Chapter Forty

KATYA

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

I stepped foot in my old training center for the first time in over a year just a few weeks ago.

Everything is the same. The building, the sessions, the coaches, the students—everything looks and sounds exactly as I remember. So it should feel how I remember. Right?

I only wish it were that simple. I thought it would be that simple.

Instead, I’m back in my old center, under my old coaches, in my old team, and it should feel like coming home. But it just feels like trying to put on an old pair of jeans you outgrew years ago. Tight, uncomfortable, and half of you is still hanging out because you can’t cram it in no matter how hard you try.

But I can get it to fit. I can.

Which is why I’m doing the test skate—a huge, high-profile exhibition of the country’s top skaters. The costume I’m wearing right now, a dusty grey dress with puff sleeves and burgundy detailing, feels uncannily like the metaphorical jeans—way too tight.

“What on earth have they been feeding you in the States, Ekaterina?” Tatyana asks, making a face as she pinches at the too-tight sheer mesh that I’ve been pulling at for the last ten minutes. “You’re lucky we didn’t have to get it let out. Just one more ounce and we would’ve.”

I swallow the embarrassment, feeling my face burn, trying to ignore Polina’s giggles.

“Enough,” Tatyana snaps, and I feel a rush of gratefulness. “Once you have Katya’s grace, then you can crack jokes.”

Polina’s cheeks go bright red, a stark contrast from her platinum blonde hair and milk-white skin.

“Oh, before I forget,” Tatyana says, handing my jacket over to one of her underlings. “You could learn a thing or two from Polina, I admit. That last quad combo, the Salchow-toe loop?”

I crease my brow. Is she going to ask me to triple it? It makes sense if she’s worried, considering it’s the jump that killed me last December and it was a bold move to even put it in here, but I’ve been landing it perfectly these last few weeks in practice. “I’ll be fine with it, don’t worry.”

“No, it’s not that. Skip the first quad, make it a triple. Add a triple toe to the combination. Make it three in a row.”

“What?” I blurt. The others stare at us in shock, confusion. Has she lost her mind? “I can’t do that.”

Tatyana huffs, irritation pinching her features. “Of course you can. You can do triple cascades in your sleep, it’s the same principle.”

“But that’s different. I can’t keep that kind of momentum up for a triple after two quad jumps—”

“Enough. Do it. You can, and you will, understand?”

I close my mouth, seeing all the coaches’ and the others’ eyes on me. Polina is trying very poorly to hide a smirk, and Anna glances at me, biting at her hangnail nervously. But Tatyana knows me better than I do sometimes. If she thinks I can do it, then I can. I will.

“Yes,” I say.

Tatyana nods in approval, then makes a tsk noise, pulling at a strand of my faded ponytail. “As soon as this is over, we color your hair red again. I don’t know why you let this happen, it looks like dirty dishwater.”

T he second I step out onto the ice, people start clapping and calling my name, even before they announce me.

“Nash sleduyushchiy figurist , Ekaterina Andreyeva.”

“Idi, Katya!” people scream, and I force myself to shove away the worries and break into a smile, waving up at the crowds, and they cheer in response, those with banners and posters waving them furiously.

Breathe. In. Out. The program isn’t new. This is my Les Misérables program from two seasons ago, because there wasn’t any time to learn a new one and Tatyana didn’t want to remind people of the last time I skated to my Masquerade program. This is fine. I’m only swapping out the quad Salchow for a quad combination. It doesn’t matter that it’s three jumps. It’s just a combination.

I take one last lap, shaking out my hands, doing some power pulls. In. Out.

“ Pokazhi im, dorogusha!”

I close my eyes tight. In. Out. In. Out.

I stick my right toe pick into the ice behind me, almost in a curtsy position, arms out, head bowed down to face the ice.

“The Convent” starts playing over the speakers, and the echoing, unsettling sounds of the choir direct the beginning choreography. As it starts building into the lead vocals, so does my speed, and I race into my opening element, a triple Lutz-triple toe combination with arms over my head—landed. I ignore the rush of relief and plow forward up until the triple Axel, then the connecting steps that lead into the step sequence. Then comes the layback spin, and the second step sequence.

The song soon fades into “I Dreamed A Dream,” the music slowing down considerably into a much more melancholic and mournful tune. The music change always bothered me a little bit. Not because it was too abrupt, it was just more of a problem for me to change the energy from bold and daring back down to a cracked-open, grief-stricken girl. This part is a lot harder to sell, especially when you’re like me. When all you do normally is act like you don’t feel anything.

Anne Hathaway sings of dreams, impossible ones, of storms which cannot be weathered. Then she starts sobbing violently, and I have to force myself to focus so I don’t get thrown off. I nearly slip on the entry for the combination spin, pressing extra hard on my edge to stabilize myself.

What is wrong with me? Why is this getting to me?

I’d be mentally jumping up and down on my thoughts, but right now I’m so pressed for time that I can’t even distract myself from the distraction. I sink from a camel position down into a sit spin, and back up into a Bielmann, yanking my right foot by the blade all the way above my head.

Usually I’m so desensitized to the dizziness that spins and jumps don’t bother me. You have to be, otherwise you’ll never be able to do this sport, because of the nauseating speed of rotation. But right now I can feel my head swimming, feel myself traveling way off center, and I have to fight to stay balanced . You can do better than that, sunshine, a familiar voice in my head teases, and I feel my stomach drop at the smile that flashes through my mind, because it twists into the same smile falling, tears and red faces, choked voices . I’m trying, I swear I’m trying. I know it’s not a lot. I know it’s not enough.

I blink away the tears. It’s normal to have tears in spins. The cold and the motion—it happens all the time, along with the snot flying out of your nose (this can be an extremely unflattering sport). I need to relax. Actually, screw that, I need to focus. Nothing is wrong, I tell myself. Nothing is wrong. Katya, it doesn’t matter, stop thinking about it. You had to do it. You had no choice.

The music changes, moving suddenly into the chorus of “One Day More,” and I’m a half-second behind on getting out of my spin, so I immediately force an exit so strong I’m lucky to hang onto it. I cannot be late again. I will not be late. I know this routine like the back of my hand, I’ve been skating to it for two years, but right now it’s pissing me off.

I race off into crossovers, approaching speed skater speed, the cheering audience melting into a colorful blur. The roar of the song is so loud that I can hear the lyrics clearly, echoing in the massive building and across the ice, over the scraping of my blades and the noise from the crowd and the blood pounding in my head.

I can hear the blood and I can hear my lungs heaving in, out, in, out , trying to keep up with the rest of me as I switch to backwards, because it’s somehow time for the final jumping pass, the final element. The combination.

I’m still a beat behind, and I’m rushing through the choreography, the connecting steps and footwork. I’m being sloppy. Shit. Shit. Tatyana’s going to kill me. I can’t finish late again; I have to be on time—

I glance behind me, the corner rapidly approaching, then tense my back. I’m going to need a ridiculous amount of power to carry me through three back-to-back jumps. If I’m totally honest, I don’t think I can do it. Oh my god, I can’t be doubting myself going into a jump. That’s the first lesson in skating psychology. Do it! Do it! I’m panicking. Do I triple? Do I cut out the third jump? The thought flashes through me in a haze of panic, and then I stamp it out. Come on, Katya. You can do this. Get yourself together. In. Out. In. Out.

I suck in a breath as I step into the mohawk and swing my leg up with all the power I can muster, every single ounce of energy left in my body and all the adrenaline pumping in my veins, and let the force launch me impossibly high into the air, four revolutions, down; toe pick in, up, four revolutions, down; toe pick in, one, two, three—

S creaming.

I barely even feel it, but I hear perfectly the sickening thunk of my skull against the ice, snapping back from my neck as I fall back, tripping as I threw myself backwards and all, all wrong.

Oh, you stupid suka , is all I can think.

Then everything cuts to black.