Chapter Eighteen

KATYA

“ B ecause,” he replies, as if that means anything.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be—what’s it called? Party shitter?” Not even my terrible translations are making him laugh. I crease my eyebrows. “What is with you? What did I say?”

“Nothing. Can we please talk about something else now?”

He’s agitated. I can see it in the clench of his jaw, the way he’s not looking at me in the eye, twitching and moving around. I’m trying to figure out why such a simple question is sending him into hysterics. “No, quit it with the can we talk about something else. You always do that. It’s annoying. Just answer the question.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s none of your business,” Bryan says hotly, loud enough for everyone around us to turn for a second, before swiveling back to their own conversations.

I stare at him coldly. “I thought you wanted to be partners. You’re the one that’s always on about trusting each other. You do realize ?”

He sits down, not looking at me, just fusses with his sweater sleeve and bounces his leg so aggressively I can see his whole body shaking.

What is wrong with him? Is he really this upset over me reminding him that he had no chance before he met me? I cross my arms. “There’s no need to pretend like it’s a secret, you know. Anyone can go online and see your scores these last few seasons. I already did, remember?”

His gaze darts up for a split second before focusing more determinedly on the loose thread of his cuff.

You know what? Two can play at this game. He wants to shut down on me, I’m cracking him open.

I open my phone, pulling up the search engine. “Bryan Young figure skater,” I read aloud as I type, then click on his Wiki page. “Look, here it is. ‘Bryan Robert Young—” guess they don’t know his second middle name—"born July 9, is an American figure skater. He is last year’s U.S. national pewter medalist…’” I scan the article, skipping the handful of other low-level medals and the whole section on his junior career until I find what I’m looking for. “‘Young was in’—wow, fifth place after the short program in this year’s U.S. nationals before pulling out of the free skate and the rest of the season in order to, ah, concentrate on training .’” I look up at his reddening face, a smirk on my lips. “And this in a domestic competition? Wow. I thought mine was bad.”

“You got fifth too,” he shoots back, but I snort.

“Please. That was in the Prix Final. It is not the same thing, and you know it.”

I keep swiping through the long article, through the score sheets and the personal history, blah, blah, blah—I’ve reached the bibliography and am about to close the page when a headline catches my eye. “Huh.”

He's ripped off the thread, and is now twirling it between his fingers. “What?”

“‘Whatever Happened to U.S. Figure Skating’s Rising Star?’” I read aloud, and Bryan whips his head up.

I click on it. It’s an article from CSN Sports’ website, published last summer. “‘Bryan Young was only thirteen when he crashed into the public eye of figure skating, coming seemingly out of nowhere to smash the previously held junior free skate score record and, with it, win his very first Junior Nationals competition.’”

“Don’t read that,” Bryan says with forced casualness, clearly trying to stay calm, but it doesn’t disguise the panic all over his paling face.

“‘In the mere three seasons he spent on the junior international circuit before moving up to the senior level, kept back only because of the age requirement, he became the most decorated male junior skater in International Skating Federation history, placing in every single event he competed in between his junior debut at the U.S. National Championships and the same event three years later, winning in most of them—’”

“Katya, come on, I’m serious. Please, can you just—”

I had no idea about any of this. Why would he hide this? “—becoming the first American skater to sweep an entire season’s worth of podiums, and then another, and then another, setting and resetting world records in the process. He became the youngest male skater to land a ratified quad in competition—” I screech to a stop. What? “Uh—Connor Murphy, who won a gold medal in men’s singles at the Olympics the year after Young’s third consecutive Junior Nationals win, joked that he would ‘have to retire before Bryan hit the senior level.’”

“God, I said I don’t want you to read that!”

“It’s on the internet, isn’t it?” I fire back. Why is he being such a killjoy? Isn’t he proud of this? I’m not stopping, now I want to know. “‘However, commentators’ and skaters’ assurances that Young held the future of figure skating in his hands proved to be premature. All hopes for this rising star were dashed—’”

It’s his turn to grab for the phone, but I stand up, taking a few steps backwards so he can’t reach.

“—soon after a disastrous performance at his third Junior Worlds appearance, in which he finished startlingly close to last place after being a sure lock for continuing his two-year gold medal streak there. This was just weeks after his third first-place win at the U.S. Junior Nationals, in which he beat runner-up Lucas Choi by a comfortable thirty-point margin…’” I keep scanning the article. The more I read, the worse it gets.

Two years later, it’s Choi who’s on track to potentially bring home an Olympic prize at the next events. Meanwhile Young is nowhere to be found, unless you count an occasional brush with fourth place—on a good day, third—at domestic competitions.

“‘Everyone expected him to bounce back after Worlds. But after that catastrophic loss in March, he continued to defy people’s expectations—only now, not in a good way. Young finished anywhere between fifteenth and fortieth at every competition he entered for the rest of the season. At the time, CSN Sports asked his coach, two-time Olympic medalist Lian Chen, about his string of failures. She responded, ‘Every athlete has a bad day once in a while. This is Bryan’s bad day.’ But this is no longer a bad day for Young. There’s no sign of life from the “New Hope,” despite his continual appearance at competition. Taylor Davis, a fixture of figure skating commentary, was caught on a hot mic after a particularly bad skate last year saying, ‘When will this guy wake the hell up? He’s done.’ And I, for one, am inclined to agree with him. It’s time for the AFSC to realize that their once-golden boy is now entirely burnt out.’”

I’m quiet once I finish. So is he. Even though the lobby is far from silent thanks to all the commotion, it somehow feels as if we’re in an empty room other than just the two of us, the only words hanging in the balance those of what’s probably the most brutal non-tabloid article on a figure skater I’ve ever read.

I look at him, at this boy that’s slumped over in front of me and looking so small, so pathetic, so…exhausted. I know now that I was wrong about him never being anything. Apparently, he was far from it. He’d once been the ultimate hope for this country to take the gold at the Olympics. To take home the ultimate win, the only one that matters in this sport. And now he’s nothing. He’s no one.

“What happened to you?” I ask before I can stop myself, almost in horror. Is this what lies in wait if I miss this chance? Arguments in public in front of people who all think I shouldn’t even bother staying in the game, and articles on how, once, I could’ve been truly great?

Bryan looks haunted. There’s no other way to describe it. Haunted by what he was, what he could’ve been.

“Nothing,” he croaks out. “Absolutely nothing.”