Chapter 10
The next morning found Dmitrii in Dr. Aubrey’s office again. He didn’t sit on the couch this time. Instead, he had walked over to the windows, looking out over the parking lot and to the cars driving on the road.
She was sitting in the same chair as always, with a notebook in her hand. “What did you think about how your skating went yesterday?”
“What do I think? It was horrible. It was a disaster. It was … you were there. You saw how bad it was.” He sighed, his eyes moving from the cars in the parking lot to how his reflection looked in the glass.
He didn’t even want to look at the doctor, not willing to face her after how he had skated yesterday.
“You made it through, though.” Her voice remained calm, and he knew she was observing everything about him right now.
“Yes, I didn’t stop to put that program out of its misery.” He almost reached up to touch the scar on the side of his head, but he managed to stop his hand before he did.
“You’re a lot more negative today than you have been. Did anything happen after I left?” Her voice was even softer as she asked.
“No. I did my program. I got a ride back to the hotel. I went through my program in the hotel room. I ate, and I went to bed.” He rolled his head back, taking another deep breath. He knew he should tell her the rest, but it wasn’t relevant to his skating, and that was what he was here for.
“How did the program go when you weren’t on the ice?”
“It’s an excellent program. Someone who can skate should have it.” She didn’t deserve for him to snip bitterly at her, but the words slipped from his lips before he could stop them.
Dr. Aubrey didn’t say anything at first. Instead, she pulled out her laptop and started playing a video on it.
He knew what it was without even turning around.
He could hear the announcer speaking in Russian, ‘Skating for Russia, Dmitrii Lebedinsky.’ He recognized the announcer’s voice.
That would be Rostelecom. He had managed to get one slot in the Grand Prix Series his first year in seniors.
Dmitrii could hear the crowd cheering. He didn’t turn, not right away.
There was a pause, and then the music he had skated to played.
His jaw tightened. He had skated to music from Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings.
He still felt the panic when he heard the music play.
This wasn’t a recording of the day of the accident. It was weeks earlier.
Dmitrii finally turned around to see himself on the little screen.
It was the first jump combination. He had landed it near flawlessly.
His coach had made sure he knew how important that day was.
That was the day he had an international audience as a senior.
Yes, it was in Moscow, but the competition had been televised worldwide.
So much had been riding on him having a good performance, and he had had the best skate of his life.
He had three quads in the program, and he had landed them all with a positive grade of execution.
Reporters had praised him for his artistry.
Everything about that day had been exactly what he wanted in his skating career.
It had been near perfect aside from all four of his guest tickets going unused.
He watched the recording as he moved through the program, then he took a step back as if being further from the computer would insulate him.
A little over halfway through the program was his triple Axel.
He had always had a beautiful Axel jump.
Even when he had only been able to jump a double, it had still been beautiful.
For years now, he had been jumping the triple.
That jump at Rostelecom had been beautiful.
His landing had been perfect, and his height had been impressive.
It was everything he wanted his Axel jump to be.
It was the same jump he had fallen on at Europeans.
Dmitrii closed his eyes as he stood there listening to the crowd cheer after he completed the program. He knew the reason she had made him watch this. “I still want to skate.” He couldn’t lose sight of his goal of skating again.
“You deserve this program. You deserve help. You deserve someone to believe in you. Dmitrii, you are strong, and I believe you can overcome this. I am here to help you do exactly that.” She closed the laptop, eyes intently focused on him as she asked, “You told me what happened the day of the accident. Are you ready to tell me how it felt to you?”
Every muscle in Dmitrii’s back tensed. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he knew he had to.
Nodding, he walked back to the couch and picked up one of the throw pillows to clutch tight as he sat down.
He couldn’t look at her as he explained.
He had told her the basics of what had happened, but he hadn’t told her this version.
Dmitrii had told no one this version. Maybe if he had, one of the other psychiatrists would have been able to help him.
“I felt ill. I had hoped it was just some jet lag, but even after sleeping for like twelve hours in the hotel, I still felt bad. Somehow, I made it through the practice day with only coming close to passing out once. Then I did well enough in the short that I was in nineteenth place and qualified to perform in the free skate. It’s stupid to think now that if I had just done a little worse in the short, I’d be fine.
If I hadn’t skated my free program while feeling sick, I wouldn’t have fallen like that.
I’d be fine.” He gripped the pillow a little tighter as he clutched it to his chest. He really didn’t want to talk about the free skate.
“I was in nineteenth place after the short, which … I mean, that doesn’t sound that great, but it was my first year in seniors, and that is a huge competition with a lot of the best in the world. I hadn’t skated as well as normal for the short, so I really needed to prove myself in the free.”
“Nineteenth after your short program in Europeans is an accomplishment, Dmitrii. You’re selling yourself short.
Your having done it while not feeling well makes it an even greater achievement, but it would have been better if your coach had stopped you from competing.
” Dr. Aubrey shifted in her chair, her notebook set aside.
She wasn’t writing anything down. She knew this story in a million forms. How athletes pushed themselves, especially young ones, and the repercussions when their coaches and parents should have said no …
but didn’t. So many of her patients had that same story as they tried to patch themselves back together.
The guilt in every word from Dmitrii’s mouth didn’t need a medical degree to hear. She had every bit of her attention focused on Dmitrii now that the walls he had built up were starting to crumble.
“I felt so wiped out after the short. I ordered some room service and took a shower, but I think I only managed to eat half of the food. The only thing I could do was just crawl right back into bed and sleep until I was almost late the next day.”
“Did your coach notice?”
“That I was almost late? Yeah, he noticed. He was not pleased. He had another skater there, a woman, so he had two sections to keep track of and press conferences and all that.”
“I meant, did he notice you weren’t feeling well?”
“He gave me some paracetamol. I was running a fever.” Dmitrii shrugged as if it were no big deal.
“He knew you had a fever, and he still let you compete?” She didn’t let any anger at his coach tint her words.
“I told him I was fine. It was Europeans. If I got through it, I would have been able to rest up as much as I wanted. It was the end of my season because I had no chance at one of the slots for Worlds.” Dmitrii shifted on the couch, the death grip on the pillow relaxing.
“I was eighteen. I was old enough to make the decision.”
Dr. Aubrey said nothing, but she did not look like she agreed with how Dmitrii was taking responsibility for the decision.
“That day, I tried to eat breakfast, but nothing was staying down.” He turned the pillow over in his hands, eyes on the fabric instead of anything else.
“I really didn’t feel good, but I made it through the six-minute warmup.
I even jumped a quad Toe-Loop in it. I thought I’d be fine.
You know, just had to get through one program and then I could rest. It was my last competition of the year. ”
Dmitrii couldn’t sit anymore. He tossed the pillow to the side and stood up to walk over to the window again.
“You’ve seen the video. It was rough. Everything was just a little off, and then I remember going up for the triple Axel in front of the judges, but I don’t even remember how the takeoff felt.
I know it looked bad. I’ve watched it, but I don’t remember it.
” He let the fingers of his left hand press to the cool glass, just wishing he was out there - anywhere but here.
Anything to not have to explain that day, to relive it.
As much as he didn’t want to, he had to tell Dr. Aubrey everything, and he would not run away from that.
He sighed as he looked up at the sky through the window. “I don’t really remember anything after that. I think I was dreaming or hallucinating. My next actual memory is three days later, waking up in the hospital with a splitting headache.”
He hoped that was it, the end of him having to explain what happened.
He’d gone over every mistake in his head a million times.
What if he had rested more? What if his flight was shorter or if he had worn more layers of clothes?
What if he had seen a doctor as soon as he got off the plane?
There were so many things he could have done differently.