50. Adrian （Epilogue）
I had been to Milan twice before. Once with my parents over summer break, dragged through the Duomo and the Galleria while my mother collected shopping bags like trophies.
Once for the Milano Cup two years ago, where I'd placed second behind a Russian skater with a quad Axel and a death wish.
The Olympics were a different beast entirely.
The Fontaines had made the trip. Dominic and Geneviève and Margaux, who had been vibrating with excitement since the moment she'd learned the Olympics had horses in it and was deeply disappointed to discover that equestrian was a summer sport.
She'd recovered quickly and redirected her enthusiasm toward collecting pins from every country's delegation, a mission she pursued with the ruthless focus of a Fontaine.
My parents had even decided to grace us with their presence after my little post-competition freakout. I didn’t know if they were really trying to turn a new leaf or if this was just another performance for them. Time would tell.
I'd managed to ditch them after an awkward family dinner with the Fontaines on their first night in Milan. The Fontaines were well off in their own right but missing the requisite number of commas in their net worth to keep my parents’ attention.
They'd latched onto the Walshes, who were apparently American royalty or at least filthy rich, which was close enough for the Zhaos.
I recognized their son Bradley from The Spill—striking and stylish, the kind of guy who drew eyes wherever he went.
There were plenty of important people to keep my parents occupied. It let me focus on the competition ahead.
And for once, I felt oddly calm.
Usually before big competitions the adrenaline turned me into a feral animal pacing behind the boards. But tonight there was a stillness in my chest. Something quieter. Something that felt like peace.
My pink hair was in a crown of braids, rhinestones sparkling in the strands—Margaux's handiwork from this afternoon.
My costume was custom, ordered months ago in anticipation of this exact moment.
Bloodred with tiny crimson beads along the shoulders that transitioned to gradually larger crystals cascading down my chest, catching the light like a chandelier.
The sleeves trailed dramatically low, designed to move like fire through my spins.
It had been a brutal journey getting here.
After Nicky withdrew from Nationals, everything had detonated.
Sabrina, who had been waiting a decade for permission to hate Renaud openly, announced she was parting ways with him that same week.
The skating press had a field day—Canada’s golden prince withdrawing from Olympic contention, the legendary Jean-Pierre Renaud losing two of his top skaters in the space of a week, speculation swirling about internal conflicts and coaching philosophy differences.
Then someone from the Aurora facility leaked Nicky's story.
Not a piece of it. All of it. The sleeping pills. His mother finding him. A month spent in treatment while the federation and his coach told the world he was resting.
I wanted to find the anonymous source and break their fucking jaw.
Nicky had trusted those people. Had sat in group sessions and said things out loud for the first time—things that cost him, things he'd barely been able to say to me—because he'd been told it was safe.
Confidential. Protected. And some piece of shit had sold the worst moment of his life for what? Money? Clout?
It hit The Spill first. Then the skating forums. Even then the mainstream press picked it up. And suddenly Nico Fontaine's face was everywhere—not the golden prince on the podium but the kid who'd almost died under the weight of his own perfection.
He'd gone very still when he found out. I watched it happen in real time—the blood draining from his face, the jaw locking, the walls slamming up so fast you could almost hear them. That dangerous stillness I knew too well. The shutdown. The retreat.
I braced for it. For the I'm fine and the flat eyes and the careful, measured voice that meant he was anything but.
Instead he looked at me and said, “I think I need to sit down.”
So we sat. On his bathroom floor, of all places, because that was where his legs gave out—and the irony of that location wasn't lost on either of us. He didn't say I'm fine. He didn't pretend. He cried and shook while I held him.
It took an hour. Maybe longer. His back against the bathtub, my arms around him, his hands gripping my shirt like I was the only thing keeping him tethered.
He cried—quietly, the way he did everything, like even his grief was trying not to inconvenience anyone—and I didn't tell him it was going to be okay because I didn't know that yet. I just held on.
When the shaking finally stopped, he pulled back and wiped his face with the heel of his hand and said, in a voice that was raw and wrecked but steady, “I need to call Dr. Priya. And then I need to call my parents. And then I think we should talk about what to do.”
We. Not I need to figure this out. Not I'll handle it. We.
Six months ago, he would have locked himself in this bathroom alone and white knuckled through it until the panic either passed or swallowed him. Tonight he sat on the floor and let me hold him and then we made a plan.
And once people started looking, really looking, they couldn't stop.
The timeline. The patterns. Théo Beaubien's abrupt departure from Toronto—how he'd shown up at Worlds looking like a ghost of his former self, fifteen pounds underweight, eyes hollow, and then vanished to Chicago without explanation.
The same program, the same coach, the same relentless machine that chewed up young athletes and called the wreckage a coaching philosophy.
The skating community connected the dots with the ruthless efficiency of people who had been whispering about Renaud for years and finally had permission to say it out loud.
The federation launched a quiet investigation into his handling of athlete welfare—duty of care questions, reporting obligations, whether the cover up of Nicky's overdose constituted a breach of federation protocol.
Former skaters started coming forward with their own stories.
Nothing criminal. Just a pattern—a decades long pattern of emotional manipulation, impossible standards, and young athletes broken down and discarded when they stopped being useful to the legacy.
Renaud had done what Renaud did best. Managed the narrative.
Issued a carefully worded statement about stepping back from competitive coaching to “focus on program development and mentorship”—a graceful exit that let him save face while the federation quietly buried the investigation in exchange for his cooperation.
He'd landed at a federation advisory role, removed from direct athlete contact but still close enough to the sport to maintain the illusion that leaving had been his choice.
It hadn't been his choice. Everyone who mattered knew it. But the skating world ran on appearances, and Renaud had spent thirty years perfecting his.
Sabrina had somehow convinced Coach Miller to be our coach of record—the name on the paperwork, the body at the boards, the credentialed presence in the kiss and cry.
And even more shocking was the federation's easy acceptance of the change.
All the bad press leading up to the Olympics probably helped our case.
It wouldn't look great if two skaters who'd dropped their abusive coach got excluded from the Games as a result.
Especially two returning Olympians. The optics of punishing Adrian Zhao and Sabrina Gallagher for protecting themselves would have been a PR nightmare the federation couldn't afford—not with the Renaud investigation still making headlines.
In practice, Sabrina and I already had our programs locked down.
Nicky served as our unofficial coach—reviewing footage, suggesting adjustments to my step sequence, helping Sabrina fine tune her spins with the eye of someone who understood the technical and the artistic in equal measure.
He was good at it. Really good. Better than he realized, which was the most Nicky thing imaginable.
It was unconventional. The press had questions. But Miller's name carried enough weight that nobody could argue we were uncoached and our results spoke for themselves. And now the day had finally arrived.
I was adjusting my eyeliner when Nicky appeared in the lit reflection of the vanity.
He was in his Team Canada fleece, lanyard around his neck, credentials clipped to his chest. Assistant coach.
He'd started the accreditation process the week after Ottawa and Miller had signed off on the mentorship hours without hesitation.
Nicky wasn't competing anymore—that decision had been made quietly, privately, in my apartment on a Tuesday night with his head on my chest and his voice steady for the first time in weeks.
I don't want this anymore. Not the way they want me to want it. I want to coach. I want to help someone the way I wish someone had helped me.
“Hey,” he said, leaning against the doorframe.
“Hey yourself.”
He crossed the room and stood behind me, his hands settling on my shoulders. In the mirror, we looked like a painting—his golden hair against my pink, his Team Canada fleece against my bloodred crystals, his calm against my fire.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Weirdly calm.”
“That's good. Calm is good.”
“Is it? I'm usually a feral raccoon before a competition. Should I be worried?”
“You should be confident.” His fingers squeezed my shoulders. “You've done everything right, Adrian. Your program is the best I've ever seen you skate. Your quad flip is consistent. Your components have never been stronger.” He met my eyes in the mirror. “You're ready.”
“Théo's going to be tough.”