
Words like, ‘how utterly captivating I find you to be’.
You’re gravity, and I’m this floating object that’s suffered enough distance from you.
But we’re so good now.