Chapter 19
Ispent my life focusing on moving my body in complicated ways and holding it in impossible positions.
Yet on Monday morning I struggled immensely with the simple act of getting out of my car.
I had gone through the morning on autopilot from the time my alarm went off to the time I pulled into the parking lot at the rink.
There were no more distractions to keep my mind off of what was coming later in the morning.
I had to face Dom in the cold light of day, when we’d had a full twenty-four hours to think about what we’d done.
“You can do this,” I muttered to myself. “Just act normal.”
I had to tell myself what I should do, step by step.
Get out of the car. Grab your bags. Go to the entrance.
Head to the locker room. Say hi to people.
Act the way you always do. Don’t make it obvious that anything out of the ordinary happened, because they were bound to ask questions.
The girls were always around to offer support.
I usually appreciated it, but not when I had promised to keep my mouth shut.
“Good morning, Hazel.” Seohyun greeted me with a wave and a smile as soon as she saw me. “You were not at the gym this morning.”
“I went for a run instead,” I said. It had seemed safer to do something on my own.
If I went to a class with my friends, they were bound to want to talk about our weekends.
Since they had also been invited to Dom’s party, it was guaranteed to come up.
I’d tried to prepare an answer about how it was, even practicing it in front of the mirror.
It was harder than I thought it would be to sound casual and unrehearsed.
It would probably be best if I avoided the conversation entirely.
To do that, I’d come up with a plan. I should keep the conversation away from me and my weekend as much as possible. “How was your date?”
I was feeling more confident by the time I had to start practice.
It had taken a lot of questions and follow-up questions to keep the conversation away from me while getting ready and stretching.
There had been a few times things got off track, but I managed to avoid talking about the party.
It came close, but I focused on how nice it was to see my friends and the earlier part of the night.
I wasn’t able to relax the entire time, but I still considered it a success.
At least I had the excuse of early ice time to make a quick getaway.
They never would’ve bought me being excited to work on the minutia of choreography improvements with Olga.
I was the first one to arrive by the rink.
To calm my nerves, I stepped onto the ice to skate by myself.
I wasn’t used to silence when I was skating here.
It was unusual to not have Dom, Mark, Olga, or a combination of the three with me.
Not having any of their voices in my ear or music gave me the chance to let my mind go blank.
There was nobody to keep my guard up against, so I could truly relax.
The soft noise of my blades, cutting into the otherwise smooth surface of the ice, was oddly comforting.
It might be a weird thing to say about the sound of blades, but it was true.
On the ice, I didn’t have the time or desire to think about whatever troubles I was having in my personal life.
It had proven helpful many times in my teen years and it was just as helpful at twenty.
After a few minutes, I became aware of Mark and Olga standing near the boards.
They seemed to be talking to each other more than focusing on what I was doing, which suited me just fine.
Any extra time to myself was a good thing.
It was strange that we weren’t starting exactly on time, but I wasn’t going to complain.
Olga’s sharp voice finally brought me back to reality. “Hazel, come. We must start.”
I turned sharply and skated over to her. I stopped a few feet away from where she and Mark were still standing. “Are we starting without Dom?”
“I’m here.” Dom’s voice came from behind the boards. A split second later, he came into view. “I was just tying my skates.”
My heart was in my throat as he stepped onto the ice.
I objectively knew that he looked the same as he did every other morning.
His hair was falling onto his forehead and his stubble from the weekend was nowhere to be seen.
He was even wearing his typical outfit, athletic wear in shades of black and charcoal grey.
Yet the first thought that popped into my head was how much harder it would be to strip him out of the clothes than jeans.
He nodded stiffly in my direction, making my cheeks flush, with his hands shoved in the pockets of his sweater.
His eyes darted to Olga when he said, “Sorry I’m late. Traffic.”
Bullshit, I thought. He had always arrived with plenty of time to spare.
There was a growing sense of dread in my stomach.
I suspected he had tried to time his arrival as late as possible to avoid having to interact with me on our own.
It must have been bad for him to risk putting himself on Olga’s bad side.
Sure enough, she sounded stern. “You will be on time tomorrow.”
The voice in my head was telling me to say hi because that was what I did every other morning, but the one word was difficult to get out. Finally, I managed it. “Hey.” My voice somehow wavered on that one syllable. It was going to be a long day if I didn’t pull myself together quickly.
Mark slid his feet back and forth as he spoke.
“I think it would be a good idea to start with the twist today. We can assess that and then move onto the other elements you have been working on.” He gestured for us to skate away from them.
“I’ll give you a couple of minutes to warm up before getting started.
Olga and I need to iron out a couple of potential changes. ”
Of course, this would be the day he would want to focus on the twist, I thought.
If there was any single element that required perfect synchronicity, both physically and mentally, that was it.
It was an absolutely terrible time for Dom and me to be even the slightest bit off.
I was going to do my best, but judging from the way he wouldn’t even look me in the eye, we were going to struggle.
Sure enough, half an hour later, we had several failed attempts under our belts.
That in itself wasn’t unusual. We’d been practicing and steadily getting better, but we were not consistent.
We had steadily worked our way down to smaller mistakes, though.
Unfortunately, “had” was the key word of the day.
Where we had been doing the twist cleanly about half the time and dealing with relatively minor issues the other half, we had progressed into major mistakes.
After I had crumpled against Dom for the third time in a row, Mark threw his arms out to his sides in bewilderment. “What is with you two today?” he asked. He could not keep his frustration out of his voice.
I looked over at Dom, who was stubbornly avoiding looking in my direction. “We’re just having an off day.”
“This is more than an off day,” Mark said. “When you are too close on your landing or your hand bumps him, that is because you are having an off day. This is more than that. You aren’t even close to landing correctly today.”
“Yes, this has been bad,” Olga said. Trust her to be blunt and to the point. “You have not been this bad in a very long time.”
Her words would have stung if I hadn’t been thinking the same thing myself.
Even when we had first attempted the quad twist, we weren’t this bad this consistently.
I wasn’t getting enough time in the air to complete my rotations because my takeoff was consistently mistimed.
“We are aware,” I said dryly before trying to sneak another glance at Dom in the hopes that a bit of humour would put him at ease.
“You cannot have any hope of gold if you do not return to your usual grade of execution,” Olga said. “It was one of your best elements, but now you cannot land even one well.”
Harsh, but fair. I shoved my hands into my pockets and turned to Mark. Even if he was thinking the same thing, he would be diplomatic about telling us how much we sucked.
Mark’s pale eyes looked from Dom to me and back again.
His furrowed brows made me anxious without him even needing to speak.
“Olga, please give us a moment.” Olga didn’t look pleased at the request, but she skated away without comment.
As soon as she was out of earshot, Mark asked, “Okay, what is up with you two today?”
“Nothing,” I said, at the same time that Dom said, “Why would you ask that?” He still couldn’t bring himself to look at me.
He shook his head. “Don’t lie to me. I’ve known you both for too long to buy that. Something happened, and it is affecting your skating.”
A string of curses ran through my head. We should’ve known that he would be suspicious when we suddenly regressed.
Suspicion wasn’t a problem on its own. He could think whatever he wanted if he kept it to himself.
But him bringing it up that was the problem.
“We’re fine, Mark,” I said. I was trying to keep my desperation for him to drop it out of my voice.
That never worked with parental figures in your life.
“Dom said it was an off day, and I think he’s right. We will get back on track.”
“You better or you will have no hope at the Grand Prix Finals,” Mark said.
For once, he was as blunt as Olga. “Never mind the rest of the season. If you can’t get the quad, then fine.
It won’t be great, but we can make do with the triple if it is clean.
If it isn’t, you will need your opponents to screw up as badly as you do if you want any hope of winning. ”