Page 39 of The Favorites
More applause. The scores had been posted. We’d missed our entire solo warm-up.
“You’re like a different person around them,” he said. “I hardly recognize you.”
I thought that was why we’d come to the Academy: To become different. Better. The best possible versions of ourselves. He was right, I had changed.
The problem was, he hadn’t changed at all. He was the same boy I’d known for nearly a decade, wounded and stubborn and so lonely, he’d made me his whole world.
Heath had a bottomless pit inside him too, but it had nothing to do with ambition. No matter how much love I gave him, it would never be enough. He wanted to be everything to me, the way I was everything to him.
And I would always want more.
“Next to skate, representing the United States of America, Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha!”
“It’s our turn.” I held out my hand. “We have to go.”
The crowd buzzed with confusion at the delay. If we didn’t take the ice within two minutes after our names were announced, we’d be disqualified.
“Heath, please. We’ve made it this far. This is our dream, our—”
“No, Katarina.” He sighed and slipped his hand into mine. “It’syourdream.”
Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha take the ice at the 2002 World Championships in Nagano.
Kirk Lockwood:You could tell from the moment they came out, something was off.
The video zooms in on Katarina’s face, then Heath’s. Both are set in grim masks, glaring at each other. “Fever” starts to play.
Ellis Dean:That program was the most passive-aggressive shit I’d ever seen—and I’m from the South, honey.
More clips of Shaw and Rocha’s free dance. They’re simply going through the motions—not connected, not looking at each other. During the twizzle sequence, Katarina is a full rotation ahead of Heath, and he stumbles on the final turn.
Kirk Lockwood:It was like all the heat between them sputtered out.
Jane Currer:It was unfortunate, but that’s the downside of relying on…chemistry.
Another moment, later in the program: Katarina reaches for Heath, but they’re farther apart than they should be. Their fingertips brush without grasping.
Garrett Lin:I felt awful. They were fighting because of me.
Cut to Veronika Volkova, sitting with ramrod straight posture on a red velvet settee in her Moscow flat. She’s in her sixties now, her hair turned fully white.
Veronika Volkova:Such childish soap operatics would not be tolerated in Russia.
Katarina and Heath reach the end of the program. As soon as the music stops, they break their final pose, as though they can’t stand to touch each other for a second longer.
Veronika Volkova:Personal feelings have no place on the ice. Many days Mikhail and I could hardly stand the sight of each other, but when we were skating, could you tell? No. Because we were professionals.
Garrett Lin:I shouldn’t have watched them. Seeing them like that…it got in my head.
Kirk Lockwood:The Lins didn’t skate up to their usual standard that day either.
During the Lins’ free dance at the 2002 World Championships, Garrett momentarily loses his balance coming out of a stationary lift, nearly dropping Bella. He manages to save it at the last second, but Bella shoots him a glare before regaining her composure.
Garrett Lin:It was my fault. And it felt like the end of the world. Years later, I would still lie awake at night thinking about that skate. I’d failed my mother and my sister and myself, and I couldn’t think of anything worse. Funny how little imagination I had at seventeen, huh?
Chapter 23
“In first place, and world ice dance champions for 2002…”
