Page 116 of Oh, Flutz!

That was our present. More competitions. More training. More broken bones. Morerespect—and that was the closest thing to love you could get from Tatyana Zhukova. I remember her turning to us, all looking on in horror as Irina sobbed and screamed; Vanya’s brothers trying to drag her to her feet and off the ice and Mikhail running for the doctor. The comment was for all of us, I think, but she was looking straight at me.

“It’s your turn.”

And it was.

It’s how it works. It’s cruel, but that’s the truth—you make the most of the time you have with the spotlight pointed at you, otherwise you sink into oblivion like all the countless girls and boys who dreamed for something bigger than them, and never felt it in their hands. There’s nothing better than the feeling of gold in your teeth, the weight around your neck. It’s worth the pain, the tears, the nights you’re stuck in your room crushed under something you can’t name. It’s worth all of it. It has to be.

Even if it’s not, I don’t have any choice. The few times you could shake him out of his pragmatic scientist self, Dedushka used to say that everyone’s given this life for a reason—Tatyana somehow managed to be even less philosophical than a physicist; she just called it a hunger. I guess she was right, too. Those nights before the prescriptions, silently gasping for air as I felt myself cracking like a bad egg, it did feel something like starvation.

It's funny. You always know there’s someone right there, itching to replace you. You just never think you’re next. You’re always the exception in your own story, but in the real world, you’re just competing to be the nextfirst—it’s like medicines. It costs billions of dollars to make the first pill. Once you’ve got it, it takes pennies.

How fucking ironic.

My phone lights up in my hand.Speaking of irony.“Misha,” I say, cutting off the rant that’s started the second I hit accept. “Shut up. I needed time to figure it out.”

“What is there to figure out? Either you remain in pairs or you can come back to what you wanted to do this whole time. You either stay there in New York, or you come back home to us.”

He’s right, and I know it. That’s the worst part. This shouldn’t even be a discussion. Something’s wrong with me, I’m not thinking straight.

Mikhail, like always, can tell. “Katenka, do you want this or not?”

Alarmingly enough, tears spring to my eyes, and I wipe at them furiously. God, what iswrongwith me? “Does she really want me back?”

“That wasn’t what I asked,” Misha responds, his voice unnervingly soft, and it just makes my heart rate panic even more.

“Just answer the question. Does Tatyana want me back?”

He exhales heavily. “Yes.”

I let out a horrible sound, something close to a laugh. “Oh my god,” I say, voice thick with tears. Somehow, the confirmation doesn’t bring me any kind of relief. It just makes me more confused.

“Yes, but listen, Ekaterina, if you’re not sure—“

And just like that, I am. I force myself to calm down, take a deep breath. “I’m sure,” I tell him. I can hear him waiting tensely on the other end of the line. “I know what I have to do.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

BRYAN

Something's going on.

I mean it. Katya’s been acting kind of funny, and the fact that she’s here at the rink by herself when I get here, looking like she’s been here for a while, is only serving to make me more worried.

It’s been a few days since we got back to Lake Placid, and she’s barely spoken five words to me. I’m sure she's in her head, freaking out that we won’t be ready in time for Helsinki. And it's making me freak out.

I just want her to be okay. Not just because we skate better when she’s okay, but because—I mean, she’s my partner. I care. A lot.

It’s fine. We’ve all been stressed out lately. The pressure’s on, with the Prix Final coming up, and Nationals right after that, and then the Olympics right after that. Who wouldn’t be stressed? It’s totally fine. Besides, all of us are going out tonight; so we can all let loose a little. We just have to get through this weirdness, and everything will go back to normal.

So here I am, standing out in front of Lian's, itching in my dress shirt and tie from a combination of tight collar and impatience. We were supposed to leave for the banquet fifteen minutes ago—the AFSC always does an event for the national team right before we head out for the tail end of the season, although it’s been years since I’ve actually been invited. I’m about to go inside and drag Katya out myself when, on cue, I hear her voice come from behind me.

“Did you get the car yet?”

I turn around, opening my mouth to tell her that, yes, I did order it, and to stop bossing me around when she’s the one that’s been taking forever, but nothing comes out.

It’s grey.

That’s all I can process for a second, because holy…wow. Once my initial, uh,shockwears off, I can wrap my head around the details. It’s pretty simple—it’s some satiny material the color of storm clouds, the color of her eyes, with a long skirt. Her hair’s piled up at the back, the messiest I’ve ever seen it, strands of light red curling softly around her face.

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