Chapter Eight

KATYA

“ J esus, Katya, how hard is it to just listen to what I’m telling you? One second of you shutting up! Literally that’s all I need!”

“I am listening, the problem is that you’re wrong,” I snap.

“I’m not wrong. I’m just saying that your entry is weird, and if you keep doing it that way, we’ll never be able to do side-by-side jumps good enough to win anything. That is what you’re in the mood for , isn’t it?” he says spitefully.

I scowl. “My triple Axel is perfectly fine.”

“Actually,” Lian interrupts warily, “he’s not completely wrong.”

“ Thank you!”

“Don’t thank me yet, kiddo. Her failures are your failures, and vice versa. You aren’t evaluated separately. One of you eats it on a jump, both of you get the deduction.”

“Well, I don’t know why you’re looking at me,” I say, crossing my arms. “I’m the one with quads here. I don’t think he of all people should be lecturing me on jump technique.”

“Believe me, I could do them too if I was cheating them like you are.”

“Excuse me?”

“I think you heard me.”

Before I can launch a long series of curses, Lian jumps in.

“If the both of you don’t shut your mouths and skate, I’m going to crack out the duct tape and do it for you. Triple Salchows. Now.”

And so it goes. As soon as four o’clock rolls around, both of us beeline for the exit, but Lian sticks out a hand to stop us from stepping off the ice. “Hold on.”

Bryan groans. “Lee, come on!”

“Go take fifteen. I promise I won’t keep you from your Bachelor marathon for long.”

My eyebrows fly up. “You watch The Bachelor?”

“So?” Bryan asks, a little defensively. “I watch it with my sister.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

Lian sighs. “I might actually want you both out of my sight more than you two do. Bryan, go. Katya, stay.”

“Someone’s in trouble,” Bryan sings, and I glare at him , but he just grins and disappears off into the hallway.

Great. What is she going to tell me now? That I can’t be so mean to him? It’s honestly surprising how much this coach babies him, considering she’s so hardcore. She clearly has a soft spot for him, and I’m thinking it’s going to get me into deeper trouble, but when she turns to me, lifting her perfect eyebrows, she just says, “You haven’t punched him yet. I’m surprised.”

Oh . The surprise melts away quickly, and I clear my throat. “Believe me, I’ve been close.”

That gets a laugh out of her. “So have I. Bryan can be aggravating.”

“That’s one word for it,” I mutter.

Lian gives me a look. “I wasn’t finished. He’s an excellent skater—”

“That’s not what I would have said.” I finally did my research. I was right about him. And, probably, far too generous earlier at lunch when I said his senior resume was less than impressive. I didn’t delve too deep—his recent track record is the only thing that matters, and he hasn’t won a single competition since his last appearance at the U.S. Junior Nationals five years ago. Not a single gold medal in five. Whole. Seasons.

“Don’t be mean, Katya. That’s your partner.”

“Like you’d let me forget.”

“Look. I’m the first to admit he’s been having a bad couple of years. Believe me, I’m the one that’s been trying to fix it. But unlike you, kid, I’ve got two Olympic medals hanging on my wall. I’ve had dozens of skaters come to me trying to bribe me into coaching them this past year alone. Do you seriously think I’d have stuck with the kid this long if I didn’t think he had something?”

I…hadn’t thought of that.

“Did you talk to him about the agreement? Officially registering as a team?”

“I told him I haven’t decided yet.”

She eyes me, evaluating me, like an x-ray. “Hm.”

I think I may have finally met someone who can make me nervous. “I need to think.”

“About what?”

“Bryan,” I say without thinking. It’s the first thing that comes to mind.

Lian raises an eyebrow. “I thought I explained him.”

Explained him? Nothing about him can be explained. Nothing about this situation can be explained. I take a deep breath. “What’s he like? On the ice, I mean.”

“Bryan is…unusual.”

I frown at her word choice. What is that supposed to mean? My question must show on my face, because Lian sighs. “He is undeniably talented. He has good form and technique; he’s strong but fun; not aggressive or too flouncy to be interesting. When he’s got the emotion, he sells it like no one else can. His jumps are hit-or-miss, but his triple Axel is usually excellent. Which brings us to the problem. He has consistency issues, which of course shows most obviously in his jumps. These last few years, he’s had major trouble in competition. He freezes up; gets stage fright, if you will. He feels like he has no chance, so he gives up before the music’s even started.”

Sounds like an absolute disaster.

“But his problems are fixable. So are yours.”

Mine? “What are you talking about?”

“You think the quads are the problem. And maybe they are, but there’s more to it than what you think. You and I both know you can land those jumps. But you haven’t learned good mental technique, and your regimens are not okay. You need sleep, nutrients. Bryan was right before. Some of the jump technique you learned relies too much on having the body of a preteen. The biggest issue, though, is that you push too hard. If you keep going the way you’re going, you’re going to crash and burn again. Maybe for good next time.”

I go cold at the prediction, but fear is quickly replaced with the far more comfortable anger. Who does this woman think she is ? It’s like I said to Bryan. I didn’t get to be the best—or even second-best—in the entire world by fooling around. I worked my ass off. For years. Day in, day out, seven hours a day, six days a week, for over a decade. This is all I’ve ever done. And that’s the only reason I’m standing around putting up with this, from someone who doesn’t know me. Because I want to stay at the fucking top.

Lian chugs from her enormous thermos, then clears her throat and continues so casually you wouldn’t think she was just basically calling me a na?ve psychopath two seconds away from blowing up. “You’re not a team player, either. You keep insulating yourself and being defensive as if you were still in singles. But I’m not Zhukova. I don’t train ten girls at once and pit them against each other to see who claws their way to the top.”

“That’s not true,” I interrupt automatically, a bit aggressively. “Tatyana knew that we needed to be pushed to succeed. She knew that having all of us fighting for first would bring out the best in us.”

Everyone acts like she’s some kind of abuser. I think they’re just so shocked by the sheer amount of talent she produces that they can’t believe there isn’t something bad going on behind the scenes. In reality, it’s nothing any other coach would do—dieting, strict regimens, it’s all part of any sport, and especially one like this. She was almost like a second mother, with all of us so far away from our families. She pushed us hard, but it was because she wanted the best for her skaters. And I’m grateful for it. I never would have made it without her.

It’s clear Lian doesn’t agree, but she at least doesn’t say so. “The point still stands. I’m only coaching the two of you, now that the AFSC has our back. You are my sole priority, but that only works if both of you step up. You and Bryan will be a team. You need each other. I can guarantee he will put everything he has into this partnership. He’ll be here for five a.m. sessions and whatever else needs to be done in order to get you two to where you need to be, because that’s the kind of skater, the kind of person , he is. I can’t say the same for you yet.” Her dark eyes bore into mine. “But I think you are, too.”

I cross my arms. “Why?” Why am I even asking? I don’t need this woman to validate me.

“Because I was like you once. I know you want to keep skating, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. And like I said before, I’ve been watching you for a long time. I’ve seen you when you’re out on the ice. You care. A lot. And you also want to win.”

I stiffen.

Anyone in a sport wants to win. That’s why athletes give up so much, why we spend so many hours improving ourselves. Cardio, lifting, running, abdominals, doing suicides until we want to commit suicide, sacrificing everything from sleep to relationships to eating birthday cake on your birthday. The sport comes first, until we come first.

But now, things are different. Skating is all I have now. I don’t have anything else to fall back on. I’m stranded in an unfamiliar country, soft-blocked by half my contact list, with no family, no friends, and a work visa status that can be pulled out from under me any minute.

All I know is skating. All I know is it’s all I have left.

I need to win.

Lian eyes me like she can hear my thoughts. “You can do it with him. You can be the best, and you know it. Don’t you?”

Just hearing those words makes something in me ache. I haven’t been the best in so long. I’m the first to say that it’s important for bigger jumps to push the sport forward—but sometimes I can’t help but remember that, before Polina got her quad Lutz and could throw it into all her programs, she was still losing to me by a decent margin. Which is why it always left a bitter taste in my mouth when I watched them put the gold around her neck.

I’m aware of how whiny it might sound. But I know I would be the best if it weren’t for one jump, or even one combination to make up the difference. Is it really so ridiculous that I want to land it, too? That—if there isn’t any point in trying to prove jumps aren’t everything in figure skating—I can at least prove myself?

“Don’t you?” Lian repeats.

I bite my lip and nod curtly, not that she needs me to confirm what she already knows. What everyone already knows. That I’ll do anything to win.

She looks at me, a strange smile on her face. “That’s what I thought. We can’t have you living out of a hotel in ski season; that’s a death wish. You’ll stay with me, in Bryan’s old room.”

I won’t lie, even living with this lunatic woman sounds better than the dollhouse-sized room I’ve been crammed up in for the last two days. “Thank you.”

“I’ll get you a key today. Once we start training for real, there won’t be any time.”

“Works for me.”

Lian laughs, picking up her thermos and walking off. “You’ll be singing a different tune pretty soon.”

“I guess you don’t know me that well yet,” I call after her.

She turns, ebony hair swishing. Then she grins, her eyebrows raised.

“Surprise me.”