Chapter 13
CECILIA
“What time did you get in last night?” Rodrigo asks, one shoulder lifting casually as he shuffles on the ice. He’s been running laps for a few hours, and I’m guessing he’s a little bored at this point because his eyes are shiny and his smile is sneaky.
“?Qué te importa?” I reply, looking at my watch. “Again.”
He pushes off with exaggerated obedience, skating a lazy loop before cutting back towards me, clearly not expending anywhere near the amount of effort I asked for.
“You went out,” he says.
“Enfocate.”
“I am focused.”
I don’t look at him. “On skating.”
“And on you.”
I sigh, long and deliberate. “Drink water.”
He grins and does another lap, this one tighter, faster, and enough to satisfy me without convincing either of us he’s fully invested.
I track him for a moment, more out of habit than concern, then let my attention drift, which is how I notice Isabella leaning against the boards a few feet down, arms folded, watching a pair of skaters on the other end of the rink.
She catches my eye and raises a brow.
I shake my head once, already irritated for allowing myself to smile.
I tap the boards once and motion Rodrigo over.
He skates to the boards and pops to a stop, breath fogging the air. “What’s up?”
“You’re rushing the transition into the bracket,” I tell him. “It’s not costing you points yet, but it will if you don’t settle before the edge change.”
He nods once. “I thought I was.”
“Too fast. I want you slower.”
He considers that. “That sounds counterintuitive.”
“It is. Do it anyway.”
He grins, then glances in the direction of the far boards before snapping his attention back to me with exaggerated innocence.
“What are you doing?” he asks as I start skating to the other side, where Isabella and Nina are now talking to one of the conditioning coaches. “Is that Isabella? Are you going to talk to her?”
I finally glance at him. He’s skating in circles around me, backward and forward just to annoy me. “I am not.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “You literally just inhaled like you’re preparing to speak to her.”
“I inhale all the time, Rodrigo. It’s called breathing.”
Rodrigo grins again and starts laughing almost maniacally. He takes off and lands a triple Lutz so cleanly that it seems to hush the air on the ice before the sound rushes back in, a ripple of awe moving through the rink as a few heads turn, conversations stalling mid-sentence.
Nina is already on her feet, clapping once hard before she can stop herself, her voice cutting across the ice. “Okay, no. That’s just rude,” she calls. “Do it again!”
Rodrigo skates out of it grinning, knowing exactly what this just earned him. He throws a casual salute in her direction and skates lazily back to where Katia is standing in the corner, grinning at him and waiting for a high-five.
I notice three things at once: the speed on the entry, the confidence through the air, and the way he’s already pushing past what we agreed on earlier.
He skates back towards me, breath fogging, adrenaline still crackling under his skin.
“That felt good,” he says.
“I know,” I reply. “And I want you to remember what it felt like.”
He nods once, more serious now. “Okay.”
“I want a second set of eyes on your layout,” I say, already turning. “Come on.”
His smile goes smug immediately.
We skate over together, gliding lazily along the boards because he enjoys being annoying all the time.
“Hey,” Isabella says. She straightens and pushes off the railing, eyes flicking to Rodrigo first and then to me, something curious settling into her expression that feels pointed without being aggressive.
I’m suddenly terrified, because the shift I feel is immediate and I don’t have a name for it yet.
“Hey,” I answer.
Rodrigo beams at her. “Hi.”
She laughs softly. “Hi.”
There is no universe in which he doesn’t clock this.
“I was wondering if you could watch a run,” I say, forcing my voice to stay neutral. “Tell me if you’re seeing the same thing I am.”
Her brows lift. “You want my opinion?”
I meet her gaze. “Of course.”
“Sure,” she says after a beat. “Show me.”
Rodrigo pushes off immediately, energized by the audience, and takes his starting position.
Isabella leans in closer beside me. She’s not touching me, but I can feel the warmth from her body.
He runs the sequence and she watches in silence, eyes tracking every turn, every shoulder check, every micro-adjustment in speed. She doesn’t nod or react outwardly at all, and it’s quieter than I would expect from someone whose job is to speak about this exact thing for a living.
When he finishes and skates back over, she doesn’t look at him right away.
She looks at me and squints. “He’s generating speed too early. It makes the bracket look flashier but destabilizes the exit.”
“I like flashy,” he says, and it sounds a little like a whine. Moments like this are when I’m reminded that he is practically still a child.
“I know,” she replies without missing a beat. “That’s why you’re so good. But clean first. Then we can work on flashy.”
I blink, because that phrase is so close to what she had said about me a decade ago. But those words once felt like a death sentence, and I now understand her meaning exactly.
Rodrigo nods slowly. “Okay, yeah. That makes sense.”
“I’d also play with the arm position through the counter,” she adds. “You’re opening before your hip finishes rotating.”
He stares at her. “How did you see that?”
She shrugs. “I used to get yelled at for it.”
He grins again. “By who?”
“My parents,” she says, and there’s no edge to it, no hesitation but rather a statement delivered with the same matter-of-fact tone she’s used all morning, as if this were simply another technical explanation and not something that shaped the better part of her life.
Rodrigo’s face brightens immediately. “Were they intense?”
Isabella laughs, quick and unguarded, the sound cutting easily through the ambient noise of the rink. “Very.”
“That explains a lot,” he says, satisfied. Nina scoffs from a distance, even with her eyes on her phone screen as she scrolls slowly.
“They were invested,” she adds, still watching him with that same careful attention, as though the conversation is totally secondary to the work unfolding in front of her. “There was always a right way to do things. If you did them well enough, you got space.”
I register the phrasing before I register the meaning, the way she frames excellence not as praise but as access, as a kind of permission that had to be earned repeatedly, and something in my chest tightens in response, not with resentment this time but with recognition.
Rodrigo nods slowly. “That sounds exhausting.”
“It was efficient,” she says, turning her head in the direction of her sister. Then, almost as an afterthought, “I learned a lot.”
She glances at me briefly, like she’s only just remembered I’m there, and I realize she hasn’t offered this as explanation or justification so much as context, something she assumes can sit on the table without needing to be handled carefully.
“Anyway,” she continues, already shifting back to the present. Her smile is still on as she addresses me. “He’s doing really well. You’ve built something solid with him.”
The praise, again, is quiet and subdued, without emphasis, and it’s very hard to dismiss. I don’t answer right away, not being used to hearing it said like that outside of Sandra and other regulars at our home rink.
Rodrigo grins. “Told you.”
“Go hydrate,” I tell him, and he pushes off without complaint, humming to himself as he rejoins the rotation.
Isabella stays beside me, arms folded loosely as she leans back against the boards again, and for a moment we simply watch the ice, the noise filling the space without demanding anything from either of us.
“It’s strange,” I say eventually, keeping my eyes forward, “how different things can look when you’re only seeing the result.”
She nods immediately. “It usually is.”
I push off to the center of the rink, letting the noise and movement reclaim me. It’s easy to confuse what looks effortless with what has been rehearsed into silence.
Watching Isabella earlier, hearing her talk about her parents with that same calm, I understand now that what I read as confidence was actually something built under pressure, refined until it stopped showing its seams.
I skate a wide arc back to Rodrigo, aware that I’ve been guilty of the same thing. Flattening people into something simple because it’s easier than holding the truth.