Dom and I had nothing to say to each other after. We shared a cab on the way back to the hotel, but spent the ride in silence. This time, the awkwardness was not because of mistakes we had made on the ice. We had made decisions off the ice that had affected our partnership. We had to get over ourselves before weregressed further. Somehow, I got the sense that we were more in sync than we had been for a couple of weeks. I was finally confident that I could reach him again. Unfortunately, it was because I thought we both felt like we had let each other down.
Dom had paid for the ride to the rink, so I paid for this one. After stepping away from the vehicle, I was surprised to see that he was still standing there. He had his jacket zipped to his chin, which he was trying to tuck inside to protect it from the cold winter air. We were used to the cold, in theory, but at a certain temperature never really get comfortable with it. As I slipped my wallet back into my purse, he asked, “Are you ready to head in?” His voice was muffled by his jacket.
I nodded. “I think I’m going to go up to my room. After today, I really need to focus to get ready for tomorrow.”
“Same,” he replied. He looked off into the distance, his eyes squinting slightly in the sun. It looked like he wanted to say something and, for a moment or two, I thought we were finally going to have a deep conversation again. Instead, the moment passed. He jerked his head towards the door. “Come on. Let’s get into the heat before turning into icicles.”
I smiled. It was a funny thing to be concerned about for someone who had spent the entire day at a skating rink. Hell, we spent our lives at ice rinks. The thing that made me happy was not that, but that he was trying to joke around again. I knew I had missed it, but I hadn’t realized how desperately I missed until that very moment. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
The wave of heat that blasted over me when I stepped into the hotel was a shock to my system. Even in those few minutes outside, my cheeks had started to freeze. The sudden change in temperature was jarring. We walked to the elevators together, letting ourselves lapse back into silence. He had broken some of the tension, but neither of us knew what to say. The fact that wehad done so poorly, at least for us, was adding another layer to this.
We waited behind a couple of businessmen for the elevator to arrive. When it did, Dom gestured for me to get on it first. He followed close behind and pressed the button for our floor. The elevator rattled upwards. The other men were talking to each other and quiet, rapid Swedish. They were ignoring us completely, which was a relief. I needed time to myself, time to think.
Once I was in my room, I bolted the door behind me. I hung up my coat after I stuffed my hat and mittens in one of the sleeves. I slipped off my winter boots and into a pair of slippers that I had brought with me. I liked to bring them with me to help me feel relaxed, especially when I was competing far away from home. Without my friends and family around for comfort, I needed little bits of home. I padded across the room to the desk, where my laptop was out and my sweater was lying in a heap. I pulled on while I waited for my computer to start up. After typing in my passcode, I went to my favourite skating website to watch clips of the day’s events. I got most of the way through the second pair's short program before pausing it to get a drink and order some food. Then I was right back at it, watching everything closely.
I listened to the announcers, even though I didn’t really need to. I knew who everyone involved was, but I liked to hear the familiar voices anyway. Partway through Petrova and Rybakov’s short program, I stopped the video and went back a few seconds to get a closer look at the takeoff of their side-by-side jumps. The second time around, I kept a closer eye on her feet during the start of her jump. Sure enough, it looked like she had started to rotate the jump before leaving the ice. “The judges didn’t dockthempoints,” I muttered.
For the jump to be fully rotated, you had to do all the rotations after your skates had left the ice surface completely. Any turnthat happened before that didn't count towards completion. Unfortunately, it was one of those things that you could miss since it happened so fast. Daria was known for cheating jumps a bit, so I would've hoped that the judges were looking for it. Apparently they hadn’t today. “Ugh,” I groaned to myself in frustration. Our score had been close enough to Daria and Feodor’s that her cheating the takeoff could have been enough to make us competitive for third place rather than fourth.
I was tempted to see what people online were saying about the results, but I talked myself out of it. Nothing good could come from checking general opinions at this point. The people who were most likely to post online would be those who were very happy or very upset, rather than being an accurate sample of popular opinion. They also tended to be overconfident in their ability to assess things. It didn’t matter what people thought, anyway. Knowing that people loved a certain skate, were upset about judging, or their speculation of what would happen in the free skate was more likely to cause issues with my mental preparedness than help.
My eyes drifted to my phone, which was lying face down on the desk beside me. I was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming urge to text Dom to hear what he had to say. I wanted to joke with him, even about things that were less than professional. We hadn’t been doing that over the last few weeks, though, so I second-guessed myself. Would it be weird for me to strike up a conversation out of the blue, like nothing had changed between us?
Before I could make up my mind, there was a knock on my hotel door. I stood up eagerly, suddenly starving. I unscrewed the deadbolt and flung the door open without bothering to check in the peephole who it was.
My eyebrows shot up when I saw Dom. “Oh,” I said.
He looked confused. “Why do you sound disappointed?” he asked.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said apologetically. I stood to the side and opened the door further, making room for him to come in. “I just thought that you were room service.”
Dom laughed, the sort of loud and unreserved laugh you only do around people that you are completely comfortable with. “I should have guessed that. After a long day and the stress of a competition we didn’t do so great in, of course you would’ve ordered room service.” He made himself at home, sitting on the chair in the corner of the room. “Did you order anything good?”
I sighed. “No, I was good. Believe me, though, I was tempted. Especially after I finished watching all the skates online.”
“Why?” he asked, leaning back in the chair with his hands on his stomach.
“I think our scores should have been closer to Petrova and Rybakov’s,” I said.
“What, with the way she did the combo jump?” The surprise must have been clear on my face because he added, “Yeah, I noticed that too. Between that and a couple of our GOE scores, it's pretty frustrating. It should’ve been closer between us.”
I nodded along enthusiastically. “I thought so too, even if we didn’t have our best skate of the season.”
A strange expression crossed Dom’s face. I waited for him to say something, but he looked like he was trying to decide if he wanted to speak. When it became clear that he was holding back, I asked, “What is that look for?”
“It was just something Mark said,” he replied.
“You say that like it answers my question,” I said.
He sighed. “I guess it’s only fair that I tell you.” He scratched the back of his neck and tilted his head to the side, as though he was trying to figure out how to phrase it. “Mark said that we were technically much better than we had been lately, but thatwe weren’t able to portray the emotional connection usually do. He said he thinks that because we are usually so good at that, even being average could have a negative impact on the scores we got.”
“Oh,” I said. There was a lot I could say to that, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to say any of it out loud. I had always taken for granted that people believed the story Dom and I were telling while skating. We'd always done well without having to try too hard. It really was a blessing, because it had freed up space to focus on the elements. “I don’t think we have ever gotten that criticism before.”
“I know.” Dom sighed. I wondered if he was having the same internal struggle I was. There was a lot to say, but the timing was terrible. We needed to be flawless to gain on the other pairs. He looked at me with an intensity I wasn’t used to. “It puts a lot of pressure on us for tomorrow.”
“I haven't even thought about tomorrow,” I said, twisting a strand of hair around my finger. “I was still trying to figure out what parts of today’s program would have gotten us that critique.”
“I think it was just the skate in general,” Dom said. “We haven't exactly been effortlessly moving as one person.” He laughed. “I’m sorry, that just sounded different now that… you know.”
