1. Friday can’t come fast enough
1
Friday can’t come fast enough
Electra
2 days before…
“ Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Elle, happy birthday to you. ” They all finish their crappy singing with howls and whistles and clapping and laughing their butts off at themselves. Because, let’s face it, we’re athletes, not singers and no matter how badly we try—or how much alcohol we consume—it won’t change.
“Make a wish! Make a wish,” Lisa squeaks, her short blonde curls jumping along with her as the candles all but melt all the way to the cake.
Quickly, I squeeze my eyes shut.
Let this be the year. The one when I feel the weight of that gold medal on my neck and the other type of gold around my ring finger. This has to be that kind of year. Please, universe. Mom. I mutter the words inside my head as quickly as I can and blow out the candles—all twenty-four of them—to another round of hollers and clapping and glasses clicking.
“So? What did you wish for?” Lisa asks as the rest of the crowd goes back to partying.
“Why are you even bothering with that question?” Our friend, Sam rolls his eyes at Lisa. “You could basically read the words on her forehead.” He uses his hands to punch the words into the air. “Win. The. Olympics.” And gives us all another eye roll.
“Ah,” I gasp and punch his shoulder good-naturedly. “You just jinxed us!”
“What can I say?” Sam shrugs, his blonde hair bouncing just as Lisa’s was and those blue eyes of his light up with mischief. “I want that gold just as much, and we all know you two are favored to win. So, yes, I’ll take all the help I can get.”
A warm set of familiar hands wraps around my bare waist, skimming underneath my breasts that are barely covered by a tiny, sequined top Erik loves. He pulls me into his hard, solid body as it shakes with silent laughter. “Let him have his jinx, Elle. The poor bastard needs to hold onto to some shred of hope.”
I smile at his words, as his hot breath fans over my neck, kissing me softly, and instantly, I melt into his touch. Like I always do.
“Oh, screw off. Lisa and I will give you hell for that first place.” Sam keeps going but I’m no longer listening, too consumed by my boyfriend, partner, and friend all wrapped in one.
“Please do,” Erik shoots back and kisses me with his arms still holding onto me, protectively. As if I am his precious doll.
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of his love for me.
“Can we not talk about skating or the Olympics for one damn evening?” Pietro moans from the couch. “Or watch you two maul each other?” He points to us and my cheeks splash with a blush. You’d think they’d be used to this by now, seeing as we spend nearly all of our time together, training on the ice for five, six hours and then some more off the ice. And Erik and I have been dating from pretty much the first moment we laid eyes on each other.
“Jesus Christ, how did we end up with a bunch of jealous pricks for friends, sweetheart?” Erik jokes, and in answer Sam and Pietro give him the finger and now we’re all back to laughing.
When it comes to these people, I can’t say we necessarily chose each other but were rather thrown together about four years ago when our trainer—Filip Masso, who is a world-renowned retired skater himself—found us in different states and training facilities and took us under his wing, quickly forming one of the strongest figure skating houses in the world.
There are ten of us under his care. Sam and Lisa, Pietro and Anna, Val and Callie, Erik and myself and Adele as a single female skater and Robert as a single male skater. And all ten of us are national figure skating champions. Some of us, international champions. And now we are about to take on the grand stage. The Olympic ice. And win.
The most anticipated competition of all, and something I’ve been striving for since the tender age of six, when I saw the graceful skater on the tiny TV in our small studio apartment. I don’t remember anything from those days, apart from that. The image of the pretty dark-haired girl in her pretty sparkly dress as she spun in the air and landed gracefully on the ice with a blinding smile, imprinted in my head like a core memory.
It was her eyes, I think. Even at that age and on that crappy TV, I understood that look of pure happiness in her eyes. She shined with it and I wanted some of that shine for myself.
And I remember yelling out, “Mommy, can I do that?” And she said, “You can do anything, my Electra. You were born to shine.”
The next morning, she brought me a set of old, worn skates and took me to Iris Lake that our small town in Vermont was named after.
That’s all. That is all I remember as if all the other memories from that time were overpowered by that one moment.
And now I am here. Doing just that. Shining as bright as I can to make my mom proud. Living the life as one of the best female figure skaters in the world. And all I know is that I must win. We must win, because way too much was given up for this dream. Things that I can never get back. People I can never get back.
Figure skating might seem like just a pretty sport to someone, but to me it’s everything. It’s my life.
Erik squeezes me harder as if sensing my morose train of thought and murmurs, “You are not allowed to be sad on your birthday, Elle. We will take that gold, you know that.” I nod. “Good,” he adds quietly and then hollers loudly, “Let’s turn this party up!”
Erik untangles himself from my body and moves to all the booze at the bar table, accompanied by another round of ruckus cheers.
The bubbly champagne is flowing, the music is booming through our two-story apartment in the historic part of Boston, the overly modern living room of which is as opposite of what you’d expect to find in such building is filled with our friends, colleagues, and managers, since my boyfriend insisted I need to celebrate properly.
I am not one for parties and all previous years were quiet celebrations, especially because my birthday falls on December 6th, only weeks from Christmas and that’s one too many parties for me. But this time Erik was adamant about it. I sensed it was more about our new place that we just bought which he wanted to show off to everyone and since I knew it’d make him happy, I gave in.
The party carries on; we are dancing and laughing, and I feel that warm tingle of alcohol running through my body when my phone rings in the back pocket of my jeans. I slip away from the crowd into the hallway, lined by long white walls with 40x30 frameless pictures of us from the ice in black and white. Each one from important competitions throughout the years.
I still can’t get used to seeing my face plastered over my own walls on such large scale but Erik insisted it would be a nice touch so I agreed.
I smile when I see the name on the screen and pick up hastily but that smiles slips off as soon as the first words are out of Stella’s mouth. “Please tell me you are not stupid enough to party two days before your competition,” she says with a heavy sigh, already knowing the answer to her own question because no matter how far into the house I go, the music is too loud not to notice.
I can practically see my old trainer rubbing her weathered face with the palm of her hand in frustration with me. Let’s just say that happened quite a lot in the beginning of my skating days to leave a memorable impression behind for the rest of my life.
“I am not, in fact, stupid enough, but I am having a party,” I tell her. “It’s my birthday, Stella!”
“Electra! What are you thinking? You need to be on that ice—or at least in the gym—practicing, practicing, practicing! At least tell me you are not drinking?”
My loud silence must be answer enough because her sigh grows deeper.
“Unbelievable.”
“I always practice! And this is hardly an important competition. Plus, it’s a routine we’ve done a million times before. We can do it in our sleep. So, I think I’m allowed to have one night to myself. Especially, when it’s my birthday,” I grumble into the phone. “Erik said I deserved a break.”
“Well, if Erik said so…” she trails off, muttering his name with distaste.
Stella Gray is one of the best coaches in America. Her stern character, iron grip, no-nonsense attitude and downright cold personality are well-known amongst all the skaters, and many dream to train with her because her success rate is nearly perfect but she only trains skaters from a young age and only at her training facility in my very own hometown of Iris Lake.
When I first met her, I didn’t know how lucky I’d been to get picked up by her. And then even luckier when she was not only my trainer but the most important person in my life. The one who took me under her wing from the moment my shaky foot stepped onto the ice. The one who picked my sobbing mess of self when there was no one else to do so. So, the fact that she still can’t get behind my relationship with Erik—four years later—is really bothering me.
She has no problems with him as my partner; in fact, she was over the moon when we were paired up, stating Erik Shishkov is the best of the best and that’s the least I deserve. But the second she saw us together , she was not happy. Or shall I say, she downright told me to not go there with him. Ever.
“Stella, he’s good for me. I love him and you know that, but did you call to get into this again?”
“No. I called to see if you were ready for Friday and to wish my Electra a happy birthday.”
I smile at her grumbling tone. This is her equivalent to being warm and fuzzy. She can’t just say something sweet. Nope, she always has to pair that up with another comment. Like the one about my competition.
“Okay, go ahead.” I can’t hide the smile from my tone, and I already know she’s rolling her eyes.
“Happy birthday, little star. Now, stop drinking and go to bed.”
I burst out laughing at her monotone delivery, and she grumbles some more into the phone.
“Fine, I won’t drink anymore. I promise. Well, after this one glass.”
“How did I get stuck with such a pain in my ass?”
“Har-har, you love me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She waves me off. “Do your best on Friday, Electra! No routine is easy, don’t get distracted by this love thing. I’ll be watching.”
“You always are.”
We say our goodbyes, and just as I round the corner two familiar voices coming from the office stop me in my tracks.
“A proposal?” Jasper, our manager whisper-yells loud enough for me to hear over the music. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah,” comes from Erik. “Can you get what I asked for ready by Friday?”
“Where is the rush? You’ve been together for four years already. Surely it can wait some more.”
“The rush is that I want to make Elle my wife,” he says sternly, and I gasp, my hand slapping against my mouth to muffle the sound.
Oh my god! Did I understand that right?
They say something else, but I only catch Jasper murmuring, “Yeah, I’ll get Ice Sports, and all the rest of the channels notified. Don’t worry. And then there is silence for a few seconds before he continues. “Well, I’ll be damned. She will love it.” There is a clapping sound and I’m assuming Jasper clapped Erik’s shoulder for whatever reason.
“I know she will. Just make sure you get what I asked for.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry, you lovesick fool. You’re right, this will be good publicity before the Olympics. We can get some nice sponsorship deals for you two.”
I hear their feet moving and clutching my racing heart I bolt from my spot.
Erik is going to propose to me. This is really happening. Oh my god!
I slip into the powder room, locking myself in there to calm down and wipe the happy tears from my eyes. Am I really getting one of my wishes answered that fast?
I smile at my reflection in the mirror. My light blue eyes shine with happy tears and I take a few deep breaths to will those away, fix my low-cut bangs and pull my fingers through the rest of my dark brown locks that got quite tangled during dancing to take my mind off of what I just heard.
My God, I’m getting married.
Friday can’t come fast enough.