Page 81 of Revolve
As expected, our scores are low. None of our lifts had the technical depth to score big, but that wasn’t the goal; Lidia wanted us to do just enough to qualify. But Sierra, she’s drowning in it. Her silence, her shoulders curling inward, how she can’t look at me—it’s all wrong.
“Sierra—”
She flinches away from my touch. Lidia gives me a look, like I should drop it, let her just simmer in this self-deprecating garbage routine she puts herself through. It pisses me off.
“You don’t get to do this with me,” I say, voice low.
Her head dips, and she blinks rapidly, like she’s trying to drive away the tears. There’s something so fragile about it, the way her walls crack but don’t crumble. How she looks soyoungand vulnerable.
I lift her chin, making her face me, but her eyes stay fixed on the floor. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone as stubborn as she is. There’sa cut of desperation in me that needs to see her eyes, needs to know this isn’t going to get locked in her head.
My lips just barely graze her ear. “You are not going to cry,” I say roughly. “Don’t give that to them.Nobodydeserves your tears.”
When I pull back, there’s a flicker in her eyes. Green, like sunlight filtering through leaves after a storm. It’s a tiny spark, but it’s enough.
“You hear me?” I press, my voice softer now, almost pleading.
She swallows hard as she nods. Slowly, she blinks, letting the tears retreat without falling. Her spine straightens, her jaw tightens, and her usual confidence covers the cracks. I know it’s not real, but it’s enough for her to hold it together.
That is, until Justin Petrov and Julia Romero take the ice. Sierra’s eyes lock onto them like a predator’s to prey, but there’s no fight in her stance, just tension coiling tighter with every perfectly synchronized movement. Like they’re on another level. Strong, fast, and abnormally perfect. The two minutes and forty seconds feel longer than any hockey game I’ve played, the kind of time that makes you aware of every heartbeat.
Then their scores go up. Higher than ours.
My gaze snaps to Sierra just as she goes still. Her shoulders hitch, like she’s been struck, and I swear I can see her unraveling, piece by agonizing piece. I know it’s already too late. Because we just barely made third place.
TWENTY-NINE
SIERRA
THIRD. BRONZE.DEADlast.
I’ve been skating for sixteen years, save for the time I spent in hospital rooms. But I’ve never placed last. Not even during juvenile competitions. In figure skating, third is technically not last since there are at least eight teams here, but it is in every way that matters.
“How?” I whisper more to myself.
But Lidia levels me with a look so serious, I hold back my tears. She knows I don’t mean how we scored so low. I know why that happened, I felt it all in my body. I should have taken my propranolol. I meanhowam I going to make up for so many lost months in the next couple of weeks? How can I improve more than this? I know I’m resilient and determined to a fault, nothing has ever stopped me before, but this new voice in my head that’s clawed into my resolve is hard to shut off. I try to quiet the viscous doubt that drips all over my thoughts.
“Like we always do,” Lidia simply says. “We’re not quitters.”
There’s so much conviction in her words that I can’t refute it. But a part of me wonders why I do this. If it’s worth the pain. I used to think about that possibility, even dreamed about it some nights. Itwas more prominent after the accident, when I’d sit in bed for hours imagining where I’d be if I didn’t choose this life. If I could just be someone else.Dosomething else. But this sport is a part of my very being, and you can’t walk away from your soul.
A warm, firm touch lingers on my arm. Dylan’s been watching me with a cautious look that’s driving me a little crazy. I never expected it to be me who sucked out there. I’d been so hard on him for every mistake that now, having him try to maneuver through the skate to salvage whatever points we could, just so I didn’t fuck it up, makes my chest hurt.
“I’ll be fine.” I swallow the pain of failure that bitters my tongue in hopes that no one else will ever have to taste it.
“I’m not asking you to be,” he says.
My gaze lifts to his, and it’s like the tension finally melts off his shoulders.
“I get it, okay. The first time we lost an important game, it took me a week to recover. I played a shit game, and my anger got the best of me. So, trust me, I get it. But this performance doesn’t dictate what happens next. We still have time to improve before the next one.”
My competitions are spread out over a year. For Dylan, he’s played nearly forty games in a season, it’s a competition every time. If anyone gets it, it’s him.
The announcers call out our names, and I try to wipe the grimace off my face as we skate toward the podiums, the third place stand looming like a slap to the face. I grit my teeth, swallowing the sting of disappointment, but it doesn’t go down easy. Justin and Julia glide up, hand in hand, arrogant as hell, taking their spot on second place. My chin quivers, more from anger, and I tamp it down because Dylan’s watching me so carefully, I know he’ll see it.
His hand fights through the tight fist I’ve made, gently threading his fingers between mine. His grip is so tight it feels like it might break me open. I can’t move. I can’t pull away.
Then I catch sight of Justin, and I wish I hadn’t. He looks at Dylan’s and my intertwined hands, then flicks his eyes to me before he mouths,Anchor.
