The coffee shop is one that Tara introduced me to weeks ago - the one with the good pastries and the barista who remembers your order after two visits. It’s steamy inside. I order a latte and wait near the pickup counter.
And then I see it.
The checkout stand near the door. Wire rack, crowded with magazines and gum and little bags of overpriced dried fruit.And tucked there, half-hidden behind a gardening magazine, is a tabloid.
I don’t need to see the front page to recognize the layout. The font and the way certain words are capitalized for maximum damage, the red borders they use when they want something to appear urgent and salacious at the same time.
I can’t see the headline clearly.Figure Skating…and then a word that’s obscured.
It’s not about me.
It’sprobablynot about me.
There are other figure skaters. Other scandals. Other women whose lives have become public property.
I put my coffee down.
My hands are shaking.
Because itwasabout me, once, and my body hasn’t forgotten.
The morning it happened.
I remember it in fragments. Waking up to my phone already hot with notifications. The photograph I’d never known existed - taken through a window, blurry at the edges but clear enough. Clear enough to identify me. Clear enough to identify him.
The comments online.
Attention seeker.
She knew what she was doing.
Age gap isn’t that big, what’s the problem?
The coffee shop returns. The hum of the espresso machine. The chatter at the big corner table.
I open my eyes.
The barista calls my name. I pick up my coffee. My hands are steady now.
But I drink my latte fast, and I don’t stay long.
15
Chapter 15
ELIDA
The women’s team doesn’t know anything is wrong.
I love them for it - how enthusiastic they are.
The girls are already on the ice when I arrive, which has become their habit - they don’t wait to be told anymore, they show up and start moving, which is one of the best signs a coach can see.
Dani is running the combination from last week. Still rushed on the entry but noticeably closer, and I stand at the boards for a moment before they clock I’m there and just watch.
I love this part of the job. I do. I want to be clear about that, even to myself in the privacy of my own head. Watching someone get better is its own particular satisfaction - the moment a technique stops being conscious effort and startsbecoming instinct. I’ve watched it happen with these girls and it’s made my time here special.
Dani lands the entry cleaner this time and I watch her face - the surprise of it, the delight - and I recognize that expression so precisely that it aches.
