Chapter 3
My lungs burned, and I leaned into the incline anyway, pushing harder up the switchback.
The trail was loose rock and exposed roots, the kind of terrain that punished every misstep, and I'd chosen it on purpose.
The Sandias rose above me, indifferent to the small figure grinding itself against their slopes.
The latte was still sitting in my stomach, thick and sweet and wrong, all that sugar and fat I'd allowed myself because some hockey player had made me miss my edges. A moment of weakness. This was what weakness cost.
Faster.
My ankle throbbed with every footfall. I'd taped it before I left the apartment, but tape only did so much when the joint was already inflamed. The pain sharpened on the uneven ground, a bright flare each time my foot landed wrong. I let it burn. I'd earned this.
The voice in my head sounded like my father, or maybe it sounded like me. I couldn't tell the difference anymore. It had been years since I'd been able to separate his standards from my own. You're slowing down. You think this is good enough? You think this is what champions do?
I wasn't slowing down. My heart rate monitor would confirm it when I checked later, the data logged and analyzed alongside every other metric I tracked. But it didn't matter what the numbers said. It never mattered. There was always more I could give, and if I wasn't giving it, I was failing.
The trail curved and steepened. My quads screamed. Sweat dripped into my eyes, and I blinked it away without breaking stride. A hiker coming down the trail stepped off the path to let me pass, and I didn't acknowledge him. I didn't have the breath for it, and I wouldn't have anyway.
My vision started to narrow at the edges, that gray creep that meant I was pushing into oxygen debt.
I knew I should ease back. I knew what happened when I didn't. But the voice kept pushing, and I kept listening, because the alternative was silence, and silence meant thinking, and thinking meant feeling, and I couldn't afford any of that right now.
I made it another quarter mile before my stomach revolted.
I barely got off the trail before I was doubled over, hands on my knees, heaving. Nothing came up except bile and spit, thin and sour on my tongue. The latte had been six hours ago. There was nothing left to purge. My body kept trying anyway.
When it finally stopped, I straightened up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. My legs were shaking. My ankle was a continuous low throb beneath the tape. The sun was dropping toward the peaks, turning the rocks orange and gold, and I stood there for a moment just trying to breathe.
It wasn't enough. It was never enough.
I started running again.
My ankle gave out at the two-mile marker.
One second I was moving, the next my foot landed on a loose rock and the joint rolled and I was down, palms scraping against gravel, knees hitting dirt.
The pain was sharp and immediate, cutting through the fog of exhaustion.
I stayed there for a moment, breathing hard, staring at my hands.
Blood welled up in the scrapes, mixing with the dust.
Get up.
I got up. I tried to put weight on the ankle, and the joint buckled, sending me stumbling into a juniper. The bark scraped my arm through my shirt. I grabbed the trunk and held on, waiting for the world to stop tilting.
The sun was lower now, the light going gold and long across the trail. I was at least a mile from the parking lot. My phone was in my car because I hadn't wanted the distraction, hadn't wanted to see my father's name on the screen while I was trying to outrun it.
I tested the ankle again. It held this time, barely. I could walk on it if I was careful. Running was done.
The hike back took twice as long as it should have.
Every step was a negotiation, my weight shifting to spare the joint, my gait turning into something I would have been ashamed to let anyone see.
I kept my eyes on the trail and tried not to think about how this would affect tomorrow's session, how many days of recovery I'd just cost myself, how my father would react when I told him I'd aggravated the injury.
I wouldn't tell him. I never told him. He'd find out eventually, when my performance suffered or when I couldn't hide the limp on camera. But that was a problem for later. Right now, I just needed to get back to my car.
The parking lot was nearly empty when I finally reached it.
A couple stood by an SUV, loading hiking poles into the back.
They glanced at me, and I straightened my spine, forcing my gait into something that approximated normal.
The pain spiked with each step, but I kept my face neutral.
They looked away. They didn't care. No one was watching me except the voice in my head, noting every weakness.
My car was where I'd left it, the black paint filmed with a fine layer of dust. I unlocked it and lowered myself into the driver's seat, and the relief of sitting was so acute that I had to close my eyes for a moment.
The dashboard clock read 4:47. I'd been out here for over an hour. The pre-portioned dinner in my fridge was labeled for 6:00 PM consumption, which gave me time to shower and ice the ankle before I ate. The schedule held. It always held, even when everything else was falling apart.
I started the car and pulled out of the lot, already calculating how much ibuprofen I could take without affecting tomorrow's weigh-in.
The apartment was quiet, all clean lines and neutral colors.
The walls were bare except for a single framed photo of me on the podium at Nationals.
That had been Natalia's idea, something for the sponsors to see when they video-called.
I'd lived here for years and never gotten around to making it look like anyone actually lived here.
Wonton was waiting by the door, his orange tail flicking with irritation. I was late for his dinner. He didn't care about my ankle or my schedule, or the voice in my head that wouldn't stop talking. He cared about his wet food, and I was seven minutes behind.
I fed him first, scooping the paté into his bowl while he wound between my legs and complained.
Then I opened the fridge and stared at the stack of containers, each one labeled with a day and a time.
Tuesday 6:00 PM. Grilled chicken, brown rice, steamed asparagus.
487 calories, 42 grams of protein, 12 grams of fat.
The meal prep service sent them every Sunday, perfectly portioned, perfectly balanced, perfectly joyless.
I closed the fridge. I wasn't hungry yet. The nausea from the trail still clung to the back of my throat.
The shower first. Then ice. Then food. Then sleep. The schedule would carry me through the evening the way it always did, one task at a time, with no room for anything else.
I pulled out my phone and looked at my father's text.
Watched last week's practice footage. Your arm extension on the triple is sloppy. We discussed this. Call me tomorrow so we can go over the program changes before your next session with Dmitri.
That was it. No greeting, no sign-off, no acknowledgment that I'd landed the hardest jump in the sport cleanly for two hours straight. He only ever saw the flaws.
I typed a response, deleted it, and typed another. I'll call after morning ice. Short, compliant, nothing he could find fault with. I hit send before I could overthink it.
The notification below his message caught my eye. A voicemail from my mother, left at 8:12 AM while I was at breakfast with Natalia. I hadn't even noticed it come in.
I should call her back. I knew I should call her back.
But my ankle was throbbing, and my legs were still shaking, and I didn't have the energy to navigate whatever crisis she'd manufactured this time.
Last month it was a loan shark she owed money to.
The month before, a boyfriend who'd put his fist through her apartment wall.
There was always something, and it always required money or time or emotional bandwidth I didn't have.
Tomorrow. I'd deal with her tomorrow.
The guilt settled into my chest alongside everything else I wasn't letting myself feel. I put the phone face-down on the counter and went to run the shower.
The water was too hot. I'd set it that way on purpose, letting the heat pound into my shoulders until my skin turned red. The steam filled my lungs, and I stood there with my palms flat against the tile, letting the day sluice off me.
My ankle throbbed beneath the spray. My calves ached. My whole body ached in ways I'd spent years learning to ignore. The schedule said ice after the shower, then food, then sleep. The schedule would carry me through.
But the water kept running, and I kept standing there, and my mind kept drifting back to the rink.
The hockey player surfaced first. His red hair had been dark with sweat, curling at his temples.
He'd called my axel a spinny thing with that crooked grin, like he knew exactly how much it would irritate me.
And he'd moved on the ice so loose and easy, like he'd never had to earn anything in his life.
I turned my face into the spray and tried to think about something else. Tomorrow's session with Dmitri. The quad axel I still hadn't landed consistently. I summoned my father's voice, let it list everything I was doing wrong, hoping the familiar criticism would drown out everything else.
But the hockey player kept surfacing. I kept seeing the scar on his chin, the freckles scattered across his nose, the way his mouth had fallen open when I landed that triple. He'd looked at me like I'd done something miraculous instead of something I'd done ten thousand times before.
You're really good.
My hand moved before I could stop it.