Chapter Forty-Two

KATYA

I ’m supposed to go to the ice.

It calls to me. I’m aching to get back on, to skate all my worries away until I can’t feel them anymore. But, I mean, I’m not even supposed to be here. The doctors said they’d clear me to leave the hospital tomorrow, but this can’t wait. I can’t wait. Not anymore.

I know the way to Tatyana’s office like the back of my hand, and I walk through the complex, passing the rink and all the chattering girls with their colorful guards and matching scrunchies, the eye-rolling teenage boys that like to pretend they don’t care about skating to look cooler; the coaches’ shouts echoing over the laughter and sounds of skates pounding against the mat-covered concrete as children run to practice.

“Bystreye! Luchshe!” Faster. Better. More. More. More.

Whoever’s getting yelled at, it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s gotten an earful already at some point today, but no one seems to care.

Somehow, they all manage to be children. I was never very good at that. Once I moved up to juniors, it was like that part of me got shut off early. I can’t blame anyone for it, though. I flipped the switch all too willingly.

I pass another group of giggling girls, who all smile and chorus, “ Privyet, Katya!”

I give them a wave and a smile. I really do try my best to be at least a little nice to them. I’m fine with them thinking I’m like Irina was, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings, but I just…they should like it here. They shouldn’t be like me, and they shouldn’t think all the older girls are out for their blood. Polina’s bad enough.

I march up the stairs to the second floor, gripping the handrail a little more tightly than usual. Between the thin and freezing rink air and flights of stairs, my head’s swimming a bit too much for comfort. I force myself to stop and take a deep breath. I already have a concussion, I don’t need to pass out and snap my neck falling down the stairs, too.

Once I can breathe normally again and there aren’t any spots in my vision, I take another deep breath—not because I’m struggling for oxygen, but because now I have to calm down. Rasslab'sya, Katya .

I need to talk to Tatyana. Now.

That fall at the test skates changed something. I glance up, and the stairwell turns into the stadium, the lights glaring blindingly down on the ice, the ringing in my ears, the screams and shouts and sirens, sounding impossibly far away. The voices all muddling into a nauseating blur, except for a clear memory.

I don’t know what to do, Dedushka.

Yes, you do. You always do.

I walk down the row of offices towards the biggest one, the one that I used to sit and eat lunch in alone whenever Polina and Liza decided that they didn’t want to sit with me and forced Anna to ignore me, too; before the Skorniakovs arrived and Vanya would make sure I could never get rid of him even if I wanted to.

I’d sit on the floor in silence while Tatyana worked, eating my food, listening to my program music or doing catch-up schoolwork. Standing in front of the door, it feels like I’m thirteen all over. Back again, ashamed to ask for nothing at all.

I knock. “ Vkhodit' ,” her unimpressed voice calls from within.

I push the door open slowly. Tatyana doesn’t look up from her computer, her long nails clacking at the keyboard.

“I don’t have all day, Ekaterina, quit lurking in my doorway. What is it?”

Not asking about my health, I see. I don’t bother being offended. “I had a lot of time to think when I was in the hospital.”

So I finally ask the question. “Why did I get fifth that day?”

Tatyana stops with the papers, looking up at me in annoyance. “What?”

I don’t know where I’m getting the courage. “Last year. At the Final. It was bad, but it wasn’t that bad. The rest of that performance should’ve been enough to bring me up to third, not knock me down another place. And—” I hesitate to bring this up, but I don’t really have a choice now. “You know the judges like us—”

“Careful,” Tatyana says, voice crisp and icy. “Be extremely careful with what you say next.”

I don’t have to say it , is what I want to say, but I shut my mouth. It’s probably the worst kept secret in figure skating that judges aren’t quite the impartial beings they’re supposed to be, especially when it comes to our particular camp of skaters. Either they love us or they hate us, and even the haters can see we’re the best in the game. I take a deep breath, trying to silence the alarm bells in the back of my mind. “You know what I mean. I should’ve made it on the podium. Do you know—” I have to know. I have to know. “Do you know why?”

“You did horribly, Ekaterina, I don’t know what else to tell you. You’d been doing horribly for a while.”

“I…don’t understand. I took silver almost every competition, how is that—”

“Don’t question me,” Tatyana snaps. “You know just as well as I do that, as soon as the others corrected the little things, or got old enough to meet the age requirement, you’d be blasted back to novice levels. All the juniors had bigger, better jumps than you. It was only a matter of time. I merely…” She shrugs. “Expedited things.”

My heart stops.

No . “How?” I almost can’t get the question out, my voice cracking into silence. My throat is closing in on itself.

“Ostav’ menya , Katya, I have work to do—”

“No,” I say suddenly, the loudness of my voice making me cringe. Tatyana whips back to me, but before she can say anything I cut her off. “Tell me.”

“You need to get back on the ice.”

“Now!” I’m shaking, breath coming in hiccups, vision blurring dangerously.

She didn’t do it. I know she didn’t, she would never do this to me. I was different. I was like her daughter. She always liked me better. I know she didn’t do it.

Tatyana’s eyes narrow, lips pinched. “Alright. You want the truth? Fine. There was an agreement. We needed room for Liza, for the new seniors, and you just weren’t cutting it. I’m sorry, but this is business. It had to be done.”

No.

I can’t breathe. I have to grab the door handle to steady myself. “No,” I mumble. This isn’t happening. I heard her wrong. They were right. They were all right.

I try not to cry. I really do. “I trusted you!”

It sounds like a little girl’s comment, and maybe it is. Which is why I’m not entirely surprised when Tatyana says, “Trust is for children. You were never a child.”

“But—but I was.” I’m stuttering over my words. “We all were.”

“Please. You were meant for bigger things than playgrounds, Ekaterina.” Tatyana shuffles some papers, raising her eyebrows at me. “Well. Now that you got what you wanted, get back on the ice. You still have to prove to me I didn’t make a mistake in letting you back here, especially after the other day. I’m already getting calls. You won’t fail me again, will you?”

And that’s when it really hits me.

Don’t fail me again.

I’m the one who’s been failed.

I wait for the floor to open beneath me, for my legs to fold, for everything to collapse and burn around me now that she’s told me the truth. I wait for the world to end. But that already happened last year. And I made it, didn’t I? And I might’ve had help, I had people alongside me, but not her. I did it. Me .

I turn the handle, slowly looking up to meet her eyes.

“What?” she snaps.

“I think letting me back was the biggest mistake you ever made,” I whisper.

Because now I know I don’t belong here. Now I know I am never, ever coming back.

“Get on the ice,” Tatyana hisses, and for once in my life, I don’t listen.

“No.” I thought I was angry when I was left stranded, but this is something else. She’s never wanted the best for me, has she? All she cares about is what’s best for her. She was never my family. They were all right. “I’m not going to let you push me around. I’m not a marionette doll you can manipulate, not anymore. I’m not going to be her ever again.”

“Who’s going to take you?” Tatyana hisses, narrowing her eyes at me and grabbing my wrist as I reach for the door. “The Americans? That idiotic partner of yours? You left them, suka . They’ll never take you back now.” She lets out a laugh. “You ungrateful little whore. You think you can leave after all I’ve done for you? You wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for me. If I hadn’t plucked that little chubby rat from the gutter, given her everything she could’ve ever wanted, she wouldn’t be in front of me right now. You saw what happened to Sokolovskaya. You’ll end up just like her. A nobody. Gone before she even saw an Olympics.”

I blink away the tears, ripping my hand away. “Maybe they won’t take me back, but I’d rather risk it than stay.” My voice wobbles. “And whatever you say, Irina got out. I saw her. She’s better now, even though you broke her to pieces. She warned me about you, and I thought she was crazy. I thought she was a traitor, I really did. But it’s not her. It’s you. You’re the one who betrayed us, not her. And—” I have to take a breath, but I say it. I say it. “I’d rather be a nobody then end up like you .”

I run out of there, down the stairs. I pick up my bag, I get my things, and I keep running, past the other skaters, past the coaches, who all turn their heads as I race by.

“Katya, where are you going?” Ivan shouts after me.

I don’t turn around. For once in my life, I don’t turn around. It’s not Vanya, but this place. And for once in my life, I see the way out.

“ Domoy, ” I yell over my shoulder, pushing the doors open and letting the light blind me.

I think I’m going home.