Chapter 70

Chapter 70

When Heath and I decided to attempt a comeback, I knew we would face our fair share of obstacles: better teams, biased officials, bad press, all the unresolved personal tensions between him and Bella and me.

But I never guessed we’d be brought down by fucking sequins.

Back in my Moscow hotel suite, I checked every square centimeter of that costume ten times over. No sequins were missing. Besides that, the ones I found on the ice were subtly different from the ones on my dress: brighter white, with sharper edges.

I know we were sabotaged. I also knew if we pushed the issue, we would only bolster our reputations for courting drama and scandal. Ellis Dean’s gossip rag ran the GlitterGate story into the dirt, while every reputable news outlet treated it as a joke.

Back in Los Angeles, my rental property began to draw swarms of paparazzi like flies to rotting meat, so I retreated to the Ice Palace. Though Heath had been telling me the truth—he and Bella slept in separate bedrooms and behaved more like roommates than lovers—it was still strange, the three of us living together after everything we’d put one another through. The house was over ten thousand square feet, and it didn’t feel big enough to contain our fraught triangle.

Heath’s doctors were optimistic his back would be sufficiently healed for the U.S. National Championships in January. In the meantime, though, he was on a strict regimen of rest, physical therapy, and World Anti-Doping Agency–approved pain medication. I kept up my training as best I could without him, running through the choreography with my arms embracing empty space, like I was dancing with a ghost.

During the Grand Prix Final in December, we set alarms to wake us up at half past midnight so we could watch the live broadcast from Fukuoka, Japan. Volkova and Kipriyanov had to settle for silver, after Gaskell and Kovalenko pulled off an upset for the gold. Those two teams would be the favorites going into the Sochi Olympics. Heath and I would be lucky to make it to the Games at all.

I fell into bed sometime around four, but I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Francesca Gaskell’s Disney-princess face gazing up at the American flag. Maybe we’d made a mistake, trying to come back. Maybe we were too old, too tired. Even Bella had seemed wrung out lately—dark circles under her eyes, pushing food around her plate at dinner.

Down the hall, I heard Heath’s door open. I tracked his footsteps down the corridor.

Past my room. Stopping at Bella’s. She slept in her childhood bedroom still, leaving the sprawling main suite vacant. A whisper of wood across carpet as the door swung open and shut.

Then silence.

Whatever they were doing, I told myself, it was none of my business. I closed my eyes and tried once again to fall asleep.

That lasted about ten minutes, before I got up and crept across the hall to shamelessly eavesdrop. I held my breath and pressed my ear to Bella’s door, bracing myself for an encore of what I’d interrupted in Vancouver.

But I only heard their voices, low and familiar. Too low to make out what they said. So familiar, so thoroughly at ease with each other, my chest ached with envy.

I went back to my room. Heath stayed with Bella until morning.

—

A week before Christmas, Heath finally got the okay to return to the ice. He wasn’t allowed to lift me, though, until the new year—only a few days before Nationals.

The first time we tried it, even off-ice with crash pads on the floor, was terrifying. His arms shook and his back spasmed and his face screwed up with agony. But he refused to give up. We’d come too far to stop now.

By the time we flew to Boston, he could lift me without my heart leaping into my throat, and we were back to doing full program run-throughs. Our free dance still felt a bit lackluster, our performance not fully meshing with the music, but we didn’t have time to try any significant changes. I did get a new dress for the short dance, though: pleated purple with a kicky skirt and eye-catching lime accents—and absolutely no sequins.

Our Finnstep was far from perfect, but thanks to a few uncharacteristic errors from Gaskell and Kovalenko, Heath and I took the lead. Another national title was within our grasp.

Four years before, getting gold had felt like life or death; now I knew from experience that failure wouldn’t kill me. Even if we fell to second, our chances of an Olympic berth were solid. But I still wanted to win, to show Frannie, Evan, and everyone else that they couldn’t write us off. Heath and I had come back for a reason, and we were going to fight for every point.

The free dance started in the late afternoon. By the time we arrived at the TD Garden arena, the sky was already pitch black, snow flurries shimmying across the frozen Charles River. Bella wore a down coat that looked like a sleeping bag, and she kept it zipped up to her chin even once we were inside.

Ellis Dean had been awarded a special backstage pass to record pre-skate interviews with the competitors. Before my stretching routine, I put in headphones, hoping he’d take the hint. But when I straightened out of my first forward fold, there he was with that stupid sparkly microphone in my face.

“Congrats on being in the lead going into tonight’s final,” he said, practically shouting to make sure I could hear him over my music.

I took out one earpiece, leaving the other one blasting the warm-up playlist Heath had curated for me. Damned if she do, damned if she don’t, moaned Alison Mosshart.

“Although,” Ellis continued, “it’s easy to exceed expectations when they’re low to begin with. How are you feeling about the free dance?”

“I’m feeling fantastic about the free dance. Thanks so much for asking, Ellis.”

“Where’s the lovely Ms. Lin? I’d be thrilled to get her take on your performance too.”

“I haven’t seen her.”

Not since we arrived—which was odd. Usually Bella stuck close while we stretched, and gave us a pep talk before the group warm-up. When I stopped to think about it, she’d been making herself scarce the whole time we’d been in Boston. Our first day, she slept through an early morning practice session, then begged off breakfast to go back to her hotel suite. If I didn’t know her better, I would have thought she was sneaking around with some secret lover.

Ellis moved on to Francesca, who flipped her ponytail and grinned, more than happy to serve up sound bites. I went over to Heath, who was on a floor mat completing some physical therapy exercises.

“Have you seen Bella?” I asked.

He shook his head. Even that small motion provoked a wince.

I bent down beside him. “Your back?”

“It’s just this cold weather,” he said. “Guess California’s turned me soft.”

He needed more rest, more time, more treatment, but we didn’t have it.

“Bella should have some muscle rub in her bag.” I straightened up. “I’ll go find her.”

I figured she was in the bathroom or something, but I checked every stall and there was no sign of her. Maybe she’d gone to get something to eat? Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen her consume more than a granola bar in the past forty-eight hours, and that was only after Heath pressed it into her hand.

I remembered seeing some vending machines down a different hallway, so I headed in that direction. Sure enough, there she was, leaning against the wall, still wearing her winter coat.

“Hey,” I called out. “Heath’s back is acting up, and he was wondering—”

Bella didn’t seem to hear me. She didn’t even turn her head.

I watched in horror as she slumped to the floor.