Page 128 of Oh, Flutz!

And that’s when it really hits me.

Don’t fail me again.

I’m the one who’s been failed.

I wait for the floor to open beneath me, for my legs to fold, for everything to collapse and burn around me now that she’s told me the truth. I wait for the world to end. But that already happened last year. And I made it, didn’t I? And I might’ve had help, I had people alongside me, but not her. I did it.Me.

I turn the handle, slowly looking up to meet her eyes.

“What?” she snaps.

“I think letting me back was the biggest mistake you ever made,” I whisper.

Because now I know I don’t belong here. Now I know I am never,evercoming back.

“Get on the ice,” Tatyana hisses, and for once in my life, I don’t listen.

“No.” I thought I was angry when I was left stranded, but this is something else. She’s never wanted the best for me, has she? All she cares about is what’s best for her. She was never my family.They were all right.“I’m not going to let you push me around. I’m not a marionette doll you can manipulate, not anymore. I’m not going to be her ever again.”

“Who’s going to take you?” Tatyana hisses, narrowing her eyes at me and grabbing my wrist as I reach for the door. “The Americans? That idiotic partner of yours? You left them,suka. They’ll never take you back now.” She lets out a laugh. “You ungrateful little whore. You think you can leave after all I’ve done for you? You wouldn’texistif it weren’t for me. If I hadn’t plucked that little chubby rat from the gutter, given her everything she could’ve ever wanted, she wouldn’t be in front of me right now. You saw what happened to Sokolovskaya. You’ll end up just like her. A nobody. Gone before she even saw an Olympics.”

I blink away the tears, ripping my hand away. “Maybe they won’t take me back, but I’d rather risk it than stay.” My voice wobbles. “And whatever you say, Irina got out. I saw her. She’s better now, even though you broke her to pieces. She warned me about you, and I thought she was crazy. I thought she was a traitor, I really did. But it’s not her. It’s you. You’re the one who betrayed us, not her. And—” I have to take a breath, but I say it. Isayit. “I’d rather be a nobody then end up like you.”

I run out of there, down the stairs. I pick up my bag, I get my things, and I keep running, past the other skaters, past the coaches, who all turn their heads as I race by.

“Katya, where are you going?” Ivan shouts after me.

I don’t turn around. For once in my life, I don’t turn around. It’s not Vanya, but this place. And for once in my life, I see the way out.

“Domoy,” I yell over my shoulder, pushing the doors open and letting the light blind me.

I think I’m going home.

Chapter Forty-Three

BRYAN

LAKE PLACID, NEW YORK

“Do your know whyLian wanted to see us?” Nina asks nervously, raking her pink-painted fingernails through her braid as we walk through the lobby of the center towards the management offices.

I shrug. “The new head manager’s starting this week, isn’t she? Probably Lee wants to vent.”

“It’s…Tuesday?”

“So? It only took three hours for her to get the last one fired.”

Yet another casualty of the wrath of Lian Chen. Sad, but inevitable.

Luckily enough, I’ve been able to escape it as of late. Maybe it’s just her feeling sorry for me after my freakout at her place last week, or maybe it’s something else, but, hey, I’ll take it. I’ve had enough on my plate with trying to figure out how to get Alex back on the bus route so I don’t have to keep cutting into practice time dropping her off at school, not to mention still dancing around said freakout with Ollie and Nina, who seem unsure as to whether it would be better to leave the elephant in the room alone or crash-tackle it.

It's fine. Honestly. I’m totally fine.

“What in God’s name could this woman have done to get on Lian’s bad side already?” Ollie is whispering, and Nina snorts.

“What was it Johnny did to get himself in the little black book? Spill her coffee on her?”

I shudder. “Don’t remind me. I had to give her my shirt.”

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