Page 153 of Oh, Flutz!

“Wow,” Katya says dryly, and I fail to suppress my grin.

“I think that was the worst motivational speech I’ve ever heard in my life,” I tell Lian, handing her my guards over and gasping for air as I start laughing hysterically. “No one is expecting us to win right now, Andreyeva, did you hear?”

Katya shakes her head in pretend disappointment, but she’s grinning too, passing our coach her own guards. “I think we should just quit now, Young, since we have no chance.”

Lian huffs, rolling her eyes and putting our guards away before shooing us forward onto the ice. “Get your asses out there. Clearly I don’t need to be worried if you’re cracking jokes.”

“Love you too, Lee. Aren’t you gonna wish us luck?”

She looks right at me. “You don’t need it.”

“Now on the ice, skating for the United States of America, Ekaterina Andreyeva and Bryan Young!”

The audience starts clapping and cheering, and I turn to my partner. “You ready, sunshine?”

Katya gives me a smirk. “Let’s do this.”

It was almost ahome run. We were so close. I was a little antsy going into the throw, so my “limp noodle arms” actually were limp and noodle-like, so Katya was on the verge of completely falling down out of it before (thankfully) she caught herself. Our artistic scores could have been higher, too, which is why we’re stuck in second behind the Russian pair.

“We’ll just have to kill it on Thursday,” I tell her for the millionth time as we’re heading down to the arena for our practice session, and she sighs sharply.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Like I said, the pressure’s on. As if on cue, Lian rubs at her temples. “This is going to be the death of me, I can feel it. I’m hearing the Russians might have a quad twist, too.” She sighs. “I need coffee in a goddamn IV.”

I turn to look at Katya, who suddenly looks ten shades whiter than normal.

“Katya?” I reach out and touch her shoulder. “Are you good?”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she blurts, before rushing out.

“Katya!” I jog afterher down the hall towards the bathroom, catching the door as it swings shut behind her.

She’s pacing back and forth, digging her hands through her hair. “We can’t do this. There’s no way. We can’t win this.”

“Katya, it’s going to be fine.” Honestly, at this point, it would’ve been more worrying if one of ushadn’tstarted freaking out by now.

“No, I can’t do this. I can’t. We’ll have to pull out.”

“Pull out?” I repeat, incredulous. “Are you insane?” The shock turns into plain old confusion. “I don’t understand. This is the Olympics, Katya. This is your dream.Ourdream.” Is she worried about me messing up again?

“I know. And I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.” She laughs bleakly, leaning forward against the countertop. “It isn’t you I’m worried about. I don’t want to let you down. Let everyone down, all over again.”

Oh.I soften, reaching my hand across the counter to cover her own. “Hey.Hey. It’s going to be fine. You won’t fall.”

She chokes out another laugh, looking at me with her eyes red and lashes gloopy with mascara tears. “How can you say that? You don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“We’ve been training for this. We know our shit.”

“Nationals may have been perfect, but this is theOlympics, Yasha. Everyone’s going to expect us to be even better now. And if I screw it up, they’re just going to hate me even more.” Katya flops against the tampon dispenser thing on the wall, face crumpling.

“That’s not true.” I frown. “And besides, half of those people out there are your fans. They all love you.”

“That just makes it worse.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because—” She drags her hand over her face. “I don’t know. If they love me, it won’t be for long. Not if I mess up. I can’t disappoint everyone again. Ican’t.” Katya takes a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself down, and I should probably do something to comfort her, but I’m just…not exactly smiling, because that would be weird and sadistic of me, but in awe. Because,wow.We really are exactly the same.

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