Chapter 22

Chapter 22

The day of the photo shoot with Garrett was a blur in my memory. Bright lights and pulsing electronic music and the photographer shouting to arch your back, tilt your head, more, yes yes just like that, hold it, don’t you dare move. The space had been freezing, and it took all my concentration to keep from flinching whenever Garrett’s cold hands brushed against my skin. The experience felt bizarre, awkward. Not the least bit sexy.

But you’d never have guessed that from the finished product. On the billboard, Garrett was shirtless, his pants so snug they may as well have been ballet tights, while I wore shorts and a strappy crop top that barely contained my cleavage. My leg was hitched up around his hip, his hand gripping my bare thigh, and we were gazing into each other’s eyes.

Except we hadn’t been—I distinctly remembered focusing on his ear, or the lock of hair across his forehead, because looking right at him felt too uncomfortable. Despite that, the photographer had somehow made it seem as though I was looking not into Garrett’s eyes, but into his very soul.

And now Heath wouldn’t look at me at all.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” he muttered, turning back the way we’d come.

I started to follow him. Bella caught my arm.

“Let him go. He’s being a dick.”

“But we have to skate tonight.”

“So what, you’re gonna beg for his forgiveness? Screw that. You did nothing wrong.”

I had lied to him—by omission, at least. Because I knew exactly how he would react.

My first instinct was to soothe his hurt feelings the way I usually did. But staring up at the billboard, I didn’t want to be my usual self. I wanted to be the fierce, confident woman I saw in the photograph. That woman wouldn’t apologize or grovel or explain.

“You’re right.” I looped my elbow through Bella’s again. “Let’s eat.”

—

I didn’t see Heath again until it was time to leave for the competition. The shuttle bus was so full, he had to take the seat next to mine, but it was clear he was still stewing. As the other skaters chatted amongst themselves or sang along with the J-pop on the radio, he remained stubbornly taciturn the whole way to the M-Wave Arena.

The arena’s ridged structure was supposedly designed to echo Nagano’s mountainous landscape. It looked more like an armadillo crouched in the frostbitten grass. The first time we’d crossed the threshold, though, it had given me a heart-pounding thrill to know I stood in one of the venues from the 1998 Olympics. Heath and I had watched them on TV when we were fourteen, and four years later, there we were, about to compete in our first World Championships final.

About to compete, and giving each other the silent treatment. We went through our pre-skate routine separately. I stretched alone, using the cinder-block walls instead of Heath’s hands to get the necessary support and resistance.

I hoped once we were on the ice, muscle memory—or plain old habit—would take over. But Heath wouldn’t even take my hand during the group warm-up. After doing my own makeup, I usually applied his eyeliner—a subtle smudge along his lashes, enough to make his expressions show to the back of the stands—but he decided to do that by himself too. The black line was so messy, it made him look slightly feral. We stayed close to the sides of the rink, stiff and awkward with a wide space between us as our competitors spun and stroked past in perfect sync.

By the boards, our coaches looked on. The Canadian coaching team stood between Sheila and Veronika Volkova, as if they sensed a buffer was necessary. Veronika’s hair was bleached even blonder than it had been back in her skating days, and she wore a sable coat with a dramatic collar that set off the steep angles of her features. She was one of the only women in ice dance taller than I was—though her partner Mikhail had been well over six foot even out of his skates.

Yelena Volkova had the same pale hair and narrow, feline eyes as her aunt, but otherwise the two women were nothing alike. Yelena had only just turned sixteen, and she was so small and fragile-looking she could’ve passed for younger. Her partner—Nikita Zolotov, Mikhail’s son—was well into his twenties, which made her seem even more like a little girl out on the ice.

With two minutes left in the warm-up, Sheila waved Heath and me over to her. I steeled myself for the worst—but if she could shake Heath out of his funk, it would be worth it.

As soon as he’d snapped his blade guards on, though, Heath stalked away, leaving me to face Sheila alone.

“I’m sorry.” The words I refused to say to Heath fell right out of my mouth when faced with our coach’s intimidating stare. “Heath’s mad at me, because I—”

Sheila put a hand up. “I don’t care. You’re on in five minutes. Make up with him.”

“Why should I be the one to have to apologize?”

Even as the words spilled out, I wanted to stuff them back down my throat. No one spoke to Sheila Lin like that.

To my surprise, she softened. “I know how you feel, believe me. But what do you care about more, Ms. Shaw—your performance or your pride?”

I didn’t see why I should have to choose. This was the World Championships, though, and we were on the brink of a bronze medal.

So I went in search of Heath, ready to say or do whatever it took to get him to forgive me—at least until the end of the free dance. My training at the Academy had improved my skating, but it had also taught me how to perform under pressure. Whether you’re miserable or in pain or so pissed off you want to scream, you have to keep a smile on your face. And you have to convince everyone watching—the audience, the judges, even your partner—that it’s genuine.

I’d made it all of two steps into the backstage area when Garrett intercepted me.

“Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.” I tried to peer around him, but his broad shoulders blocked my view. He still had his oversized Team USA jacket zipped over the gauzy gray costume he wore for the twins’ somber orchestral piece in tribute to the 9/11 victims. The choreography had been completed months before the attacks, but their mother knew a PR opportunity when she saw one. “Have you seen—”

“Bella told me about the billboard. She said Heath was upset.” Garrett leaned closer. “I could talk to him if you want? Make sure he knows nothing…happened, or—”

“I appreciate the offer. But I’ve got it under control.”

Or I would, if I could get to Heath in time. The fifth-place couple from Japan had already started their program, so the clock was ticking.

“Gotcha,” Garrett said. “Well, good luck out there. You two have been killing it.”

“You too.” I smiled up at him. “See you on the podium?”

“See you on the podium.”

Garrett walked away, giving me a quick shoulder squeeze on his way past. The Japanese team’s music shifted into the slow, lyrical section signaling the halfway point of their free dance. I had to find Heath.

But he had already found me.

Before, he’d been freezing me out. Now he was blazing with fury. Even at a distance, I could sense the heat of it, like I was standing too close to an open flame.

“Sorry,” he said. Exactly what I wanted to hear, but not at all the way I wanted to hear it. “Did you two want to be alone?”

“Stop it.” I pulled him behind the bank of monitors, which showed the Japanese skaters whirling in an intricate combination spin. “Garrett was just—”

“He was touching you.”

“He squeezed my shoulder. ”

“I see the way he looks at you. Not only on that fucking billboard either.”

“That ‘fucking billboard’ is the only reason we’re here.”

Heath furrowed his brow. “What?”

“Without the money I made with the photo shoot, we would’ve had to quit the Academy months ago.” It turned out “not much” to Garrett was more money than I’d ever seen at one time, enough to cover our costs for the rest of the season.

“What about your inheritance?” Heath asked.

“Lee spent it. All of it. And if it weren’t for Garrett getting me that job—”

“I don’t want to hear—”

“ If it weren’t for Garrett, we would never have made it to Worlds in the first place. You should be thanking him.”

Heath was silent for a moment, and I expected the next words out of his mouth to be something like Why didn’t you tell me? Or even I’m going to kill him —referring to Lee, or Garrett, or both.

Instead he said, “Are you attracted to him?”

I rolled my eyes. “Come on.”

“Are you or aren’t you?”

The space rumbled with applause as the Japanese team took their bows. We should’ve been out there already, prepared to step onto the ice as soon as they sat down in the kiss and cry.

“It was just a photo shoot,” I said. “Now let’s get going, we have to—”

“It’s a simple question, Katarina. Yes or no.”

An insulting question, and it deserved an insulting answer.

“Of course I’m attracted to Garrett. He’s attractive.”

Heath opened his mouth to retort, but I barreled ahead.

“If you trust me, it shouldn’t matter.”

“Trust you?” Heath scoffed. “How can I, when you’re lying to me? Keeping secrets, running around behind my back with—”

“Because I knew you’d react this way! I’m allowed to have other friends, Heath.”

More applause. The scores had been posted. We’d missed our entire solo warm-up.

“You’re like a different person around them,” he said. “I hardly recognize you.”

I thought that was why we’d come to the Academy: To become different. Better. The best possible versions of ourselves. He was right, I had changed.

The problem was, he hadn’t changed at all. He was the same boy I’d known for nearly a decade, wounded and stubborn and so lonely, he’d made me his whole world.

Heath had a bottomless pit inside him too, but it had nothing to do with ambition. No matter how much love I gave him, it would never be enough. He wanted to be everything to me, the way I was everything to him.

And I would always want more.

“Next to skate, representing the United States of America, Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha!”

“It’s our turn.” I held out my hand. “We have to go.”

The crowd buzzed with confusion at the delay. If we didn’t take the ice within two minutes after our names were announced, we’d be disqualified.

“Heath, please. We’ve made it this far. This is our dream, our—”

“No, Katarina.” He sighed and slipped his hand into mine. “It’s your dream.”