Chapter 59

Chapter 59

Bella’s phone screen showed a Kiss & Cry post with a picture of Heath at the top—not a recent photo, but one from years before, when his hair was buzzed short. The way he looked when he reappeared in my life after his three-year absence.

I took the phone and scrolled down to the article below the image. No matter how many times I read the words, my mind refused to make sense of them.

“No.” I shook my head and handed the phone back. “This isn’t true.”

“I didn’t want to believe it either. But—”

“It’s not true.” I kept shaking my head. Back and forth, back and forth. A flag whipping in the wind, unable to settle until the storm passed. “There’s no way.”

I caught a flicker of red in my peripheral vision: Heath, jogging around the corner, jacket flaring behind him.

He’d seen those outrageous lies too, and he was coming to reassure me of what I already knew: none of it was true, because if it was, he would have told me.

He’d had so many chances to tell me.

Looking out over the canyon in Los Angeles, when I first asked what happened to him during his time away. All those months alone in Illinois. The years we’d spent together since, skating and sleeping side by side, partners in every possible way.

Heath would clear up this misunderstanding, and we would win the gold, and later we’d laugh about this. I knew it, like I knew him.

Then I saw the look on his face, and I realized: I didn’t know Heath Rocha at all.

“Katarina,” he said. “Let me explain.”

“No.” I turned away. The choker fell out of my hand. I heard Heath pick it up, the scrape of beads on the floor. His footsteps following me as I fled down the hall. “No.”

The article claimed that after Heath left me in Nagano, he traveled to Moscow and begged Veronika Volkova to coach him. He was willing to do anything.

Anything. Enduring training methods so harsh they left him bleeding. Skating with Yelena Volkova, pursuing Russian citizenship so he could officially become her partner after Nikita Zolotov’s retirement. And worst of all, telling the Russians everything he knew about me, about the Lins, about the Ice Academy, so they could use it to beat us.

Training with our competitors, I could understand. We’d spent years sharing the ice with sworn rivals—including each other. But to actually conspire with the Volkovas—to share my secrets, my weaknesses, my insecurities? To take the years of history and trust we’d shared and trade them as currency? That was true betrayal.

“I should have told you,” Heath said. “I know I should have told you, but don’t you see what’s happening here? This was released today, right before the final. Whoever did this, they’re trying to turn us against each other. We can’t let them.”

He took my hands, the choker pressed between our palms like a rosary.

“Please, Katarina. You have to know it was all for you. I did it all for you, to—” He blinked back tears, but it was too late, his eye makeup was already blurring. “Please. I love you. I never stopped loving you, not for one second.”

Heath had been hurt. He’d been desperate. In his own twisted way, he’d done it all out of love. I could have forgiven him for that.

What I couldn’t forgive was how he’d allowed his secrets to fester, so they could be used against him—against us —at the worst possible time. He kept begging me to let him in, to open up and be honest, and all the while he’d kept me locked in the dark for years. Heath had always kept me in the dark. It was one thing when we were young, when he was a traumatized little boy who lacked the words to express what had happened to him. But we weren’t children anymore.

“I can’t deal with this now.” I pulled away from him, snatching the choker too. My fingers trembled, but after a few tries I managed to clasp it myself. “We can talk about it later.”

“Katarina, you can’t just—”

I was already walking away. We were minutes from the introduction of the final group. We had to focus. We had to win.

I don’t remember lacing up my skates or removing my blade guards or stepping onto the ice. I don’t remember the group warm-up or the waiting period that followed as the other teams performed their programs. I don’t even remember skating out for the start of our free dance. In my memory of that night, I’m walking away from Heath, and the next second I’m skating with him in the Olympic final.

One thing I can’t forget, though: how fucking furious I was.