Now, sorting through my possessions and listening to Mom talk about my brothers, the importance of what was about to happen was really hitting me. In a matter of days, I would board a plane to see how good I was compared to everyone else. Soon, I would know if all the years of hard work and sacrifice had paid off. I had been expecting the significance of what was coming to hit me hard. This had been my life for so long. But now, talking to my mother about the impact it was going to have on the rest of my family, there was a different sort of pressure. I wasn’t the only one who had sacrificed. My parents had given so much time, money, and emotional support for me to have a chance at gold over the years. Even my brothers had had to sacrifice. My parents had tried not to drag them around to all my skating events, but sometimes it was inevitable. Especiallyas I had started competing nationally and internationally, my skating had taken up a huge amount of our family’s time. My brothers had no say in the matter, but like it or not they had been along for the ride.
When I came back from the bathroom with the toiletry bag I always kept packed, I had a hard time focusing on anything else. I put the bag down on top of my dresser and unzipped it. Since I travelled so much, I found it easier to always have the basics in one place so I wouldn’t forget anything. There were only so many times you could forget a toothbrush or a razor before you realized it was smarter to have duplicates of everything specifically for travelling. Not having half a dozen hotel toothbrushes at any given time was a bonus.
I began looking through the striped bag, checking how full everything was. It was no use. All I could think about was how much my entire family had done to get me to this point. Not only was my dream and Dom’s dream at stake, but something they’d all sacrificed for. “Mom?” I said, keeping my eyes on what I was doing. It felt safer to ask something that had been weighing on my mind when I wasn’t facing her.
“Yes, Hazel?”She sounded concerned.
“Do you think…” I tried again. “Now that the Games are so close, a lot of stuff has been running through my mind. About if things don’t go well. I mean, if Dom and I…” I trailed off.
“If you and Dom what, sweetheart?”
I turned around. “What if Dom and I don’t do well? What if we screw up after everything?”
My mother stopped in the middle of folding one of my pullover sweaters. “If you don’t skate well?” she asked, sounding confused.
I nodded. “What else would I mean?”
She waved a hand, brushing the comment away. “You just need to do the best you can. You can’t do any more than that.If it gets you a gold medal, that’s great. If you place fifth, that’s great too. And if you get fifteenth, that’s great. We will all still be so proud of you. You two have put so much work into this. I promise that we will all think that you are fantastic, regardless of the outcome.”
My eyes burned. I hadn’t expected to tear up. “Thanks, Mom,” I said. I blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears from falling. I hated crying in front of people. Trying to change the subject, I said, “What else would I have meant? I don’t have the brainpower to think about anything other than skating right now.”
My mother smiled and resumed her folding. “It’s nothing, dear. I was just wondering if there might be something else you were worried about messing up.”
I froze. Every part of my body was tense, from my jaw and shoulders all the way down to my feet. Did she suspect something? Or was she just doing that thing that mothers did, where they worried about their children even if they didn’t have any reason to? I hoped it was the latter, even though it was silly. If she wanted to worry about me, she could worry about the same things that were causing me stress instead of coming up with her own reasons. I forced myself to go through the muscle groups in my body step by step, trying to relax the muscles. If she wasn’t already suspicious, being visibly on edge could blow it. “I think worrying about blowing my shot at a medal is enough,” I said with what I hoped was a natural-sounding laugh.
She looked me over, her head tilted slightly to the side. “I see,” she said. I held my breath, waiting for her to continue pressing the issue, but she turned back to my bed, now nearly empty of the piles.
I didn’t think she believed me, but at least she wasn’t pushing it. That was good enough for now. Maybe I would talk to her about it someday. But that would be a day long after the WinterGames, if I wasn’t comfortable talking to one of my friends about it. And even then, it wouldn’t be my first choice.
Chapter 26
Chapter 26
Somewhereinthatrelaxedstate between sleep and wakefulness, my peace was interrupted by the soft ding of a bell. “We are going through some turbulence. The captain asks that you all return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”
My eyes fluttered open and settled on the screen on the back of the seat in front of me. The tiny airplane, showing where we were on our flight path, was flying over the dots of places I didn't recognize. I pushed up the shade of the window I had been leaning against, but saw nothing but an expanse of clouds.
We had taken a red-eye across the Atlantic the night before. With my nerves, I had only managed to fall asleep as we approached Iceland. That flight had seemed to go on forever. Between the endless water and the darkness of the night sky, it was hard to get a sense of how far we had travelled or how far we had left to go. By the time we had left Heathrow in the wee hours of the morning, I had passed out from exhaustion.
Stifling a yawn, I turned to my right. Dom was watching a dumb comedy movie on his tablet and fiddling with an empty plastic bottle. With his noise cancelling headphones, he couldblock out everyone else on the plane. For some reason, he rarely slept when we travelled. Every time I jolted awake, I saw him watching movies or playing games. I didn’t get it. There were times when I didn’t even make it to the seatbelt sign turning off before I was out like a light.
I elbowed Dom gently. He paused his show and pushed the left headphone off his ear. “Yeah?”
“Only a couple of hours left,” I said, pointing at the small plane on the screen. It had moved out, giving me a better sense of where we were. I looked around us, making sure that the people in the surrounding seats were not paying attention to us. I didn’t want anyone to overhear what I had to say next. “I don’t know if I should be excited or scared.” It was dumb to be worried. Anyone with half a brain could guess those would be my two predominant emotions. But I still didn’t want anyone but Dom to hear me admit it out loud.
“Both,” Dom answered without hesitation. He matched his volume to mine, whispering so quietly that the rumble of the plane’s engine would drown out his words for anyone else. “But not scared about competing, you should be scared about how hard it is going to be to find our luggage at baggage claim.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “With this many people coming in, we might be stuck forever.”
He was exaggerating, but probably not by much. With planes full of athletes who were bringing more gear than your average traveller, baggage claim was going to be crazy. With how many people had travelled enough to have priority boarding, even priority luggage would be a nightmare to get through. “Don’t make me think about that,” I said. “I don’t want to know the odds of my skates being beat up or lost on the trip.” If I had it my way, I would’ve kept them with me as my carry-on. Unfortunately, two extremely sharp blades went against everysingle airline’s carry-on restrictions. The possibility of them getting lost had literally given me a nightmare two days earlier.
“Then don’t think about it. Maybe it’ll be your clothes that get lost. Then you can spend the next few weeks in skating dresses or souvenir clothing you bought at the airport.” He grinned. “I think that would be a great look for you.”
I pictured the thick, baggy unisex t-shirts that could be found in the shops at every major airport amongst magazines and overpriced candy. “Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “But don’t forget the outfits we’ll get for the opening ceremonies. Those should be fun.”
“If you want to spend the next few weeks in a red parka, be my guest,” Dom replied. He pulled his headphones complete off his head and turned the screen off on his tablet. He must have known how much I needed to be distracted to keep my fears from running away with me. “It might be a bit warm inside, but you do you. You could try to be classy and put it over a skating dress or Winter Games t-shirt, but I would recommend matching it with one of those novelty shirts that claim somebody went on a trip and all you got was a lousy t-shirt.”
“I’d definitely be the only one dressed like that,” I said drily.
“That’s part of the charm. Getting to be a trendsetter and all that.”
