Without letting go of his hand, I turned so we were stomach to stomach. “It’s fine,” I whispered to him. I tried to keep my voice quiet enough that even Mark and Olga wouldn’t be able to hear me. “We’re in this together.”
He barely moved his lips when he spoke. He rubbed his thumb against my jaw. “I don’t want to let you down.”
“You won’t,” I responded immediately. “As long as you promise me that I won’t let you down.”
His eyes snapped to mine. “Of course,” he said. He inhaled deeply, shoulders raising as his chest expanded. He let his breath out slowly. “Let’s do this.”
By the time they came to collect us for the warmup, we had already moved closer to the exit. The others had done the same.We were all itching to go. We were all ready to get onto the ice and get the night started.
I tried to take everything in while I was on the ice. This very well may be my last warmup at the Winter Games in my entire life. I wouldn’t have time to look at anything else during the free skate. If I wanted to commit everything to memory, this would be my last chance to take in the sea of faces, the bright lights, and the seemingly endless number of crew who would help broadcast our skate to the entire world. All the photos and video recordings in the world wouldn’t be able to do it justice.
I didn’t feel ready to get off the ice when the time allocated for us ran out. I didn’t know if I would ever feel fully ready for what was going to come next. I had already spent tens of thousands of hours practicing in my life. This season alone, I had spent well over a thousand hours preparing for today. How had so much time ticked down to this? In less than an hour, it would be go time.
After I got my skate guards on, I felt Dom’s hand on the small of my back. He gave me the gentlest nudge in the direction he wanted me to go. I walked without hesitation. I excused myself as I cut in front of Daria Petrova on the way, but she showed no signs of hearing me. She was staring at the ice, unblinking. She and Feodor would be called forward any minute. I probably could have made a face and she wouldn’t have registered it.
My fingers fumbled with the laces of my running shoes as I tried to tie them up for the wait. We would have to wait long enough that I needed to bounce and move until it was our turn. I skipped half the songs on my usual playlist as I moved. They needed to have the right vibe. I also kept increasing the volume, trying to tune everything out. I didn’t want to think about anything but my music and staying energized.
A touch on my arm made me jump and pull my arm back. I had been fixated on Dom’s movements and I had been blaringmy music so loudly that I hadn’t heard Olga come up. She held my skates in her outstretched hand, waiting for me to take them from her. She didn’t need to say anything. It was time for me to put them back on. A minute after that, we would have to make our way to the ice.
I sat down on a bench and began lacing up the boots. Dom did the same, pulling tightly on the laces to ensure he had enough ankle support for everything we needed to do. Thankfully, this time my fingers cooperated with what I needed them to do.
I stood, waiting for Dom to be done. When he was, he took my hand in his. We walked towards the ice together, doing our best to look confident. In a moment, the cameras would be on us. It was time.
As I waited for the go ahead to get onto the ice, I turned at Dom. No matter what happened, this would be a turning point in our careers. “Just focus on us,” I said. I was speaking as much to myself as I was to him. That was all we could do.
It was an impossible ask until we were in our starting positions. Then, with the expanse of ice around us, it was easier to let my peripheral vision blur and to focus only on Dom. We would do this together, as we had done everything else. It didn’t matter if there were millions of people watching or only two, who we paid tons of money to give us constructive criticism. What we had to do didn’t change.
After the opening notes, I didn’t even hear the music playing around us. I didn’t need to. My body knew what to do. Our free hands touched and we spun around. Then, he led me into the twist. All the things we had to do took place in a matter of seconds. While skating backwards, he rested his hands against my hips. My knees bent and then, with the precise timing that had taken us countless hours to master, I jumped as he helped me into the air.
As I landed and extended my free leg, I felt the pressure melt away. This was how it was supposed to go. We were connected in a way that made it as easy as it could get. As soon as we had made it through our side-by-side jumps, I knew he had landed it well. For the rest, I could tell how they went because we had to do them together. His arm never wavered under me.
When we struck our finishing positions, the world came rushing in at once. The crowd was roaring in a way I hadn’t heard before. My chest was heaving and I was hot after four minutes of non-stop action. There were so many cameras pointing at us and people were on their feet, but I could only pay attention to one person.
I beamed as Dom wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me from the ice in a tight hug. No matter the results, we had given it our all. There were a couple of extra points we could have gotten with this or that, but we hadn’t left anything on the table. I could not have asked for a better skate. We had done everything we wanted to do.
Dom let out a whoop as he placed me back on the ice. “Wave,” I said, trying not to move my lips too much.
He looked as though the thought had never occurred to him. If it were possible, I smiled bigger. That had been part of the end of every single program since we had first been partnered together. Before that, even. When you were done, it was polite to bow or curtsey and wave. But he was so overwhelmed by what we had just accomplished that he hadn’t even considered it.
As we got off the ice, Mark wrapped one arm around me and the other around Dom. He pulled us against him tightly, crushing me. He had tears in his eyes. “I think you did it,” he said. His voice wavered as he spoke. “That should be enough.”
When he let me go, I was shocked to see how big the smile on Olga’s face was. “Magnificent,” she said.
That left me speechless. I wanted to find my family and our teammates in the crowd, but we were being ushered to the kiss and cry. I had to settle for waving in the direction I had seen the flag waving earlier. I hoped they could see.
I was aware of all the cameras that pointed at the bench in the kiss and cry, but I couldn’t think of anything to say to them. I didn’t want to speak to anyone at home right now. Everyone I wanted to talk to about our skate was right here with me. As the four of us crowded into the small space together, I clasped hands with Dom. I didn’t know who needed the emotional support more. “What are the other scores like?” I asked Olga.
She rattled off the current top three scores to what I presumed was the nearest full point. I hoped her memory was accurate. If it was, we had definitely clinched a silver medal. And, unless I was very much mistaken, there was a high chance that we had just won gold.
“Hazel Pierce and Dominic Hughes,” came the announcer’s voice and I froze. I didn’t dare breathe until he announced the numbers. “have earned in the free skate…”
The total of both our programs together would be read immediately after, followed by our placement, but I didn’t need to hear it. As soon as I heard the first number, I knew that we had done it. We had won gold.
I flung my arms around Dom’s neck as my eyes filled with happy tears. We had done it. We had actually done it. I buried my face in his neck and whispered, “We did it. We did it.”
The crowd roaring around us was nearly enough to drown out the whisper in my ear. "I love you." He spoke into my neck, so people watching couldn't read his lips. He pulled away just far enough to kiss my cheek.
I had the sudden urge to kiss him properly, but I shoved it back. Not here. Not when it would be broadcast to the world.But, as I beamed at Dom, our foreheads inches apart, it was clear he was thinking the same.
