CHAPTER 108
Ana
MY FATIGUE STARTS to kick in just a half hour into practice today.
But I lift my chin up, drag my shoulders up too, knowing we’re almost there.
Less than a month.
That realization nearly gets me through the next half hour as we glide and sail and claw our way through the ice, shaping each patch of icy white into a whirlwind of a dance.
It’s still a pairs skate, but with all the tango elements we’ve added, the routine is becoming more and more of a fusion of the two skating disciplines.
And it’s thrilling, moving your muscles in a way where each step fits the melody of the music to the exact second, and when Troy or I notice that the spin needs a bit more oomph, we start right from the top and go from there, the perfectionists in the two of us complicating the routine more than it probably needed to be.
But spotting a few other members of Team USA heading into our gym on our way out earlier in the day, all the hungry and equally determined athletes hoping to secure that Gold, our goal really narrowed down to these last set of practices.
Which temporarily makes our numerous double axels this afternoon a bit more tolerable.
I lost count, but I think we could be nearing the twentieth one for the day.
With the choreography already learned, Coach Yamamoto and Coach Sokolov stand just off the ice as we’re moving into our next one.
One crossover, a second one, and a knot feels stuck at one of my blades, feeling my balance get all wobbly suddenly, not realizing it until I’m rapidly a second away from rotating in the air, and when I do the rink slants before my eyes, my legs pushing my chest forward and flat toward the ground until a strong weight pushes right beneath me.
When my view unravels before me, the sight of Troy on his side and under me, my temple falls over his bicep. “This is the third time you’re taking the fall for me, Troy,” I remind, remembering yesterday.
“If you fall,” he says, turning so that his back is now resting on the ice, “then I’m falling underneath you first.”
I can’t help but chuckle. “You’re not always going to be there, you know?”
“I’ll be there,” he says, his voice serious.
My heartbeat begins to flicker slowly at my weight over his, our skins this close. This intimate, sadly familiar position.
“You can’t catch me if you get injured,” I say, hearing the softness of my voice even as I try and tease.
“I’d crawl to you if I needed to,” Troy says. “Bruised or broken.” A strand of my hair falls into my face before he tucks it gently behind my ear. “I’d find my way back to you, Ana, to make sure you’re okay.”
Powerful green eyes start to burn through mine before Sokolov’s clap cuts through our brief, hazy pause.
_________
The soft mint and bright peach stripes all around the edges of my hometown rink fill my whole periphery as I climb over the silver bleachers, resting my tired bones over the cold seat.
Ice marks cover the frosted ground, scribbling the weight in our three-hour practice.
You’re almost there, Ana.
I check my social media, immediately remembering why I had been avoiding it since starting therapy.
Seas of messages draining my already broken energy.
Notice how Ana has been real quiet since Violet took her down...
Violet and Ethan being praised by the Campus Radio for their stolen routine.
Philip: That was one of the best free skates I’ve ever seen!
Tessa: Violet is coming for that gold
Francesca: I need that dress, it was so stunning
Jess: How can Ana and Troy top that?
And Pippa Collins is coming out with a new article tomorrow…
Then the usual:
How my jumps aren’t as tight as they used to be.
How my spins aren’t as fast as they used to be.
How my body no longer looks like it used to be.
Tossing my phone to the side, I pull my skates off and massage my feet. The scars from my bruises are just starting to heal.
No one sees these moments. Only the beautiful end results when some of the time—a lot of the time—things aren’t that pretty.
Ana, you’re a strong girl.
A green winter coat slides beside me, silver hair brushing against my shoulder.
“Do you know why I wanted to coach you?” Coach Yamamoto asks me, her voice unreadable.
“Yeah,” I reply, a bit baffled by her very random question. “You saw my layback spin and told me you were impressed.”
“Yes, I was impressed. But that’s not why I wanted to coach you.
” I turn to face her, growing in confusion.
“You skated like it was in your blood. Not something you needed to train for or compete in. And you made it look damn easy when we both know how hard it is. I saw how happy it made you. But your happiness for it has declined in recent years.”
My palms begin to shudder by her unexpected, harsh truth, her deep brown eyes narrowed in such an intensity, so different from the usually serene, quiet woman who’s trained me for nearly a decade now. I hardly recognize my own coach.
Or the words she’s telling me.
That she’s been noticing me this carefully.
“It seems you need a reminder that you are as special as you always were, Ana,” Coach Yamamoto says. “You’ve only gotten better. Every year you have gotten better. But you started listening to people who have made you feel like you have become worse.”
I gulp at her raw honesty, stunned by what I’m hearing.
Coach Yamamoto has also never embraced me with anything that ever dealt with gossip or media, for Rina it was always about the craft.
The art of skating, the technicality of the sport that a true physicist could probably only ever understand. Her words, so many years from meeting her, feel like a punch right to the fucking face.
But also, like she’s cracking a surface of this murky piece of frozen matter that’s been weighing on me for years now, dusting off its foggy, top layer.
“These people are not why you started skating,” she says, her eyes raising in intensity. “Don’t let them be the reason that you ever stop.”
“It’s really hard, Coach,” I say, not sure why a tear has fallen down my cheeks, or why they only seem to continue.
“People, they’re so cruel. They don’t care about what they say and how it will affect you.
They want to hurt you even when they don’t even know you.
You don’t get how bad it is with social media now. ”
“You think we didn’t have gossip during my time?” she says, her voice filling with wise humor.
I wipe away a tear, my eyes tilting in confusion.
“Sure we didn’t have social media or cell phones,” she explains.
“But we had tough journalists and rude fans and tons of people slamming us on the radio and television.” She reaches into her pocket, handing me a tiny sleeve of tissues.
“Gossip will always be there. But it’s all a distraction.
People will always talk about you, you need to understand that.
Your job is to focus on what you are doing. Have you forgotten who you are?”
Yamamoto’s brows crease in disappointment.
“Ana Petrov made people care for a sport they had forgotten about,” she snaps with conviction.
“More eyes draw more criticism, but do not ever forget who you are. Now, I don’t know what will happen next month,” she says, turning to face the ice, “where you two will place, if you will place. But you will skate for yourself, not for the crowds, not for me, not for your partner, but for you.”
“I don’t know if I can,” I say because Coach Yamamoto is the only person who I could never lie to, and after today’s practice and one glance back at what the world is saying about me, about us, and everything is feeling out of reach again.
I’m so tired.
“Well if you decide to give up,” she says with disapproval, “you are not the girl that I trained.” Coach Yamamoto lifts to her feet, her gaze sharpened down at me. “We do not give up. We might fall, bleed, get mad as hell, even lose, but we never give up.”
A sour taste lingers in my mouth at my coach’s words, trying to process each one even as she disappears into the rink.
I slide out my phone again, scrolling right to the heaps of outside noise, wondering how I’ve managed to let these people, this town, our rink, mess with my head and ruin so much of what was supposed to make me happy.
This was supposed to be fun.
Before it felt like hell, it was fun.
When I was a little girl, that’s when the magic was full and bright. When nothing mattered except for me, my skates, and that icy dreamscape.
The times I fell as a kid, I’d get up without even thinking.
Then I grew up, and I started thinking.
You skated like it was in your blood.
Not something you needed to train for or compete in.
Thinking what everyone else thought.
Thinking how I could impress everyone else.
Thinking I needed to be the best.
And for fucking what?
People who will never be pleased by anything.
I put down my phone, suddenly not so afraid to catch a glimpse of the comments.
These people are not why you started skating.
Don’t let them be the reason that you ever stop.
Because I’ve come too far to go down without a fight.