Chapter 27 Stefan
Stefan
Outside Oakland, CA
I'm torturing myself. I know it, but I can't stop.
My living room has never felt so empty, so cold, despite the furnace working overtime.
I'm on my couch, curled up in front of the TV with a pint of whatever ice cream I dug out of the back of the freezer.
The cats are piled on my lap, purring, doing their best to comfort me.
My comforter, dragged from my bed, is covering my eyes.
I should be overheated. I'm not. If it were any other day, if I were watching anything else, it would be the perfect comfort set-up.
I'd be fine. Or as fine as I can be, considering that my life is over.
Since it is, and since I'm watching, or, at the moment, not watching, Circuit America, it's all too much. The event that until yesterday I was supposed to be in. That I was planning to win. Handily.
That the entire world was expecting me to win. Handily.
Now, the whole world has switched to having an opinion about yesterday.
My phone sits next to me, but it’s off. It’s been off since before I got on the plane, and I’m not even close to ready to turn it back on. I'm far too aware of what's waiting. Too many calls, too many texts, too many alerts.
So for now, only the announcers can tell me they're disappointed in me. And they're not holding back. I've learned it's best to turn off the volume as soon as I hear my name. It’s all speculation, and I don’t need their help with that.
Has it been six minutes yet? I take a quick peek, praying I won’t see Evan. Thank fuck, the warm-up is over. Evan and the rest of his group have left the ice, minus the next skater. Since it's safe, I unmute the TV and go back to watching.
Evan's fourth in the group, and the first three skaters seem to take forever. They’re all excellent, and normally I’d enjoy being able to watch them perform, but all I want is Evan. And then, finally, he comes out again.
Fuck. I should have watched his warm-up. Why didn't I watch his warm-up? I was so scared to see him. I should have been reveling in every moment I had a chance to see him.
He's so beautiful. So achingly beautiful. Even though he looks a little tentative when he comes out from backstage. When the cameras zoom in on his face, everything else fades away. The circles under his eyes are prominent under the bright lights.
I should have called him. Texted him. Something.
I'm the worst kind of asshole, leaving him without telling him why.
Just because I know that he's better off without me.
Because I knew he'd argue with me, tell me I was wrong.
That I'd give in, because it's Evan. Because Evan would never abandon someone in trouble.
Not in a million years. So I had to be the one to do it. A clean cut.
But he looks terrible. And I did it to him. I'm picking up the phone, my finger over the power button, before I realize what I'm doing. It's too late to call him before his skate, but he could come back to a text message. Something innocuous, maybe. Just a good luck or something.
No. That would only give him hope. I have to leave him alone.
And he's on the ice, where he belongs. Where he can feel his feelings through his art, the way only he can do.
Where he can show the world exactly how perfect he is.
All the more so without my stupid jumps to overshadow him.
There’s a silver lining.
He starts, but his usual sunny smile is absent.
This short program, that I've watched come together into something truly magnificent, is one that's supposed to start with a smile.
It's upbeat, fun. Still highlighting his grace and movement, of course, but with an extra bounce he usually doesn't include.
The bounce is missing.
His skating isn't bad. I don't think it could be.
But it's not great. It's not Evan. He's a beat too sluggish. His posture is off, back less supple than it should be. And when he goes in for his first jump, his quad Sal, he’s going too fast. Speed is necessary, and we’ve been working on his, but this is something else entirely.
He’s zooming straight toward the boards, as if he doesn’t see them. I'm on my feet, hissing cats spilling from my lap in a tangle of fur and claws, before he's even halfway into the air. No! No, Evan!
He's so far off axis he might as well be horizontal.
And with all the extra lift I've been working on with him, he's too high. If he'd been upright, it would have been gorgeous. Instead, it's a disaster. A disaster that’s heading straight for the boards, into all of those very hard, very bright screens they’ve installed around the rink.
The kind of disaster that, if he's unlucky, could be career-ending.
The announcers are just as aghast as I am when he hits a screen, halfway over it, head cracking against a camera, then bounces off and back onto the ice, all awkward angles.
It's not an easy fall, not the fall we've all trained for, done millions of times. There is no way he could have saved himself. This is the one that we fear to our cores.
His head bounces off the ice. His leg is rotated under him in a way that makes me want to puke up all the ice cream in my stomach. Maybe my breakfast, too. Oh god, Evan.
The audience has gone dead silent. The announcers too.
For half a second, I think the sound died on my TV.
But no. Everyone's holding their breath, waiting for him to stand, to keep skating.
To show just how resilient we figure skaters are.
At the very least, to get up and hobble off the ice on the arm of his coach.
But Evan isn't doing either of those things. He's not moving. The camera is too far away for me to see if his chest is rising, if he's even breathing. Just how hard did he hit his head? My heart is so far up my throat that I'm going to choke on it.
What I can see is a red pool spreading out from around his head. Oh fuck, Evan. The camera could zoom in, I’m sure, but they choose not to.
I can’t decide if that’s a good or a bad thing.
An eternity passes. When Evan still doesn't move, the music shuts off.
The announcers start talking, start trying to console viewers, let them know that he'll be fine.
Sometimes skaters hit their heads, but they always get back up.
He might need some time in the hospital, but...
I quit listening. All I can see is Evan, lying sprawled out on the ice. That red pool spreading.
The camera moves, shifts away from him, going to, of all things, a commercial break. I stand, frozen, staring at the TV, not breathing. As if me breathing will make it harder for him, somehow.
Forever later, we're back at the arena. The announcers in focus, still talking.
An update, the camera on Evan's coach, crossing the ice to him, her face a mask of worry. Another flash of his body as she hovers over him, and then I’m watching the medical team make their way over with a stretcher.
He's impossible to see, then, surrounded by people.
In the video, the audience is starting to rumble, a worried hum of a backdrop for the announcers' too calm voices. They've had a couple minutes to prepare their spiel, but even so, they don't know what to say. This isn’t supposed to happen.
This doesn’t happen. They bring up an accident from decades ago, the closest they can come to a comparison.
Another video as the stretcher starts to move, and the cameras finally zoom in on Evan's face. If I weren't so worried, didn't need to see him so desperately, I'd be beyond pissed off at the network for showing this. But since I do, I’m relieved that they're so fucking invasive.
When Evan's eyes flutter open for a moment, that audience background starts clapping. The announcers sound almost smug now, reassuring the viewer that he'll be fine. The replay cuts out, and another commercial starts.
All that matters is he's alive. Thank god. He's hurt, but he's alive.
At least I didn't kill him.