Chapter 33 #2
The fourth judge, the eldest of the group, a woman with silver hair cut close to her head and the sharp, appraising eyes of someone who has been evaluating figure skaters since before I was born, nods with a quiet authority.
"Song choice was excellent. The lyrical connection was visible in every movement, particularly during the final chorus.
You were not skating to the music. You were skating through it.
Using it as a vehicle for an emotional narrative that made the technical elements feel inevitable rather than inserted.
That is a quality that cannot be taught.
It can only be recognized and cultivated. "
I am standing on the ice in front of four professional judges receiving individual feedback on a performance I did not know was being judged, and the tears I have been fighting are winning the war against my composure with decisive momentum.
The lead judge adjusts her glasses and consults her tablet one final time before looking up with a smile that carries the weight of a decision that has already been made.
"Based on our evaluation, we would like to extend several offers.
" She holds up one finger. "First, a position on the university's competitive figure skating team, effective immediately.
You will bypass the standard training orientation period given your demonstrated skill level and the recommendation provided by Captain Calder, who has been recognized as a credentialed figure skating coach by three international athletic federations. "
Three international federations. I file that detail away for the conversation I intend to have with Raphael later about the depth of his figure skating credentials that he has been casually omitting from his biography.
She raises a second finger.
"Second, the team's captain position is currently vacant following a recent restructuring of the roster.
Your technical proficiency, your leadership instincts, and your strategic understanding of competitive athletics make you a strong candidate for that role, and we would like to offer it to you directly. "
My hand covers my mouth.
The gesture is involuntary, my palm pressing against my lips to contain the sound that is building in my chest, a noise that exists somewhere between a gasp and a scream and a sob and is going to escape regardless of what physical barriers I place in its path.
She raises a third finger.
"Third, and perhaps most significantly, we would like to offer you direct entry into the preliminary figure skating competition.
This means you will bypass the initial qualifying trials and enter the competitive bracket as a seeded participant.
Your performance today demonstrated a readiness that, in our professional assessment, does not require the standard evaluation pipeline. "
Silence.
The word preliminary echoes in my skull.
Preliminary figure skating competition. The gateway to regional circuits.
The entry point to a competitive track that leads, if you are good enough and determined enough and willing to sacrifice enough, to the professional leagues that I spent my childhood dreaming about before the dream was taken from me by a designation I did not choose and a world that decided my biology determined my ceiling.
"You are giving me the golden buzzer of figure skating," I blurt.
The comparison escapes before my brain can evaluate it for professional appropriateness, delivered with the breathless incredulity of a woman who is processing life-altering news through the only cultural reference point her shocked mind can locate.
The judges laugh.
Genuine, warm laughter that breaks the formal atmosphere of the evaluation and replaces it with the human delight of people who enjoy their work and occasionally encounter an athlete whose reaction reminds them why they do it.
"That is a wonderful way of putting it," the lead judge says, her smile widening. "But yes. Consider this your golden buzzer. You are in."
I squeal.
The sound is high-pitched, involuntary, and carries a frequency that only dogs and extremely startled Alphas can fully appreciate.
I spin on my blades to face Raphael, who is standing behind me with his arms crossed and his smirk at full capacity, his gray eyes shining with a satisfaction that he is making zero effort to conceal.
"OH MY GOD." My hands are flapping. Literally flapping at my sides like a bird attempting takeoff, my body channeling the surplus of emotion into the only physical outlet available.
"What do I say? What is the protocol? Is there a speech?
Do I bow? Do I curtsy? What is the figure skating equivalent of an acceptance speech? Raphael, HELP."
He chuckles, the sound rich and resonant and carrying the particular fondness of a man watching someone he cares about experience a joy they had stopped believing was possible.
"You say yes, I would like in, and then you say thank you," he offers. "In that order. It is not a Nobel Prize ceremony, Mae. It is an acceptance. Use your words. The ones you used to dismantle an entire locker room last night should be more than sufficient for this."
"Those were angry words! These are happy words! They use different muscles!"
I try to kick him in the shin for the sarcasm, but he sidesteps the attempt with the reflexes of a man who has been anticipating retaliatory violence from me all week and has incorporated evasion into his resting posture.
He laughs as my blade swipes empty air, the sound bouncing off the rink boards.
"Do not waste the judges' time," he says, nodding toward the four evaluators who are watching our exchange with expressions that range from amused to delighted. "Accept before they reconsider."
"Oh! Right!"
I spin back toward the judges, my cheeks burning with a blush that could probably be detected by satellite.
I clasp my hands in front of me, attempt a bow that is somewhere between formal respect and an involuntary buckle of my overwhelmed knees, and say, with every ounce of composure I can gather from the scattered remains of my dignity:
"I accept. Completely. Wholeheartedly. With my entire chest and also my legs, which are shaking, and my arms, which will not stop flapping, and every other body part that is currently experiencing emotions I do not have names for. Thank you. Truly. I accept."
The lead judge smiles warmly and extends her hand, which I shake with both of mine because one hand does not feel sufficient for the magnitude of this moment.
Cheers erupt.
The sound crashes into the rink from the direction of the tunnel entrance, and I whip around to see the hockey team.
They have not gone to the showers. Not a single one.
They are crowded in the entrance to the rink, still in their practice gear, still drenched in sweat from seven and a half hours of Raphael's training regimen, and they are waving their towels above their heads like flags at a championship victory parade.
Henderson is whistling through his fingers.
The freshman rookie is jumping up and down, his earlier face-down-on-the-mat exhaustion apparently cured by the spectacle unfolding on the ice.
Collins and Marchetti are clapping in a synchronized rhythm that the rest of the team picks up until the tunnel reverberates with a percussive celebration that makes the boards rattle.
They stayed to watch.
All of them. The players who showed up at dawn for a brutal practice led by a captain they chose forty-eight hours ago, who endured every drill and every circuit and every formation Raphael devised, stayed after dismissal because they wanted to see the woman who threw papers at their former captain and called them pathetic get her moment on the ice.
My chest cracks open.
Not with pain. With the violent, overwhelming expansion of a heart that has spent years in a cage of its own construction and is now being offered a world large enough to hold everything it contains.
Sage, Archie, and Jace come barreling onto the ice.
Sage reaches me first, her dark ponytail flying behind her as she slides across the surface in her sneakers with the reckless disregard of a woman who does not care about traction when celebration is at stake.
She collides with me in a hug that nearly takes us both down, her arms locking around my shoulders, her voice in my ear shouting words that blur together into a continuous stream of joy.
"YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT YOU DID IT YOU DID IT! I KNEW IT! I TOLD JACE IN THE TUNNEL, I SAID SHE IS GOING TO GET IN, AND HE SAID OBVIOUSLY, AND ARCHIE SAID DUH, AND WE WERE ALL RIGHT! MAE! YOU DID IT!"
Archie arrives next, wrapping his long arms around both of us from the side, his grin so wide it looks like it might reach his ears.
"The quad spin was INSANE!" he says, shaking us both with an enthusiasm that compromises our collective balance.
"The landing was clean! I have been trying to land a single spin for three weeks and you just threw a quad like it was Tuesday!
Which it is! It is literally Tuesday and you just threw a quad on a Tuesday! The symbolism writes itself!"
Jace, who is the most composed of the three but whose eyes are suspiciously bright, claps me on the shoulder with a firm grip.
"Your father would be proud of you, Mae," he says quietly.
The words cut through the noise with the precision of a blade, finding the exact center of the emotion I have been trying to contain. My composure, which has been held together by adrenaline and disbelief and the sheer velocity of events, finally gives way.
I cry.