CHAPTER 81 #2
“—so yeah, I kind of also needed my best friend to be there. And she sort of wasn’t.
Selfish would be not even checking in on me when I texted you that Bradley and I didn’t make the cut for the Winter Olympics.
” Shit. I watch as a tear bounces out one of her deep brown eyes.
“You know,” she laughs out, but it’s a sad sound, “I thought I didn’t care.
That we didn’t make it. Again. But I did.
And I told myself, Ana would understand, she’d be there, she’d be the one person who would get it.
But you didn’t. You don’t.” She takes another step back, this time like she’s assessing a detail on my face.
“I used to think we were so similar, both Persian, both the ‘underdogs’ but look at you and then look at me. You’re fucking Snow White and I’m—me. ”
“Donya, I didn’t—”
“So I know you’re under a lot of pressure. The shit you’ve been through. It’s tough. But I hope you realize how lucky you are. To look the way that you do. Because you’re fucking wasting it.”
“I’m so sorry for not asking how you felt about not qualifying,” I blurt out because I’m in such a state of shock I can’t even think of how to respond to the rest.
“Did you remember?” she says it completely flat. Like she already knows.
That I didn’t.
And I can’t lie to her.
“No,” I say, my voice like a rat who doesn’t deserve her best friend.
She nods like there was a hint of hope in her gaze waiting to see if I’d prove her wrong, one that wasn’t there a second ago, and that nearly breaks me into a sob.
“Uh,” she says awkwardly, “I’m gonna go. This was clearly a mistake.”
“No, Donya,” I insist, desperate, “don’t go. I’m sorry for being a jerk to you tonight. Earlier today. I’m just in shock. I didn’t mean—”
She cuts me off.
“It’s fine. I just remembered my sister needed some help with her finals so I’m going to head back to Hartford.”
I know it’s an excuse, that she no longer wants to be here and that fact continues to rip along the weak seams of my chest.
“Text me when you’re back,” I say, my voice shaky.
She nods, moves upstairs to gather her things with an eerie level of quiet that you only ever hear at the cemetery.
And when the doorway covers her profile, the slam of the front door reminds me that I don’t have time to dwell on this.
I have a goal.
_________
Feeling like I’ve just been hit by a train, I dashed to the Larsson Ice Rink as soon as Donya left.
Remembering I’d returned the rink’s key that Naomi had lent me, with the spare one Troy gave me for our private evening sessions, I feel my lungs slightly expand again when the first chill from the rink hits.
Troy and I already had our practice for tonight, but after the events from the whole day, only one fix was strong enough to cure.
Skating.
But as I stamp through the tunnel, I already hear the rough sounds of skates scraping into ice.
And when I flick my gaze up, my jaw drops to the floor.
The girl with the silky onyx hair has her strands secured in a tight, sharp bun, her outer leg shaping the boards in a perfect low arabesque.
There’s only one other figure skater who landed a double axel that clean. And that figure skater was Rina Yamamoto.
Holy shit.
_________
“Naomi?”
I call her name so loud, not realizing how loud, until she snaps around, about to lose her balance by the scare, and I see the sigh she breathes out into the cold air.
She glides rapidly toward me, engraving her blades into the frozen ground as she skates to a stop.
“What?” she says impatiently.
“What?!” I feel my head start to explode at how proud I feel. “That was perfect! When did you learn how to do that?”
She stares at me like she can’t believe how stupid I am.
And the memories of the entire day jam into my ear, dumping each second of it right in there.
How we’re not speaking.
How Donya and I aren’t speaking.
How Naomi looked at me before me and Eloise stopped speaking.
“I’ve been skating for a while,” Naomi answers in a tone where it feels like there’s more she wants to say.
“Yes, I know that,” I reply, confused by her answer because we’ve been ice skating together since we were younger and she was only a couple of years old.
But not like this.
Not like she just landed a jump that rivals ones from elite athletes at The Academy and the rest of the figure skating world.
But from the way her lips have twisted into a bitter pout and her eyes have narrowed down at me, it’s clear that she’s waiting for me to dig for more details.
And I’m still curious as hell so I add, “I didn’t know you landed axels. Can you land a triple?” I don’t know why I tag that at the end, but I’m suddenly really interested in this conversation because I thought she hated this sport.
“I’m working on it,” she says, the Naomi I know bubbling up to the surface, hearing the trace of excitement in her voice underneath the thick cloud of frustration it’s clear she’s still feeling toward me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, not sure why the thought just hit but it did, and a sadness starts to form.
“Why didn’t you ever ask?”
Simple. Such a simple question.
And the anxiety starts clawing up my throat little by little.
“Um,” I stall, “I don’t know, I just thought you were never interested in figure skating.”
“My mom wasn’t,” she reminds. “I loved it.”
I can’t believe my ears.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how,” she adds. “Any time we’d talk about ice skating, it was about you. How you had a competition coming up, what Violet did to you this time, how you could figure out the best way to squeeze more practice into your day. There was no room for me.”
There was no room for me.
Yes, yes there was, I want to yell the words at her so that she knows I care about her dreams too.
“Violet and her friends,” she continues, her tone a little hurt now, “they were always your competition. I didn’t want to be your competition. I’d rather be your friend.”
She was scared?
“And you know what, Ana?” Naomi steps off the ice, already sliding her blade guards on. “Those girls at the top have no one. You had us. But you chose them.”
Then she leaves and I skate, skate until my sweat soaks all the way down to my ankles, my knees and heart crumbled.
_________
Eloise is gone.
Donya is gone.
Naomi is gone.
Troy, when I return to the apartment a quarter to 2 am, still sits by the door with a light on and his phone to his side like he’s the only one there. Like he’s supposed to be the person left out of everyone else.
No.
When his eyes snag onto mine, I claw mine away, heading toward the stairs.
“Ana, wait—” I keep running. “—are you okay?!”
I snap around so quick he nearly tumbles over me, holding onto the railway to gain his balance.
“I’m fine,” I grit out, feeling antsy. “I already ate. I already took a break. I’m just going to go sleep now, if that’s alright by you?” I add, hating how much he’s focusing on me.
Suffocating me.
Caring about me.
“Okay. I’m sorry,” he says the words so quietly, his shoulders pushing past mine as he heads toward his room.
And most of all, I hate the way the touch from his weight drifting against my damp skin felt, how it made everything today feel a bit more bearable.
_________
I frantically search through my gym bag, my heart thumping when the box is missing.
Fuck. No.
Then the sound of a purr tingles against my ears, flicking my gaze up to find my kitten Mishi resting on the ledge of the desk in this guest room.
Right next to the box.
Whew.
That was close.
I sneak back downstairs, pouring myself a glass of cranberry juice, before scurrying back to my spot, the anxious quake in my belly slowly thawing at the first sip as I rip the cardboard open.
Grabbing a handful of bandages, I settle onto the mattress, Mishi joining me, hooking her suspicious gaze—because I swear my cat knows everything that’s going on in this crazy world—on me then at the journal I pull out, while opening the first band-aid.
Scrambling through the crooked sheets, many unlucky minutes of looking for that one page, when I’m about to toss the bundle aside and the wind from my open window parts to the entry.
Coach Yamamoto told me today,
The magic is in you. Even when you feel like it isn’t, and even when you refuse to believe it ever will be, you have it in you.
I don’t feel like there’s any magic in me right now. But I’m going to tell myself that there is until one day I believe it. I heard that once that day comes where I finally believe it, that’s when the real magic starts.
I hope it’s true.
I stare at the diary, the paragraph, the memory, how small I was when I first wrote all that down—how much smaller I feel now that I’m older.
My gaze shifts over to my feet.
My bruised. Cold. Bloody. Scarred. Feet.
As if knowing this is going to sting, Mishi rests a tiny paw over my ankles, watching me, with a whole cat-eyes worth of shame and reprimand, judging while I tape up my skin in silence.