Chapter 4 #4
Lev led Alisa behind him, her body following his every movement like a shadow finely tuned to his rhythm.
He lifted her again, seating her briefly on his thigh while she arched backward, stretching her leg to the max, and the arena roared.
A few steps later, he tossed her into the air one final time, Alisa soared, twisting beautifully and landing perfectly in Lev’s arms. A final flurry of twizzles and spins brought them face-to-face, hearts pounding, breaths mingling, tears of joy streaking down their cheeks.
They had completed the program flawlessly.
Hand in hand, they bowed to the arena, the lights brightening as the applause thundered around them. Exiting the ice, Pike met them, beaming.
“Horosho! Horosho!”2 she praised in Russian, leading them to the waiting area.
Alisa and Lev sank into their seats, still trembling from the adrenaline. Alisa’s mind raced as she calculated the scores in her head. 147 for the long program, adding to their short program of 71.20 — 218 points total. Insanely high, likely first place… but the competition wasn’t over yet.
She clenched Lev’s hand, waiting for the others.
Then she noticed Tora. Her rival’s brow was furrowed as she watched, not far enough away to hide her disdain. As Tora and Loke prepared to enter the ice, she sneered at Alisa and Lev.
“Russians are always so dramatic,” Tora muttered, scrunching her nose, “ugh… with their classical music and sad, grumpy faces.”
Turning to her partner, she hissed, “Let’s fucking win this, Loke.”
Loke nodded, and the two stepped onto the ice, holding hands. The arena shifted in anticipation, the next performance was about to begin. Tora and Loke were ready to shine… and the stakes had never been higher.
Alisa and Lev carefully watched the performance of their rivals, and Alisa bit the inside of her lip more and more with every passing second, waiting anxiously for the scores while already feeling, somewhere deep inside, that despite the fact that they had skated first today, that they had truly been first on the ice, it might still not be enough.
They were first now… they were first…
And yet every jump, every element performed by their rivals came out clean, precise, almost painfully perfect, as if they were skating without the weight that pressed so heavily on Alisa’s chest, and when there was a slight mistake in the death spiral—a shortened exit that should have cost them points—Alisa instinctively tensed, her lips pressing tighter as she breathed heavily, convinced that the judges had to notice it, had to take something off…
but they didn’t, or at least it didn’t seem like enough.
She kept watching, unable to look away, and at the same time unable to understand what exactly she was feeling anymore, because with every lift, every spin, every landing, she held her breath as if it were her own program unfolding on the ice, and she couldn’t tell whether she was worried about the score, about losing first place, or about Tora herself—about how she moved, how she landed, how she seemed so completely calm, so untouched by pressure, smiling as if none of this even mattered, as if she was simply enjoying the moment with her partner and nothing beyond the ice existed.
And that smile unsettled Alisa more than any perfect element.
At one moment, during a lift, Tora seemed to glance at her, and even after a slightly imperfect landing she smiled and then, as if it were nothing at all, she winked at her, and Alisa sharply inhaled, frowning, her thoughts tangling into something she couldn’t untangle anymore, because everything inside her was mixing together into one overwhelming, confusing feeling.
The program ended, and the arena erupted into applause, louder than before, people shouting, standing, throwing flowers and toys onto the ice, and although it was a tradition for everyone, it felt like most of it was meant for them, for the Norwegians, while they calmly made their way to the Kiss & Cry, still smiling, as if they already knew the outcome.
And then came the pause.
Time stretched unbearably, the entire world seemed to hold its breath, and when the score was finally announced - 145, Lev reacted first, disbelief sharp in his voice as he almost jumped from his seat, “Second place?!”
For a split second, hope flared, fragile and desperate, but Alisa was already calculating, already replaying the numbers from the short program in her head, and the realization came too quickly, too coldly: they had been behind before, and now… now the gap was still there.
One point.
One damn point.
It couldn’t be.
The understanding settled slowly, pressing into her chest until it became almost hard to breathe, and all the sounds around her dulled into a distant ringing, as if she were underwater, as if the world had stepped away from her at the exact moment she needed it to stay.
“What’s going on, Alisa, are you all right?
” Lev asked, squeezing her hand, but his voice barely reached her, because inside her head everything was already breaking apart under the weight of that single realization, they had lost, despite skating clean, despite giving everything, despite doing it right.
“THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!”
The words tore out of her before she could stop them, as she slammed her hand against the seat before jumping up, her whole body trembling with something between anger and disbelief.
“This can’t be happening…”