Chapter 12
When I woke up on Saturday, I had a couple of blissful moments in the stage between being awake and asleep where my mind was peaceful and empty.
Unfortunately, I didn’t even make it out of my pile of blankets before my mind flooded with memories of the night before.
I pulled my phone off of the charger on my nightstand and was greeted with a slew of messages, including some from Brandon’s friends.
I didn’t think I had it in me to deal with those.
Somehow, answering my mother seemed easier.
Her message was sweet, hoping I’d had a good night with my friends and that I wasn’t too hungover.
Dread pooled in my stomach at the thought of telling her the truth.
I brushed off everyone’s attempts to meet up with me for the rest of the weekend, claiming that I desperately needed to do some fall cleaning.
The apartment could use a good scrub down, since I put it off when life was busy, but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t have done something fun if I really wanted to.
I didn’t want to have to pretend everything was fine in front of people, though.
Cleaning was preferable to being pitied.
Spending time by myself and making sure everything was together before the season kicked off was strangely therapeutic.
The pressure of preparing for the first competition of the year really began to set in over the weekend.
We were getting close to the official start of the season.
The next time we performed for anyone, it would be in front of crowds and judges.
Needing to buckle down provided a convenient excuse when I didn’t want to deal with people.
Their concern was nice and all, but it could get on my nerves.
The Grand Prix would comprise six competitions in six different countries.
Thankfully, the schedule didn’t require us to attend all the events.
Instead, the pool of competitors was divided up and assigned to two of the competitions to compete in.
To ensure that each event would have some of the best, they assigned two of the six highest-ranking pairs to each event.
When the events were done, the six with the best scores would move on to the finals in yet another city.
In late June, Dom and I had received word that we would compete in Canada and Russia that fall.
It wasn’t a bad combination. We would have the advantage of skating at home first, in front of a friendly crowd.
We would then have three weeks before we would need to be in Russia, although going at the last minute was never a good idea with the possibility of jet lag.
Considering all the competitions took place between mid-October and late November, it was a decent spread.
And with luck, we would have another couple of weeks before we would skate in the finals.
While I spent my personal life trying to avoid talking about my breakup with Brandon, things were going well at the rink.
On the ice, my only problem was that Dom and I did not have the consistency we’d hoped for with the quadruple twist. The first time we landed it cleanly in practice was thrilling.
From the first attempt, we had known that the speed and height were on another level from the triple.
It was sheer stubbornness that made us persist, even when we were exhausted.
When I extended away from Dom after landing on the twist, with one of my legs and my arms outstretched, he’d had the biggest grin I’d ever seen.
I screamed with excitement. Dom and Mark didn’t show their excitement the same way, but it had been the push we all used to keep going.
I was chasing the rush again, so the bumps and jolts from failed landings were a small price to pay.
Thanksgiving provided a much-needed long weekend, away from the rink and the ever-increasing tension that was building there.
Both of our programs were ready for competition in my mind, but Mark and Olga didn’t agree.
They had taken to pointing out tinier and tinier problems as time went on.
The details were important, but trying to keep all of them at the front of my mind put me on edge.
Every time we started up again, it seemed like I had a new thing on my list of things to pay attention to.
As hard as I tried, there was always something that slipped through the cracks.
Mark’s insistence that we drop the attempt at the quad twist for the time being just added to the frustration.
The day Mark and Olga called it on the quad twist, Dom and I had taken our time getting off the ice.
There weren’t many places that we could guarantee that we would be alone, but for the next few minutes, the ice was one of them.
As soon as the door to the rink had clanged shut with its heavy thud, I pivoted on my right foot to look at Dom.
“Fuck. I thought we were going to be ready before the season started.”
“I thought so, too,” he said. There was no need to point out that it would take a monumental breakthrough in the next week for that to happen.
We were scheduled to fly out a few days before the competition started on Friday.
Once we were there, we would need to get into the competition mindset.
“We have time before the other competitions, though.”
We could sub the triple for a quad later in the year if we mastered it, but I’d feel better if we had it now. “I’ll feel better once we see what everyone else has for the season.”
“Be patient,” Dom said. He started skating towards the gap in the boards and I followed close on his heels. “We’ll know what we’re up against soon.”
“Only two,” I countered. Williams and Coleman would kick off the season in the United States the weekend before us, along with Petrova and Rybakov. I rested my hands on the edge of the boards while I waited for Dom to get his skate guards on and move out of the way.
He stepped to the side. With his hands shoved in his pockets, he watched as I slipped on my skate guards.
“How about we make a deal? You don’t worry about what everyone else has improved over the summer until we see what they’re working with.
If there is anything for us to be worried about, then you can spiral.
If everyone is suddenly getting 230s, then you can stress.
Until then, I choose to believe that we’ll have the quad soon. ”
Dom’s confidence was reassuring. When my parents and brothers told me they were sure Dom and I could pull something off, it was hard to trust their judgement.
They did their best to understand my skating, but they hadn’t been able to understand all the technical things for a while.
Mark and Olga, on the other hand, were so focused on the minutiae of what we were doing.
It was easy to get bogged down with the feeling that we would never do it as well as they wanted us to.
Dom’s easy confidence in us was what I needed at times like this, and he knew it.
The thoughts of my mother triggered a memory. “I was supposed to ask if you’re going to come to my parents’ to watch Skate America this weekend. Your parents have already said they are, but my mom doesn’t want to take me at my word that that means you’d come, too.”
“Crap, I meant to tell her I would. Sorry,” he said. He held the door open for me and caught up in a couple of strides.
“She still thinks that you’re the best,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I swear, I think she likes you more than she likes me sometimes.”
“That couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that she didn’t have to raise me and deal with me as a teenager, could it?” Dom asked.
I sat down to take off my skates. “Maybe,” I said, fingers tugging at the laces.
“She heard plenty about your teenage shenanigans, though.” Both sets of parents had spent a lot of time together, following us from one competition to the next.
They’d had more than enough time to talk through everything.
I didn’t doubt that Dom’s parents had heard complaints about things I was trying to pull over the years and vice versa.
“Now that’s a word you don’t hear often enough,” Dom said, running a cloth down the blades of his skates to remove the moisture from the melting ice. “But I prefer to think that my parents didn’t know the worst stuff I did, so they couldn’t share it with your parents.”
“If that makes you feel better,” I said.
I flexed my toes, enjoying the freedom after the tight constriction of the stiff white boots covering my feet and ankles.
“Although I’m not sure about that. Not only would you have had to have hidden it from them, but you’d have to hope I didn’t tell my parents about the things I knew you did. ”
The metallic noise of him shutting the zipper on his bag half-covered his snort. “Like you would tell them everything. I take credit for inspiring at least half the bad ideas you had. Telling them would be like shooting yourself in the foot.”
It was true. For all the sucking up Dom had done to my parents, the responsible way he portrayed himself had been partially an act.
That had even extended to me at first, although that was more likely because I seemed like such a kid rather than him trying to impress me.
By the time I started high school, he’d opened up to me more.
Getting the information directly from him instead of eavesdropping on conversations the cooler older kids had was a big step in our bonding.
“I’ll let my mom know you’re coming if you don’t want to text her. ”
Dom laughed. “Nice try at changing the subject.” Despite his teasing, he let the subject drop. “Is there something I should bring?”
“Beer,” I said, which got a grin. “You know my mom. I’d bet good money that she’s already got half a dozen appetizers planned and won’t have enough room to put it all out by the TV.”