“Session starts in two minutes.” She’s still looking down.
“I know. Can I- Just hear me out. Please.”
Thepleaseworks. She looks up, finally, and her expression is carefully constructed. I know her well enough now to see all the work going into it.
“Okay,” she says.
I take a breath.
“I’m sorry. For what I said. It was wrong and it was unfair and it was the opposite of what I actually believe. I said it because I was frustrated and scared and I took it out on you and I’m sorry.” I hold her gaze. “You are the most talented person I’ve shared ice with. This team is better because you’re here.I’mbetter because you’re here. And I’m sorry I made you feel like anything less than that.”
Behind me I’m dimly aware of the team filtering in, skates on ice, the session assembling around us. I don’t care, I just need her to hear it.
“Okay. Thanks.”
She says it briskly and far more formally than I wanted.
I stand there for a second. Then I remember what Chen said about the point of apologizing - she gets to decide what she does with it.
She’s already writing again.
I nod once - apparently this is the version I have to accept - and I push off and skate back toward the group.
It’s fine.
I did the right thing.
It doesn’t have to feel good.
ELIDA
I watch him skate away.
I know he meant every word of what he said, but I couldn’t give him more than what I did.
I’m not ready to give him more than that.
The group are assembling on the ice. I pull myself back into work.
“Tango stop today,” I say, skating out to meet them. “Has anyone done one before?”
Blank faces. A few head shakes.
“It’s a single outside edge stop.” I demonstrate it slowly - the approach, the turn, the weight transfer onto one edge, the precise controlled stop. “The ice either holds you or it doesn’t. The only way it holds you is if you commit completely. Half commitment gives you a fall. Full commitment gives you a stop.”
A few of the guys look unsure.
“Don’t worry, we’ll build up to it. Start with the entry, nothing else. Full rink, your pace.”
They push off.
I move through the group. Every thirty seconds or so my peripheral vision finds Russo.
He’s working. Head down, focused, running the entry sequence with concentrated effort.
We build through the session - entry, then weight transfer, then the full sequence - and by forty minutes in Ward has got it, Chen is close, and even Barrett lands a passable version on his fourth attempt.
Russo lands it on his second.
