Chapter 19
Alisa was sitting in the Kiss & Cry area with her coach, while Anfisa stood next to her.
Alisa kept her hands clasped together on her lap, fingers intertwined tightly as if in a restrained handshake, trying to hold herself together while waiting for the points that would decide everything…
what place she held at that moment, even though not everyone had performed yet, because it wasn’t enough just to lead now, she had to stay in first place after all the others, and that thought alone made her sit tense, biting the insides of her lips to keep from shaking.
Then the announcer’s voice rang out:
“So, Alisa Voronkova receives a total score of…”
A pause.
The entire arena seemed to freeze in that moment.
Everyone froze.
Alisa instinctively searched for Tora in the stands and found her almost immediately, her gaze fixed on her, just as worried and then Tora smiled and gave her a small nod.
Alisa answered with the same, before turning her attention back to the screen in front of them, where the numbers were about to appear.
“265 points! First place!”
Alisa shot up from her seat instantly, unable to hold it in, starting to jump in place, and Anfisa and the others rushed toward her, grabbing her into a chaotic, laughing embrace, jumping together in a burst of relief and joy, while Arkadiy stayed seated for a second longer, smiling quietly, nodding to himself, before standing up and pulling all of them into one large almost clumsy group hug, turning it into a circle of movement and laughter.
“You did it! That was incredible! If this holds, if no one in the next groups scores higher, then we have the quota, do you understand, Alisa?!” Anfisa was practically glowing, jumping beside her, unable to stay still.
A few minutes later, Alisa was gently pulled away from the celebration and sent back to the locker room, where she quickly took off her skates, changed into something more comfortable, and packed everything into her bag almost automatically, before heading back to the stands, where the final groups—D and E—were about to compete, and only ten skaters remained, and after that it would be decided whether their country would get the quota or not.
Sitting there, Alisa couldn’t keep still, her leg shaking uncontrollably as she tried to follow what was happening on the ice, occasionally glancing toward Tora, who was sitting almost directly across from her, though she tried not to look too often, because there was always that quiet fear that someone might notice, but every time their eyes met, Tora smiled, her hand pressed lightly to her chest, clearly happy for her, and that alone made something warm spread through Alisa, even if the anxiety never fully disappeared.
Anfisa noticed it immediately and placed her hand on Alisa’s thigh, pressing lightly as if to ground her.
“If you don’t stop shaking like that, we’re all going to end up back on the ice,” she said with a quiet laugh, patting her leg.
Alisa exhaled and forced herself to still. “Sorry… Anfisa, I don’t know, I’m just… worried.”
“It’s okay, baby. You’re in first place. For now,” Anfisa smiled, turning her attention back to the ice.
Alisa nudged her lightly, but Anfisa immediately raised a finger to her lips. “Shhh, the performance is starting.”
“What performance? What are you talking about?”
“Shhh! My favorite Japanese skater is coming out.”
“Anfisa!” Alisa pursed her lips in mild annoyance, but stayed quiet, watching as the arena slowly fell into silence, all attention shifting toward the entrance, where the skater’s photo, her country’s flag, and her season’s best scores appeared on the screens.
The girl stepped onto the ice, waving shyly to both sides, and then began her program and almost immediately it was clear why Anfisa had been waiting for her.
She moved with such lightness as if she barely touched the ice at all, she was like a feather carried by its own rhythm.
Alisa blinked, watching closely. “Okay… now I understand why you wanted to see her choreography so much.”
“Exactly. Appreciate the art, baby,” Anfisa murmured, resting her face in her hands, elbows on her knees, watching with open admiration.
The chances of holding first place are slowly slipping away from me, huh?
The figure skater fell on the landing of the triple lutz, and the arena reacted instantly, the energy dropping into something heavy and disappointed, but she didn’t give up, she pulled herself together and carried the program all the way to the end, finishing it with a smile despite everything.
Still, it wasn’t enough, her score placed her fifth overall at that moment, close, dangerously close, but not enough to truly threaten Alisa’s position.
Alisa remained in her seat, waiting for the others, silently praying that she would hold onto the first place.
One after another, the skaters took the ice, and Alisa couldn’t control the way her body reacted, because every time the announcer paused before revealing the scores, her heart seemed to jump from anxiety and worry.
However today everything felt different, as if the pressure of this competition was affecting every skater, because mistakes kept happening, falls, under-rotations, small errors that cost points, and the gap between gold and silver held at around ten points, which was significant and it was as if the tension itself was pulling them down.
And it worked in Alisa’s favor. She hadn’t been perfect either, however she was still leading, she was still on the top, and all she could do now was hope, hope that no one would surpass her, that she would stay there until the very end, until the quota was hers.
Then the Canadian stepped onto the ice.
Alisa tensed immediately.
This was the last skater.
Everything would be decided now.
The arena greeted her loudly, some people even rising to their feet, because she was one of the most well-known skaters in the world, ranked in the top five globally, and compared to her, Alisa—still somewhere in the top twenty—felt that difference sharply.
The Canadian entered her first jump, a triple flip, and then, only seconds later, went straight into a combination of a quadruple lutz followed by a triple flip.
“I think I’m fucked…” Alisa whispered under her breath.
Anfisa’s hand returned to her thigh, gripping it tightly, her long dark nails pressing into the fabric as if grounding both of them, because this wasn’t just about Alisa anymore, this quota meant a chance for all of them, for the possibility of going to the Olympics later.
The audience gasped again when the Canadian executed a clean quadruple axel, and Alisa felt her entire body tightening instinctively—
But then something broke.
The rotation slipped and the axis tilted sending her into a fall, and although she recovered quickly, rising with a practiced smile and continuing the choreography, the mistake had already happened.
And then, another jump.
A quadruple Rittberger.
She fell harder, the impact echoing through the arena, while inside Alisa something shifted, because suddenly it wasn’t perfect anymore, and now there was a chance again.
The Canadian continued, pushing through the rest of the program, but the cracks were visible now, an under-rotation here and a wrong edge there, Alisa noticed everything calculating without even meaning to, understanding that points would be lost.
When the program ended, the arena fell into that familiar silence again as the skater moved to the Kiss & Cry area.
“Well… now everything will be decided… God, I’m so nervous…” Alisa whispered, her heart pounding so hard it almost hurt.
Anfisa took her hand, holding it tightly, and together they stared at the massive screen above the ice, waiting.
“So, our final skater, Josephine Craig…”
It felt as if the entire world stopped.
The numbers appeared slowly, first the components, then the technical score, calculating and shifting toward the final result—
“263 points!”
Alisa stared at the screen, her mouth parting slightly as the overall standings appeared.
She was still first.
Gold.
“We have the quota! It’s ours!” Anfisa shouted, jumping to her feet along with the others, and the entire section erupted, people shouting, the realization hitting all at once, Alisa had done it.
She had secured the quota for women’s singles.
She had done it!
“Damn… I did it…” Alisa whispered, almost to herself.
“You did it, baby,” Anfisa said, pulling her into a tight embrace.
But Alisa wasn’t looking at her.
Her eyes were searching the stands again. Searching for Tora.
And then she saw it—
The seat was empty.
Where did she go?
* * *
At the award ceremony, Alisa stood there and smiled with all twenty-eight teeth, because those four wisdom teeth had never appeared, and sometimes she caught herself wondering, did that mean she wasn’t wise?
She didn’t know, but she joked about it often, although the thought that they were still somewhere inside her jaw, scared her a little every time…
but then again, some people didn’t have them at all, right?
So what did that even mean—was she not stupid, or not wise, or something in between? And when does wisdom even come, anyway?
She kept smiling and waving to the crowd while the arena buzzed with applause, almost vibrating with energy, and somewhere inside that noise was the understanding that she had done it, she had taken the last quota for her country, for the athletes who would come after her, and wasn’t that almost a miracle?
She had given someone else a chance to go to the 2026 Winter Olympics, and now all she could do was hope that she herself would be chosen for that place in the end…
otherwise, what had all of this been for?
Her eyes kept moving across the stands, searching for Tora among the crowd, but she wasn’t there.
Nowhere.
Was she upset?