Chapter 38

Chapter 38

The worst thing about figure skating competitions isn’t the pressure.

It’s how much time you have to sit around and wait.

The 2006 U.S. National Championships was worse than most in that regard. After busting our asses doing back-to-back programs on our first day of competition, we had two full days off before the ice dance final. Some skaters attended other events. Some took advantage of the unseasonable warmth in St. Louis and went sightseeing, riding to the top of the Gateway Arch or touring the Anheuser-Busch stables. In the evening, anyone old enough to drink (and even a few who weren’t) descended on the bar at the official headquarters hotel to gossip the night away.

Not me. Sheila had booked us accommodations at the Chase Park Plaza, a luxury hotel a few miles from the whirlwind of the competition venue, and aside from scheduled practice sessions, I didn’t leave my room.

I stretched to keep my muscles limber. I ordered room service meals full of balanced proteins. And most of all, I visualized: not only the details of our free dance program, but everything that would come after our victory. I lay starfished on the king-sized bed with my eyes closed and repeated it over and over, a movie in my mind.

By the time I arrived at the Savvis Center for the free dance, my fantasies felt so real, it was if they’d already transpired. In the dressing room, the other girls steered clear, like I had a force field surrounding my body. Nothing could rattle me.

Not even Heath and Bella. When I emerged in full costume and makeup, they were still in their warm-up clothes, getting a pep talk from Sheila.

I didn’t need a pep talk. I didn’t need anything, except to get out there and win. The technical base value of our free dance was higher than theirs; when we performed it perfectly, the way I’d been picturing for days, we would triumph.

Finally, it was time for the last group, the top five couples in the competition. Gaskell and Kovalenko. Hayworth and Dean. Fischer and Chan, a solid but unremarkable pair who trained near Detroit. Garrett and me. Heath and Bella.

So what if they got to skate in the coveted final spot? That just meant all eyes would be on them when they got their scores in the kiss and cry and realized they’d lost.

The clock started for the group warm-up, and I took off so fast, Garrett had to scurry to catch up.

“You good?” he asked once he got ahold of my hand.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

I didn’t even look at him. We had our warm-up routine down to a science: stroking two full laps of the rink side by side, forward and backward progressives switching between several different dance holds, then running through a few of our trickier program elements to make sure we were completely in sync.

“You seem…” Garrett leaned down. “Distracted.”

Distracted? Ridiculous. I’d never been more focused in my life. Distracted was what I’d been before, when I was still letting Heath’s machinations get to me, but I was finished with that. I had wanted to go to the Olympics since before I even knew Heath Rocha existed.

Out of the corner of my eye, a swirl of emerald silk—Bella and Heath whizzing past, close enough for the flare of her skirt to brush my leg.

Garrett tugged me closer, keeping me clear of their path. My temper flared. They should be the ones getting out of our way.

Two minutes left in the warm-up. We ran through our midline step sequence and moved on to the twizzles. I cued up my mental movie again, zipping through it on fast-forward.

First, every step of our free dance, flawless, even better than we’d done it in San Diego.

Garrett and I standing on top of the podium, the national anthem heralding our fourth consecutive U.S. title. Heath and Bella an inconsequential blur on the silver medal step.

Then the Olympic team announcement. The flight to Italy. Our arrival in Torino. Walking in the opening ceremony in our Team USA uniforms. Everything up to the moment when we had those golds around our necks. Shaw and Lin, the first Americans to win Olympic medals in ice dance since Lin and Lockwood in 1988.

As I entered the final turn of the twizzle sequence, I was smiling. I was so close. Soon it would all be mine. The gold, the fame, the security. Everything I’d longed for since I was four years old, and more.

I reached for Garrett. He reached back. Behind him, a flash of green and black.

And then blinding white, rushing toward me.