"I'm always thinking about something that isn't skating. That's what the skating is for."
She didn't argue. She handed me my guards and stepped back.
The Boston kid finished his program, and the scores came up, respectable but not threatening. I'd been off by one on my prediction. Fifth place.
I pulled off my jacket and handed it to Natalia without looking at her.
The costume was black, always black, but this one had details that read differently on camera. The neckline dipped lower than the competition standard, and mesh panels at the ribs showed skin when the light hit right. My father's brand consultants hadbeen specific about what they wanted. I could be whatever they wanted, as long as they let me skate.
I stepped onto the ice, and the cold hit my lungs, and my mind went quiet.
Twelve thousand people filled the stands. Cameras tracked every angle while judges sat with their clipboards and careful neutrality. The one on the far left always underscored my components. The one in the center had judged my father twenty years ago and still carried whatever grudge that had created. The technical caller had missed my under-rotation at Skate Canada and would be looking to correct for it today.
None of it mattered once I started moving. I knew their weaknesses now, and I'd skate around them.
I took my opening position at center ice with my arms loose and my chin lifted. The first notes hadn't started yet, but I could already hear the industrial grind of the intro in my head, that mechanical heartbeat I'd chosen because it sounded like the inside of my chest when I couldn't sleep.
The lights dimmed, and twelve thousand people held their breath, and I made them wait. One beat, then two. The tension in the arena pressed against my skin like something physical.
Then the music hit.
The first element was a quad Lutz. I'd been landing it since I was seventeen, muscle memory so deep it lived in my bones, but I sold it like it cost me something. The entry, the takeoff, four rotations with my arms pulled tight, and then the landing with my free leg extended in a line my father had once called adequate and the judges had been calling exceptional for years.
The crowd roared, and I didn't acknowledge them. That was part of it, too.
The step sequence let my hips roll with the bass line. The costume helped. The mesh panels caught light when I twisted, and I knew exactly how it read on the arena screens. I'dpracticed in front of mirrors until I knew the angle that made the neckline gape, the movement that pulled fabric tight across my thighs.
The quad flip came next, then a combination spin that let me arch my back in a way that had nothing to do with technique. I held the position a beat longer than necessary and let them look.
Midway through the program, the music dropped to almost nothing, just a heartbeat pulse, and I skated a slow spiral with one hand trailing down my chest. The commentators would talk about artistry, about vulnerability, about how Joel Coffey had finally learned to let the audience in.
Let them think that.
The final jumping pass was a quad toe, triple toe combination. I threw myself into it harder than I needed to and landed clean, then transitioned into the choreographic sequence. The music built toward its peak, and I moved with it, sharp and controlled until the last beat.
On the final note, I looked into the camera and winked.
The arena lost its mind.
I held my ending pose while the noise crescendoed around me, arms extended, chest heaving, sweat dripping down my temples. Stuffed animals rained onto the ice along with flowers and signs with my name on them.
I bowed once, collected a stuffed cat someone had thrown, and skated toward the kiss and cry.
The scores came up while I was still catching my breath.
223.47. A new personal best. High enough to guarantee gold unless someone in the final group pulled off a miracle, and there was no one in the final group capable of miracles. I'd checked.
Natalia hugged me, and the cameras captured it. I smiled the way I was supposed to smile and said the things I was supposed to say. Yes, I was pleased with the performance. Yes, the program had special meaning to me.
All of it was true, and none of it was honest.
I stood to leave the kiss and cry and ran through the mental checklist. Medal ceremony, then press, then handlers who would steer me from obligation to obligation until they'd extracted every usable moment. My costume was damp with sweat and clinging in ways that would photograph well but made my skin crawl.
Then I saw him.
Section seven, maybe fifteen rows back. That copper hair was impossible to miss under the arena lights, a fixed point in a sea of strangers still on their feet and screaming.
I went still.
