Chapter 12 #3
Arkadiy noticed it immediately and, without saying anything, skated over to the boards, then returned with a harness, the kind coaches used when teaching difficult jumps, with wide straps that went around the waist and under the arms, fitting tightly beneath the shoulders, while the long strap remained in the coach’s hands so that, during the jump, he could support the skater in the air and catch them if they fell, reducing the force of the fall and the risk of injury.
“Come here,” Arkadiy said quietly.
Alisa skated over to him and obediently let him fasten the harness on her, feeling awkward and ashamed that she needed it at all, but at the same time strangely relieved, because the fear in her chest had become almost unbearable.
“You’re afraid,” Arkadiy said simply as he tightened the straps under her arms.
Alisa lowered her gaze and nodded.
“That’s normal,” he answered immediately, not waiting for excuses from her. “After everything, after pair skating, after the falls, after all these months, of course you’re afraid. But that’s exactly why we’re going to do it again.”
And they began to practice.
At first it was terrible. Alisa jumped too early, then too late, then did not gather herself tightly enough in the air, and every time she lost the landing she fell, but softly, because Arkadiy held the strap tightly and did not let her hit the ice too hard, so instead of sharp pain there was only frustration and embarrassment, and the terrible feeling that her body no longer belonged to her the way it once had.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Arkadiy did not let her stop, and every time she wanted to say that she could not do it, that it was too difficult, that maybe he had been wrong about her after all, he only looked at her with those dark green eyes and said firmly.
“Higher.”
“Don’t think so much.”
“You can do it.”
“Again.”
By the end of training, Alisa was exhausted, her whole body ached, her hair stuck to her neck from sweat, her knees and hips would definitely be covered in bruises tomorrow, and she was sure that she no longer had any strength left at all, but then Arkadiy told her to do it one last time, only once more, and she obeyed.
She accelerated.
Pushed off.
Rose into the air.
For one second she was terribly afraid again, and then suddenly she was not afraid at all, because her body remembered before her mind did, remembered how to tighten, how to turn, how to hold itself in the air—
And she landed a quadruple jump!
Not perfectly, not without Arkadiy still holding the harness and helping her through the last fraction of the landing, but she landed the quadruple Axel.
Alisa immediately jumped onto the ice like a happy child and burst into a smile so bright that it seemed to light up her whole face.
She even laughed, not believing it herself, while Arkadiy only grinned broadly and held out both hands to her, and she slapped them with both of hers at once in a clumsy, joyful high five.
They were the last to leave the ice. The arena had already become almost empty, only the cleaners were somewhere far away in the corridors, and the noise of the other skaters had long since disappeared.
Alisa sat on the bench and carefully wiped the blades of her skates dry from the ice that had frozen to them during training, and Arkadiy sat down next to her.
“Not bad overall, Alisa.” He patted her lightly on the shoulder. “We have a lot of work ahead of us, of course, but the main thing is that we have the base and the right technique, and everything else we will build little by little.”
He smiled at her again.
Honestly, wasn’t he the most smiling coach in the whole school?
Alisa only exhaled nervously and nodded, continuing to wipe the blades with the cloth.
“As for the choreography, we’ll start next week, when Dana comes back from vacation, and we’ll make absolutely anything you want, to any music, in any style, so think about what exactly you want and tell me.”
Alisa immediately thought of dozens of different ideas, different music, different stories that she might tell on the ice, because she still had time, a whole week to think about what she wanted to become.
She nodded with a smile.
“Great. Then I’ll have time to think about it this week.”
“Think seriously,” Arkadiy answered, “because we’ll be preparing for the internal qualifiers for the second Beijing quota championship.”
Alisa immediately looked at him in complete astonishment and even opened her mouth slightly.
“You want me there? But I don’t think that I—”
She did not have time to finish, because Arkadiy interrupted her and put his hand on her shoulder.
“You can do anything, Alisa,” he said quietly. “I believe in you, and I know that you can win the internal qualifiers and earn that quota for Beijing.”
Alisa suddenly wanted to cry because of how much he believed in her when she herself had long since stopped believing.
A tear rolled down her cheek by itself.
Arkadiy carefully wiped it away with his thumb and cupped her cheek with his palm, and Alisa closed her eyes for a second.
“You are capable of so much,” he said softly. “You’re our little star.”
And those words only made everything hurt more sharply and warmly at once, because that was exactly what her grandmother had called her.
Little star.
Alisa swallowed hard.
“Thank you, Coach,” she whispered, quickly wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. “I won’t let you down.”