Chapter 13
“Alisa?” Tora’s voice came through the headphones.
“Yes, yes, I’m here, hi…”
“Hi,” Tora replied dryly, sounding very tired. Apparently training had been exhausting again.
Alisa decided to start with something casual.
“Well… how was your training? Are you and Loke working on a new choreography or what?”
“Well, kind of, yes, the coach wants us to add new elements, to make the program a little more difficult for the Olympics.”
Yes, of course, they had been accepted to the Olympics immediately, because how could they not take these figure skating stars?
The whole world was waiting for them at the Olympic Games, but no one was waiting for Alisa anywhere.
In general, she herself had not gone anywhere yet, although after talking to the new coach, Arkadiy, the hope of somehow ending up at the Olympics had sparked in her heart again.
Alisa started screen sharing for Tora and launched Resident Evil 2 Remake, a game about viruses and zombies and some kind of apocalypse, a game she had only heard about before, but this year it was on sale, and she decided to buy it.
Relaxing with horror games? That was something new.
The music on the title screen was already terrifying, but Alisa kept fiddling with the settings while Tora stayed silent, and then Alisa suddenly realized that she had not said anything at all about Tora and Loke’s new choreography.
“Well, I hope they’ll give you something beautiful, I don’t doubt you,” Alisa said coldly, and for some reason she was upset that she would no longer skate in pairs, at least not this year, she should have been happy for her girlfriend, but everything felt strange…
inside her there was a conflict, where one part of her was incredibly happy for Tora, and the other was furious that she herself had failed in every possible way in pair skating. It was difficult.
“Yes, I hope so too, well, are you going to start the game or what?” Tora said softly, and Alisa heard from the rustling that she had probably already lain down on the bed.
“Oh, yes, sorry…”
Alisa started the game and immediately realized that medium difficulty was going to be torture, because every sound scared her, and she screamed at every zombie or every sudden noise, and the zombies did not die, you had to put several bullets into their heads, they would fall, but after a while they got up again anyway, and there were never enough bullets, which infuriated Alisa, and she did not even notice how completely she had immersed herself in the game, until suddenly she realized that Tora had been silent for a very long time, so maybe she had disconnected?
But when Alisa opened the console menu, she saw that Tora was still there, she had probably fallen asleep.
“Tora?” Alisa whispered. But there was no answer.
“Good night, Tora… I’m so sorry…” she whispered with longing in her voice, and then she ended the call and turned off the console too, and by then it was already midnight, and she had to get up at five in the morning.
I wish we had never called each other… It was stupid…
Alisa said it bitterly to herself and turned over in bed, trying to fall asleep through the anxious thoughts that maybe their relationship simply was not working the way she wanted it to.
She had always thought that relationships with girls would somehow be easier, because they understood each other on a different level than a man and a woman, who in their essence came from different worlds…
and she thought it would be fun, but as it turned out, unspoken things, unlived emotions, resentment, and, most importantly, fear, all of it was devouring Alisa from the inside, and she did not know what to do.
She needed to sleep.
* * *
In the summer, training in the gym became more important and time on the ice was reduced, and Alisa hated that period, because she did not like being in the gym, although she knew perfectly well that it was just as important as training on the ice, because it was in the gym that the foundation was built and the first technique was developed, and it was important to train even the smallest movements until they became automatic, so that later on the ice you would not make a mistake and would do everything correctly.
But Alisa was always terribly bored repeating the same movements over and over again, especially here, where she was without her coach, because she had memorized all the exercises and all the technique long ago.
But today she was training with Cherry, and Cherry helped her with different exercises, and it seemed that perhaps they were slowly becoming friends.
While they were resting between sets, they started talking.
“Thank God we’re training on ice before the hockey players today, I’m so tired of them!” Anfisa huffed aggressively, and the pink in her cheeks seemed to glow.
Alisa grinned quietly, fiddling with the jump rope in her hands as she prepared for her next set.
“Come on, they’re not all assholes.”
“They are exactly that, zero brains! They ruin everything in our practices!”
Alisa let out a laugh.
“Do you know what they say? There’s only one step from hate to love,” Alisa said with a grin, looking at Anfisa, but Anfisa immediately became serious.
“I hate hockey players for my own reasons, and I will never let even one of them get close to me!”
“Oh, c’mon, they’re fine, Anfisa,” Alisa said, shaking her head as she got up from the stretching mat and began to jump rope, trying to do double turns and make each jump higher and longer. Anfisa had already started stretching, apparently her workout was over.
“Not normal, period!”
Alisa concentrated on the rhythm of her movements and her jumps, feeling the muscles in her calves tense with each landing.
“I tried to at least treat them neutrally, but every time they ruin the ice and annoy me with their stupid grins, as if they own the whole world! And then there are all those fan girlies at their games! They throw themselves at them like they’re ready to pounce if the hockey players let them, and honestly, I’m sure they do! ”
“Well… they’re fans… they’re allowed to, they don’t train on the same ice as us… and no one forbids them from sleeping with hockey players.”
“I’m not talking about that!” Anfisa snorted, completely spreading herself into a cross split and lying flat on her stomach on the mat, resting her chin on her hands.
“Oh, I thought you were jealous of the fans,” Alisa said with a grin, and Anfisa only snorted again, displeased.
“Of course not! Sleep with them? Ew, that’s worse than torture!”
“Well, apparently the fans like it.”
“I’m not a hockey fan, I hate it!” Anfisa insisted.
“Okay, okay, can we talk about something besides hockey?” Alisa suggested, and Anfisa only shrugged. “How about… do you want to go get lunch and coffee together?”
Anfisa nodded, agreeing.
“Yeah, well, but only until two, I have choreography at two,” Alisa said with a smile, finally finishing with the jump rope and sitting back down on the mat to stretch. Her muscles ached pleasantly, and she exhaled with a quiet groan as she stretched her legs.
“Oh, today already? That’s so cool! Have you come up with a theme for what you’re going to skate?”
Alisa only grinned as she imagined the choreography in her head, or rather, what it could become, because the choreographer would still change things and add details to the framework of her idea, but she felt that familiar excitement for something new, that delight that always came with the beginning of something new, and this really was a new stage in her life…
Because now she would perform alone.
Alone…
* * *
After coffee, Anfisa returned to the arena with her, although they went to different rinks inside the same building, because Anfisa had practice on the larger ice, and Alisa went to the small rink, where they usually tested choreography or practiced tiny elements in small groups.
Everything there was hidden in a kind of fog from the cold, and as soon as Alisa stepped onto the ice, she exhaled a cloud of white into the air because of the difference in temperature.
It was colder here than on the main rink where they usually trained.
For the first few minutes Alisa could only shiver and try to get used to it, warming herself up with the usual exercises, tightening her body, doing pulls, rettberger steps, mohawk turns, gliding backward on one leg, all those movements that had long ago become instinctive, and yet still had to be repeated every single day.
Arkadiy and Dana were already there on the ice, apparently this was the choreographer she was about to work with. They stood by the boards as Alisa skated up to them.
“Hello! I’m Alisa!”
The choreographer smiled immediately.
“I’m Dana, nice to meet you.”
They shook hands and then skated toward the center of the rink, while Arkadiy silently watched everything that was happening.
“Oh, actually, let me show you what I want the choreo to look like,” Alisa suggested with a sheepish smile.
“That’s a good idea,” Dana replied, nodding.
Alisa asked her to put on Ludwig Goransson’s “Can You Hear the Music” from Oppenheimer, and the sound switched from her phone to the speakers of the arena.
Then she skated to the center.
At first Alisa froze in place, covering her face with her hands, and then, as soon as the music began, she slowly spread her arms with a serious smile on her face, if such a thing could exist at all, because confidence was written all over her features.
Then the step sequence began.
She picked up speed with her feet and moved across the ice in one continuous line, never interrupting a single element, not even the smallest one, because she was completely immersed in the moment, completely obeying the music, and letting her heart lead her.
Arkadiy stood behind the boards and filmed everything on his phone, so that later he and Dana could continue to work on the program, and so that Alisa herself could see where she made mistakes, what looked good, and how everything appeared from the outside.
Then she glided past the place where the judges usually sat, balanced on one leg, and then she raised the other leg high, almost into a half split, and continued to skate, cutting through the air with her hands as if she could touch it. The music was alive and daring.
Then, after only a few meters, she accelerated sharply and went into a jump, a double axel, not a triple, but that did not matter.
She kept going.
When she reached the other side of the rink, she launched herself into a triple lutz and landed it cleanly, and immediately afterward she lifted her leg high into the air again with a smile, as if she were slicing through the space around her.
Then she dropped into a spin, balancing on one leg in a catch-foot position, first holding her leg almost parallel to the ice, and then lifting it higher and higher until the position became almost perfect.
Again she spread her arms, bending backward so deeply that it almost looked like a bridge, and then through a boat position she lowered herself even farther, gliding almost parallel to the ice, so low that her fingers nearly touched it, before rising again and carrying herself into the next jump.
This time it was a triple salchow, and then two double axels in sequence, almost like a cascade, and after that she spun again, dropping into a sit spin, balanced on one leg like a pistol, before rising back to her full height and extending one leg straight upward, spinning in perfect rhythm with the music.
And then there were more steps, built not so much from technique as from emotion, and they again merged into one smooth line, as if she were a poet telling a story on the ice, and she told it so beautifully that Dana and Arkadiy could only stare at her in silence.
Words were unnecessary.
Then she stretched herself into a Biellmann position again and skated past them, past the place where the judges should have been, although instead there was only her coach and her choreographer, and they applauded her.
Finally, after the last twizzles and the small spins on different edges and different feet, she reached the ending.
Leaning low over the ice in a butterfly position, she looked as if she were almost lying on it, one leg behind the other, her body perfectly parallel to the surface.
Then she rose into one last quick spin in a Biellmann position and stopped abruptly in a final pose, like a fighter, with both arms stretched high above her head.
She was breathing hard.
But she was smiling.
Dana and Arkadiy immediately skated over to her, applauding.
“Well, it was very poetic and very beautiful, exactly what we need for a short program,” Arkadiy said with a smile.
Dana nodded immediately.
“Yes, there is still a lot we can add, but the foundation is already very good. Shall we start working right now?”
Alisa nodded with a smile.
And together with Dana she skated away to begin building her new choreography.
Arkadiy watched them with a smile from the side.
He believed in Alisa.
And that was the most important thing.
Everything was going to work out for her.