Chapter 51 2014
Maybe it’s good we don’t know what will happen next in our stories because, if we did, we might not turn the page.
“Can I have the rest of your fries?” Esma asked.
I was the first alternate on the US women’s team and waited on pins and needles to see if I was going to be called up. Marla, the top skater on the team, had sprained her ankle in practice the previous morning, and it was uncertain whether she’d be able to compete.
“I’m not going to be able to lift you if you keep eating like that,” Heinrich said.
“Tough,” Esma said around her mouthful.
Since their win, Esma was making up for lost calories. Pairs skating for the woman skater is a fine balance between litheness and strength, and Esma had been walking the tightrope for months, keeping track of every morsel she ate down to the calorie.
Lovesickness had turned out to be quite a motivator for Heinrich, who quite frankly, before he’d broken his ankle, had been a little lazy.
I’ve never seen anyone work so hard to get back on the ice and reclaim his position as Esma’s partner.
The time off also did his body wonders. He grew six inches, and all the upper body work he did while recovering made him ripped.
“You know, he’s actually good looking,” Esma said the day he returned to the ice.
She was looking at him across the rink as if seeing him for the first time. I liked that she hadn’t cared about his looks when she fell in love with him. Esma saw people beyond skin deep, which was remarkable when she herself had grown into such a rare beauty.
The two were stunning together. Esma with her oversize black eyes and pixie figure and Heinrich with his blaze of orange curls and superhero body.
No other pair skated the way they did, with such total trust and abandon.
Watching Heinrich throw Esma in the air made you gasp in fear, while inside your heart roared, knowing with absolute certainty he’d never let her fall.
Each time I saw them, on or off the ice, I was jealous all the way to my toes, and it made me ache with thoughts of Dylan.
It turned out I hadn’t imagined seeing him in Detroit at Skate America.
When I got back to the institute, after months of traveling the competition circuit, a letter was waiting.
Hi Patch,
Gold looks good on you. You were amazing. Though I already knew that.
Sorry I didn’t stick around. I’m still figuring things out and I didn’t want to bring down your day. You deserve every happiness.
Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
Dylan
He’d included an origami swan folded from the skating program.
I kept the swan on the rail of my bed, and each night I went to sleep looking at it.
I knew he didn’t mean anything by it. For him, it was nothing but a small token, a reminder of the day and proof he was there.
Hey, isn’t this cool. It meant we were friends and that he was happy for me.
But for me it was a small explosion of light each time I looked at it, brightness spreading inside me like fireflies.
Romance at the institute and competitions was everywhere. This person kissed that person. This person had a crush on so-and-so, but he had a crush on someone else. I was achingly on the outside of it all. No one had a crush on me. No one considered me as someone to kiss.
Even Meryl had a boyfriend, the president of US Figure Skating. His name was Elwood, and he was tall and funny, and I liked how constantly he made her laugh.
Profe was the only one who sensed what I was feeling. A week after we’d seen each other in Detroit, he said to me in our Skype call, “Someday, Cielo, some boy is going to see you, and he will be the luckiest boy in the world.”
I wanted to believe him, but when I looked in the mirror, my nevus was so glaring I couldn’t imagine anyone seeing past it. The only boy who ever had was adrift and lost somewhere in the world.
My phone buzzed, and Esma’s eyes widened as she stopped eating mid-chew.
It was Meryl.
I answered, heart pounding and feeling terrible for how much I was rooting for a fellow skater to be injured so I would get a shot at my dream.
“You’re in.”