Page 32 of Unsteady

He’s exactly the campus golden boy I imagined. A slightly more rugged version of his team photo that my illicit internet search yielded.

Something about it makes my stomach hurt.

Victoria lays a delicate hand on his arm as she speaks again.

An irrational flare of jealousy has my spine straightening, before I sit as far away from the both of them on the bench, slamming my bag down with more force than necessary.

“Oh!” Victoria perks at the sight of me, turning slightly so she can face us both, her hands holding lightly to the strap of her bag where she clasps and unclasps her pink claw clip. The sound is grating over my ears, but more grating is her chipper giggle.

“Good morning, Sadie. I didn’t see you. Have you met Rhys?” She gestures to him, angling her shoulder into his bicep like they are familiar.

While I can still taste him.

I lick my lips.

My eyes slide to meet his curious gaze, fixated on my face in the same way it continuously has been.

“I haven’t. Didn’t know it was ‘bring-your-boy-toy-to-work’ day, otherwise I wouldn’t have shown up empty handed.” While the words are voiced towards Victoria, it’s Rhys who I want to hear them. The quick set of his jaw and flare of his nostrils are the only proof that I’ve succeeded.

My phone is buzzing again, and I finally grab for it, answering without even looking.

“What?”

“Sadie.” The tearful voice of my youngest brother comes through the line and my heart slams into my stomach. “You-you have to come back.”

There’s not even a moment of hesitation, before I whisper into the receiver, “I’m on my way, bug,” and hang up.

My back still turned away from them, huddling the corner like I might disappear into it, I hear Victoria’s audible, heavy sigh.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice a soft little whisper intended only for Rhys in this echoing room. “Sadie is… kind of a loner. She doesn’t really play well with others.”

I’ve played just fine with him for a month.

The way she speaks over me like some sort of problem child only ratchets up my rising anger at her well-rested face and bright-eyed beauty, until it’s bubbling out of my mouth.

“Well, there’s only room for one person on the first place podium, Vicky,” I snap, with a hateful smirk across my sullen, pale face. “But maybe you’ll get there one day.”

“Sadie.”

The bottom drops out of my stomach, making sweat bead at my brow.

Coach Kelley, standing tall with a glowering stare and furrowed brows. His disappointment has always been a great weakness of mine; the single male figure I’ve looked up to most of my life.

He took me on at age eleven after watching me throw a tantrum for losing my first place streak, with no parental figure to stop me from pulling the plastic crown out of the other girl’s slicked back hair. His coaching career was only five years young at the time, starting immediately after tearing an ACL and never recovering back to his quad lutz status from his previous Olympic run.

He followed me from juniors to college, once I missed the Olympic qualifier. And his disappointment in knowing his prized pupil would never skate for Team USA was something that haunted me. It was part of what caused me to spiral.

And part of the reason I am now on probation, not able to compete until I pull my attendance up to at least seventy percent.

“Coach.” I grimace, nearly unable to swallow under the panic.

God, why is everyone here so fucking early today?

I reach to untie my skates to avoid every single eye now directed towards me.

“We gonna have a problem again this year?”

I keep my head held high but my cheeks are warm with embarrassment as the obvious reprimand flares. Even worse, in front of Victoria and Rhys.

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