Chapter Forty-Seven

brYAN

TWO DAYS LATER

PRIX SERIES FINAL—PARIS, FRANCE

W e haven't spoken.

It’s been four days. In that time, we, along with our coaches, have done the following: flown a transcontinental flight, complete with several absurdly loud children; had a collective panic attack for the five minutes at baggage claim that Katya’s skates were nowhere to be found; and lost my AirPods in the taxi. Not to mention Lian contracted food poisoning from a baguette at Charles de Gaulle, so she’s been throwing up in the toilet ever since we got to the hotel.

We haven’t even been here a full twenty-four hours, and we’re all ready to throw ourselves into the river.

“She’s still locked in the bathroom,” Juliet’s telling me worriedly. “Should I take her to urgent care or something?”

“Good luck with that. You know Lee. She’s not gonna cause a ‘distraction’ for us until she knows for sure we aren’t screwing up what we came here to do.” I snort. “Remember that time she had a hundred-degree fever and was two milliseconds away from passing out, but refused to leave the premises until she saw them physically hand me my medal?”

Juliet grins at me. “Like coach, like student. If I recall correctly, you did the exact same thing a few years ago. You were in that phase where you practically slept at the rink, and by the time we realized you had pneumonia you were on the verge of collapse.”

I have to force myself to laugh at the memory, even though my stomach clenches. Sixteen-year-old me, once again thinking things couldn’t get worse, and then suddenly I’m sleeping—not practically, literally —in the supply closet while telling the Kwans I’m back at my parents’ so I don’t have to feel so bad about them taking me in after I got kicked out. Suddenly I’m hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed while Lian’s informing me that I’m going to be living with her for the foreseeable future. Until you stop being such a bonehead, were her exact words. Lucky thing I was able to coax the uncle of a guy I went to high school with to rent me my place as soon as I turned eighteen (despite my dubious credit score), otherwise I never would’ve freed Lian from having me mooching off her—because I definitely am still a bonehead.

These latest events only go to prove it.

Because, apparently, just as sixteen-year-old me really did believe that, after such a good night, things might finally be okay again, present-day me just keeps making the same mistakes. Really believing that things could ever be okay.

“My blade is rusted !”

A shrieky voice pierces though my reverie, and sure enough, Katya’s standing in the doorway, wielding a skate like a murder weapon.

Juliet curses, and Katya marches over to us to display the sprinkle of spots on the metal. ‘How is that possible?”

“I don’t know, they were fine when I packed them!”

“It won’t make a difference, stop overreacting,” I mumble, and my partner stops freaking out over nothing long enough to give me the nastiest look of death I’ve ever witnessed.

“ Overreacting ? This could screw my skating up tomorrow. Or have you forgotten the whole reason we’re even here?”

I snort. “Oh, right. How could I forget? Win at all costs.”

That sends her screeching to a halt. “I—"

“Forget it. I don’t care.” I turn brusquely to Juliet, who’s doing an excellent job of pretending like she’s all alone with Katya’s skate. “What’s the verdict, Campbell?”

“It should be fine,” our assistant coach says lightly, handing it back. “I’ll go up later and show you an easy way to get rid of the spots.”

“You’re sure?” Katya asks anxiously, and something about how hysterical she is over something that doesn’t even matter is getting under my skin. How can she obsess over a microscopic fleck of rust, and make life-altering decisions at the drop of a hat?

“Whatever,” I mutter.

“Whatever?” She turns to face me, looking at me like she doesn’t know who I am. “ Whatever ?”

“I’m gonna run and get Lian,” Juliet says nervously, but neither of us pay attention.

Katya shakes her head frantically, pushing her hair back from her face. “No, you know what, that’s it. I don’t understand. I just don’t understand. Get yourself together! What is wrong with you? Why don’t you care anymore?”

Something spikes in my memory, my heart rate kicking up. “Katya—”

Katya’s tearstained, hiccupping, practically distraught. “I need you to care, Bryan! I can’t do this all by myself!”

“Stop it, please just stop it,” I’m practically begging all of a sudden, the pounding in my head growing with every passing second, but she’s choking back tears.

“We win today? We lose tomorrow? What then , Bryan?”

That’s all it takes.

FIVE YEARS AGO

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS—U.S. NATIONALS

“With three new world records for junior men’s scores, the now three-time junior national champion, Bryan Young!”

“Is that the actual score?” I blurt out for the fiftieth time, hands to my forehead, struggling to pick my jaw up off the floor.

“You did it, kid,” my coach says, gripping me by the shoulders. “You did it. I think three’s your lucky number.”

“Oh my god, I did,” I yell out, and Lian presses me into a tight hug. When I pull away, I stand up and wave to the crowd, then turn back to her. “Lee, I think I can add the quad Sal into the free for Worlds. I know I can do it.”

“Bryan, you’re already a lock for gold, you don’t need to push so hard. Don’t take—”

“Any unnecessary risks, I know,” I finish for her, then groan. “Come on, I just nailed that! I want to challenge myself now.”

Lian shakes her head, smiling. “Take a breath. Enjoy the win.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, saluting, and she pretends to not enjoy it, steering me out of the kiss-and-cry to where everyone’s waiting.

“Oh my god, Bry!” Nina shrieks, her and Oliver coming over and crash-tackling me with a hug.

“Neens, you’re killing me,” I choke out, only for Alexandra to come running.

“You did good, or whatever,” my ten-year-old sister mutters, swinging a strawberry blonde pigtail braid over her shoulder. I tug on it playfully, making her shriek.

“Mo-om!”

Our mother pointedly ignores her, instead sighing and giving me a kiss on the forehead, taking my jacket from Lian. “You did wonderfully, Bryan. We’re very happy for you.”

“Onto Worlds!” Oliver crows, and we laugh.

“One step at a time, kids,” my dad jokes, ironically as he’s wheeling up to us. I freeze for a second, not sure what to do. He comes up to me and motions for me to bend over, so I do, and he claps me on the shoulder. It’s an incredibly awkward angle, but my grin grows impossibly bigger, especially when he adds a “good job, Bry,” looking up at me with something close to a smile.

“We need to feed the kids, Robert,” Mom frets, and Ollie and I make eye contact, smirking in unison.

“There’s an IHOP down the street?” I ask, waggling my eyebrows.

Mom looks dubious. “That’s hardly dinner.”

“Pretty please?”

“Fine. I suppose today merits a celebration,” she concedes, and me and Ollie high-five enthusiastically.

“Come on, let’s go!”

The pancakes are the best I’ve ever eaten in my life, and I’m pretty sure they’ll never taste this good again until I’ve got an Olympic title to my name. We’re sitting there in the mostly empty IHOP, me and Ollie accidentally shooting whipped cream onto the slanted blue ceiling, drizzling mounds of maple syrup onto our stacks, me swiping cream on Alexandra’s nose, who gets me back by robbing me of a pancake and shoving it into her mouth in one bite before I can snatch it back. Nina shows her how to make hearts with the toppings. Mom and Dad are laughing for the first time in recent memory. Lian is fast asleep in the hotel, but we’re all already preparing stories for her.

It's a five-hour drive back home, and I stay up the whole way; too buzzed to sleep. This is the best night of my life.

Three-time junior national champion . It sounds pretty sweet. So does everything else that people have been saying. I’ll be coming into my debut senior season with every opportunity open for the taking—freaking Connor Murphy is scared of me. I start grinning again.

We drop off the Kwans. By the time we’re at the house, it’s three thirty-five a.m. Mom carries a sleeping Alexandra upstairs to bed, and I’m about to go to the kitchen when my dad stops me.

“Hold on, I need to talk to you.”

I stifle a yawn. “Sure, what’s up?”

“How do you feel right now?”

“Uh, like, right now?” I grin at him. “Pretty great, Dad. I just won Nationals.”

“That’s not what I mean. Or, well, I guess it is. You won Nationals. Now what? What comes now?”

I blink. “Uh…well, Worlds are in a month, and next year I move into the senior level. Remember?”

“And what then?”

I pause. “Um…”

He looks long and hard at me. “That’s what I thought.” He wheels a little closer. “We need to discuss your future, Bryan.”

“Uh, like, right now?” I ask, grimacing. “It’s four in the morning. It’s been a long day, what with me breaking a ton of records and everything. I kinda wanna go to—”

My dad laughs, almost angrily. “Man up, Bryan. Get yourself together! None of this means anything!”

“Wh-what?” Okay, I think I might be a little sleep deprived. This isn’t happening. I laugh nervously. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

“This can be taken away from you at any moment. You could fall, or get in a car crash, or just be walking down the street and get hit by something. The second you’re not expecting it, bam!” He slams his hand so loudly against the armrest of his chair that I flinch. “Everything you’ve worked your whole life for, gone. Or even if something doesn’t happen, what’s the shelf life of a figure skater? This isn’t permanent , Bryan. It isn’t real. You better learn that as soon as you can.”

I have to try and laugh. I have to. I’m still trying to catch up, I’m not awake enough for this. “Dad, what—”

“You have to stop. You have to make something else of yourself before you run out of time. Something that can’t be taken away. You can’t keep living in this dream world anymore.”

No. Oh, no no no . “Dad?” I ask quietly, my voice coming out way off.

What is happening? Is this real ? “Are you saying—are you saying I can’t skate anymore?” I ask, voice shaking, and he just shakes his head.

“I’m saying I’m not going to let you do this to yourself any longer. Neither will your mother. We never should have let it get this far, but here we are. We’re done.”

I have to fix this. I can fix this . “Dad, I can make this work,” I say, my heart starting to pound faster and faster. “I can, I swear. Lee says I have a shot at making the podium at Senior Worlds next year if I train really hard in the off-season and get more quads, and then there’s only four more years until the Helsinki Olympics. I can last until then, I know I can. And then after that—”

“No.”

“I can see what happens, I can see how my career goes, and if anything Miss Lou is always telling me I can coach—”

“ No!” His voice rips through the little fantasy I’m frantically trying to keep from crumbling. “Enough is enough. You won tonight. You won’t tomorrow. It’s time to cut your losses, or else it’s time to go.”

“Go?” I repeat. “Go where?”

He doesn’t answer. But I know.

It’s like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I’m so dizzy, so nauseous, I have to hold on to the banister.

“Dad,” I croak out. “Dad, please. Please .”

He turns away.

My vision is swimming. The only reason I haven’t lost it yet is because I’m so in shock. There’s a faint buzzing in my ear. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real.

I take a step backwards, practically in slow motion. Then I run upstairs. All the way upstairs, down the hallway, into my room. I flip on the light, then start throwing things into a bag. I have no clue what I’m doing, but I grab clothes, my phone, random things, and my skate bag. I’m tossing things into my backpack, then shove it all down, zipping it shut, throwing it over my shoulder, feeling my heart stop and start in my chest, feeling my ribs tighten one by one, my breath coming in and out like a broken record.

“Bry?”

Oh, god . I look up, and there’s my little sister, standing in the doorway in her Star Wars pajamas, eyes bleary and swollen with sleep. “What are you doing?”

“I—” I can’t breathe. “I’m going to fix this, Alex,” I promise her, not even sure what I’m supposed to be fixing. “Go back to bed. I’m going to fix this.”

And then I push past her, run back downstairs, ignoring Ruby and her agitated barks as she tries to block my path.

I blast through the front door, backpack on one shoulder, skates on the other, then grab my bike, mounting it and pushing off into the street, adjusting my weight and going faster, faster—I have no clue where I’m going—I have to find Lian—

And that’s when I finally start sobbing, the tears flooding out, my lungs choking themselves, pedaling as fast as my legs can take me. My vision blurs, the streetlights picketing the night-morning sky, and when the tires skid on a patch of ice, there’s no stopping it as I’m thrown forward over the handlebars onto the side of the road.

The landing knocks the wind out of me, and I throw up, not entirely sure if from the impact or everything else, and I lean back, trying to catch the breath that seems to keep escaping into the night, fogging up the air instead of entering my lungs. I throw up again, pressing a hand to my chest, trying to scratch out the crushing weight— am I dying am I dying am I dying —and that’s when I see my skates tossed out where they’d been flung out of the bag; stark black against the snow, across from the bicycle itself lying haphazardly across the curb. I scramble forward, picking them up and clutching them to my chest, trying to remember how to breathe.

The street is empty. I’m alone.

N o . No, not now, please not now—

“What is it, what’s wrong?” Katya asks, panicked, and I shake my head violently, squeezing my eyes shut.

“Get her out of here,” I manage to say in Lian’s direction, even as I can feel my chest tightening like a balloon about to pop, like someone’s sitting on top of it. I dig my palms into my closed eyes until I’m essentially blinding myself, but I can’t bring myself to notice, let alone care.

Obviously, neither of them listens to me. It’d be almost comical if I weren’t so busy trying to escape the crushing grip my life has on my throat. I can feel Katya coming closer until she kneels down in front of me, putting her hands on my face, gently pushing my sweaty hair off my forehead. The feeling is so good in a sea of bad that I let out a choked whimpering sound. Pathetic. Dad was right, you’re just a pathetic piece of shit—

“How do I help?” she asks softly, and it takes all my remaining self-control to not burst into tears just at that.

“I don’t—I—you—” She can’t see me like this, she can’t , but I can’t even get the words out to tell her to go. Somehow, though, it doesn’t matter. It doesn't make a difference.

“I’m not leaving you,” Katya says, with a finality that lets me know that there’s no chance of changing her mind. “Now, someone, tell me what to do.”

Lian tells her. And she pulls me through.