It’ll be good for you, my sister Iris said, at the airport, gripping both my hands in that way she has that means she’s worried but doesn’t want to say so.A fresh start. A new country. No one knows you there.
That last part was the important bit.
I set down the coffee mug and look around the apartment like it might offer me a reason to stay or a reason to motivate myself. It gives me nothing. The lighthouse print stares blankly.
Six months ago I was competing. Only six months ago my name meant something in the sport I had given my entire life to - every early morning and sacrificed weekend and missed birthday since I was six years old. I had sponsors and a ranking. I had a coach who told me I was going to be one of the greats, and I was foolish enough (or young enough, or lonely enough) to believe that he meant more than only my skating when he said it.
I don’t let myself finish that thought.
I’ve gotten good at that. Stopping right before the part that still hurts.
I’m here now, in this beige apartment, in this small American college town, and the life I built in Sweden is behind me. I can’t undo that. I’m not competing. I’m not being coached. I’m coaching - or I will be, starting today, which is a sentence that still sounds absurd when I say it in my head.
I pull on my jacket and check the time.
7am.
The team’s first session isn’t until this afternoon. That’s fine, that’s actually the bit I’m looking forward to, or as close to looking forward as I can get right now. A completely new team. They’re a blank skate. Girls with talent (hopefully) who are still figuring out what they’re capable of. I know how to do that. I know how to stand on ice and teach someone to trust their owninstincts. They’re grateful to have a team at all and I know they’ll be willing to learn.
The men’s team is a different matter.
I pick up my bag and my terrible coffee and head for the door before I can think too carefully about it.
Coach Caden Calloway had been straightforward when we spoke, at least. Calm and measured, the kind of man who says exactly what he means and doesn’t dress it up.I want you to work with the women’s program primarily, he’d said,but I’m going to ask you to run some sessions with the men as well. Skating fundamentals. Technique work. I think you can give them coaching they’re not getting anywhere else.
What he didn’t have to spell out was that they’re likely to be resistant to the idea. Or at least skeptical.
That’s fine. I’ve skated in front of judges who’d already made up their minds before I touched the ice. I’ve performed through injuries and exhaustion and even through heartbreak I wasn’t allowed to show on my face because the music was still playing and the cameras were still on. A hockey team of twenty-year-old boys who don’t think they need a young female figure skater telling them anything about skating is not, by any measure, the hardest room I’ve ever had to win.
I step outside, and the cold hits me immediately. It’s different from home - the air here is drier. I tuck my chin into my scarf and start walking.
The campus is quiet at this hour, mostly empty, the paths lit in pale yellow under lights that haven’t switched off yet for the day. My breath fogs in front of me. My boots are wrong for the slight icy patches on the pavement, and I pick my way carefully.
The rink appears at the end of the path. A light is on inside. Through the small window beside the entrance I can see the pale gleam of the ice.
I stand outside for a moment.
This is not what I planned. This is not anything close to what I planned, twelve months ago, two years ago, at any point in the life I thought I was building. But I’ve learned that plans have a way of becoming irrelevant when someone else decides to light them on fire.
I pull open the door, and feel immediately grounded, the way I usually do when I walk into a rink - the same as when I was six, stepping into one for the first time, and every time since.
Whatever else has been taken from me, whatever else I’ve lost or had pulled away or handed over without fully understanding what I was doing - they didn’t take this.
I straighten my shoulders and walk in.
2
Chapter 2
MATEO
By the time the guys filter in I’ve already done more laps than I can count.
I pull up at the boards, take a water bottle from Chen when he offers it, and watch the rest of the team spread across the ice. Barrett is doing that thing where he stretches for about forty-five seconds and then declares himself ready. It’s all normal and familiar. Mine, in the way that a captain’s team is his even when it’s driving him insane.
“You look terrible,” Barrett says cheerfully, one of our defencemen.
“Early morning.”
