Chapter Forty-Six

KATYA

“ G o! You’re looking like snails, not champions! Move!”

We pivot across the ice, Bryan’s hand on my stomach the only thing keeping me from plummeting. I twist around on his palm, reaching behind me for my blade and using it to pull my leg up, contorting myself into a kind of donut shape. Then it’s time to get down, and Bryan secures his other hand to my waist just as I start shifting forward so he can flip me forward and back on the ice, facing him.

Lian motions for us to come over. “Better.”

“Better? Come on, that was awesome. We made it halfway across the ice without even trying.”

Our coach gives him a withering look. “Yes, I’m aware. But she’s going a little wonky on the way down, and we all know that—”

“Transitions or death,” we both finish, sliding each other a look.

“Precisely. You get fifteen minutes, then we’re moving onto the quad twist.”

We shuffle off, stepping off onto solid ground.

“Someone drank too much coffee this morning,” I say under my breath, passing him his guards before putting mine on.

That almost gets a smile out of him. Almost. “She’s not the only one. Alex almost whacked me with a gigantic pencil yesterday.”

That sounds about right . I suppress a laugh. “I missed her. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have a friend who had nothing to do with skating.”

He glares at me, so viciously it could probably make a small child cry, but I find myself suddenly so gleeful I could burst into song or something equally ridiculous. I’ll take a death stare over nothing. This way, he has to at least acknowledge me instead of shutting me out.

So I push a little further. “How is she?”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” he says bluntly.

I have to fight to hold my ground. “I’m just asking you how she’s doing.”

“She’s fine.”

He’s making a point. That, among other things, I lost my right to know how they’re doing the second I stepped foot on that plane.

“Katya?”

I turn around. Sure enough, the girl herself is standing right there in the doorway. So that’s what he meant by ask her.

“Hi,” I say.

Bryan walks out.

“Bry—” Alexandra starts, reaching for him, but he shrugs her off, pushing through the doors she just came in through.

Her gaze slides back over to me as the doors swing shut.

Neither of us speak, and for a terrifying moment, I think I might’ve lost her, too. But then she sighs and walks over to me, pulling me into a hug.

“I’m just glad you’re okay.”

I have the urge to cry, but I just smile and hug her back. “I’m home now. Everything is better.” But then the ache rises up again. “Mostly everything.”

Alexandra pulls away, smiling warily. “Yeah, well. And I meant your head. We saw the fall on TV.”

I wave a hand, remembering the thunk of my head hitting the ice. “That was nothing. I’ve had far worse.”

“It didn’t look like nothing. Everyone freaked out.”

I shrug. “I could’ve cracked my head open, that didn’t happen.”

Alexandra frowns. “You weren’t moving. There was blood.”

“It still could’ve been worse.” Just ask Irina.

“Thankfully. We all got so scared. Bry….he was so scared, Katya. He was freaking out.”

I swallow hard. “Somehow I doubt that.”

“Well, he was. But whatever. You’re here, you’re okay, and it’s over. I don’t know about you, but I think we should try to forget it ever happened. I’d much rather ask your opinion on the stunt that creep bastard pulled on the season finale. Did you see that shit?”

I wish it were that easy , I think to myself, and snort at the second half of her sentence. “Are you kidding? I’m surprised the girl didn’t immediately get a restraining order. I called it from the beginning, remember?”

“Same.” She grins, albeit a little sadly. “We missed you. Bachelor night hasn’t been the same without you cussing the screen out in Russian.”

I try to laugh, otherwise I might burst into tears. It doesn’t do much good. “ We?”

She smiles. “Well, I don’t know, but I definitely missed your crazy ass.”

I let out a hideous cackle. “I missed you too, Sasha.”

“ W hoa. Felix Skorniakov retired?”

I hear the shock in Bryan’s voice as I walk into the break room, where he’s lying on the floor looking at his phone, Juliet braiding his hair absentmindedly.

“I’m not surprised. He got his girlfriend pregnant. He’ll probably get a really well-paying coaching job, something stable. I knew him ages ago when I competed; he’s that kinda guy.”

“She’s right,” I say, making everyone jump at the sound of my voice. “Felix is nothing if not righteous.”

Bryan makes a thoughtful noise, propping his chin on his hand. “Still. It’s wild. Wasn’t he pretty much guaranteed a medal at Helsinki next month?”

“Yeah, he was. His brother Vanya and the Brewer kid aren’t old enough. This was supposed to be his last chance. I assume he just…” I stop before I can say, he knew what was important. Because that is the last thing anyone wants to hear from me. I clear my throat. “It was all over the tabloids. I would’ve thought you’d heard about it.”

“You know, I don’t believe much of anything I hear these days,” he says, glancing up to look at me. He’s finally smiling at me now, wide and flat. It isn’t a real one.

“I’m gonna…go,” Juliet murmurs, clearly sensing trouble, and leaves the two of us to deal with it. It’s funny how everyone seems to be doing that, running like we’re a bomb ready to blow.

My partner looks back down at the floor, pulling his bag up and starting to put on his skates.

“Bryan.” I have to fight to keep my voice steady. “Look at me.”

He keeps his stare fixed on the ground, fingers picking at the knot of his laces.

I hate this. I hate it. I hate how it makes my chest clench up and my throat get tight. I hate that we don’t talk. I hate that I keep pretending things are normal. I hate that he can’t even look in my direction when we’re not on the ice. I hate that he’s barely spoken two words to me in the last week. I hate that this is all my fault.

I step closer, and he draws in on himself like a turtle, shoulders tensing. “Bryan.”

He’s still fumbling with the knot. He’s still not looking at me. “Shit,” he mumbles, and I have to pretend I don’t see his hands shaking.

“Yasha, talk to me,” and it comes out like I’m begging. I guess I am.

“Don’t call me that.”

“I—”

“I said don’t call me that,” he says angrily, head snapping up, laces forgotten, red-rimmed glaring eyes finally meeting my own pathetically teary ones. “Jesus, Katya, why can’t you just leave me alone? Isn’t that what you’re good at?”

He pushes up from the bench and storms past me out the door, nearly knocking me over, but not nearly hard enough to explain why I feel like I can’t get any air in. Not enough to explain why I start crying.

“ N ew free program!” Lian proclaims as soon as I walk in for our session.

“What?” I look over at Bryan instinctively, before I can remember not to.

“Now that you’re back, it’s time to hit refresh. We need new material, and in an Olympic year, the little things are more important than ever. I admit, Bryan may have had a point back when he was saying that Tchaikovsky gets repetitive. We all saw how the Russians are doing Swan Lake too, and we really don’t want another Battle of the Carmens in Helsinki, if you know what I’m saying.”

“Right,” I echo, although I don’t really know what she’s saying.

“We’re doing Hallelujah,” Lian says.

I draw my brows together. “The religious song?” I turn to Bryan, opening my mouth to ask if I’m thinking of the right one. He looks as if someone’s punched him in the stomach. As if he’s seen a ghost.

“ No .”

He says it so forcefully, with such finality, that it makes me furrow my brows even deeper, looking between my partner and coach.

“What—”

“I’m not arguing about this,” Lian replies coolly, unscrewing her coffee thermos. “We’re doing it. Anne comes tomorrow. She already has the choreography. You can pick it up quick enough in time for Nationals.”

“In less than three weeks?” I say dumbly.

Bryan flushes a deep red. “When did you decide this?” he asks through clenched teeth.

“Last week.”

“Without even asking ?” he practically yells, and I jump. What is wrong with him? This is unexpected, but there has to be something else going on. “Lian, what the hell? You know that I—"

“Lower your damn voice, or I’m kicking you off my ice,” Lee replies calmly. “The decision is final. We’re doing it.”

“I won’t,” he says, eyes blazing, and my mouth is open.

“Bryan, what—”

He pushes past me, getting off the ice, not even putting on his guards before stomping out of the building.

I stare at Lian. “What just happened?”

She rubs at her forehead. “You missed…a lot.”

I find him sitting on the bleachers of the other rink, hunched over, glaring daggers at the oblivious Zamboni driver resurfacing the ice.

When he sees me, his gaze immediately jerks back to the Zamboni. “Just leave me alone.”

“You could say please.” The second I say it, I remember that first day, the first time he told me that. Grinning down at me, blocking the way to the refrigerator. I can’t tell if he remembers or not. I shake away the thought. “Bryan, what happened in there? What did I miss?”

Nothing.

“Bryan.”

“Can you please just—”

“No!”

He jerks his head back up.

I know I have no right to be angry, but the frustration has been building for days now, and I can’t deal with it anymore. I need him to talk to me. “Fight with me, yell at me, call me names and say that I don’t deserve your forgiveness. Do whatever you want. But please, please just talk to me. Just talk to me already!”

“God, Katya, why can’t you back off?”

“Because I can’t! Just tell me, what is your problem?”

“It was his favorite song.”

Before I can ask who , he tilts his head to the side, looking like a lost little boy again. “He loved Jeff Buckley. Like, loved him. He could go on for hours about the time he saw him live just a few weeks before he drowned, and how if he hadn’t died he would’ve been one of the biggest artists out there. It was one of the only things that I could remember staying the same after the accident. He would play ‘Grace’ all the way through in the car, and me and Alex would get so mad at him because it totally killed the vibe, but he’d just say, ‘one day you’ll get it’. I can’t tell you how many times he said that.” Bryan wipes at his eyes, clearing his throat. “Hallelujah was his favorite. So they played it. At the funeral. I can’t even hear it without losing my shit.”

“Funeral? What funer—“

He looks up at me, eyes empty. “My dad’s dead, Katya.”

I open my mouth. I close it. I open it again.

“What?” I say, barely at all.

“Yeah. A month ago.” He smiles wryly, like a knife, not like him at all, and lets out something like a laugh. “Like, two weeks after.”

He doesn’t need to clarify what he means by after . My chest is empty. Oh my god.

“But…but he was fine,” is all I can say. “What happened?”

“Pulmonary embolism.”

My English may be good, but it isn’t that good. Still, I feel horribly embarrassed when I have to ask. “What is that?”

“It’s when, uh, a blood clot forms in your lungs. There’s this thing that happens, that it can form in your legs, and then it travels up to block an artery. Then, you know, boom.” He waves a hand aimlessly, voice dull.

“You wanna know what’s funny?” he continues, in a way that lets me know he doesn’t actually find it funny at all. “Um. When the hospital called and said he didn’t have much time, we all thought he’d finally done it.” Bryan swallows hard. “Even though things had been so much better. But it wasn’t even—it wasn’t even that , you know? Not something we could’ve maybe prevented? It was a random thing that happened out of nowhere. Except the doctor said that paraplegics are at a higher risk of deep vein—whatever it’s called. ‘Cause they can’t move their legs, you know?”

The look on his face is too much.

“Why didn’t you call me?” I whisper, trying to swallow the ache before it swallows me. “I would have…”

I would have come . In an instant. I would have dropped everything. To know he was like this the whole time, I would’ve risked my career to be here.

Screw competition. Screw everything. I would have come.

I don’t say it. Bryan already looks like he’s about to splinter. And I can’t let the tears fall—I don’t have the right to, not anymore.

He’s trying so hard not to cry, and it’s killing me. Then I just wish I could fall into the floor when his voice finally breaks.

“Why weren't you here?”

I can barely breathe. I’m barely holding it together. “I’m sorry, Yasha,” I choke, and even though it’s the most selfish thing I could do, I wrap my arms around him, feeling him immediately fall to pieces, gripping him so tight it hurts me. But I can’t let go. Not again.

“I hate you so much,” he sobs, voice muffled by my sweater.

I pull him impossibly tighter as he falls apart in my arms, my hands tangling in his curls, trying desperately to hold on, to let him go, to help him get everything out—to will into existence another time; where I hadn’t been so stupid and he hadn’t been in so much pain. As if I could somehow turn back the clock, or maybe just give him the part of me that had allowed myself to somehow push through even when I felt like dying. To make him feel better, even though I know there’s no use. Even though I’m part of the reason why he needs to.

I tilt my head up to the ceiling, holding my breath and holding him tighter, trying not to let him see the tears threatening to spill. I’ve had enough practice hiding my emotions. I can’t break apart. Because if we both shatter, there’s no going back. We have to keep taping ourselves back up, otherwise there’s no going forward. And if we miss this chance, we’re never going to recover.

He keeps repeating it, and I have to bite my lip to keep the tears inside, so hard I’m tasting gold and silver and bronze in my mouth like all those medals that never meant a single thing. I thought they meant everything. Why did I think they meant everything? Why did I do this to him? Why did I do this to myself?

“Why can’t I hate you?”