I meant it.
But I didn’t think it would feel quite like this to watch it happen.
I try the stop again but somewhere across the ice I hear her sayyes, exactly like thatenthusiastically to someone. I pullmyself away from listening to the brightness in her voice and try to focus on my technique.
ELIDA
I find Calloway after.
He’s in his office with the door open, reading files. I knock on the frame and he looks up. Something in my face makes him put the papers down immediately.
“Got a minute?”
“Always.”
I hesitate in the doorway. “Can I grab Tara as well? I’d like her to hear this too.”
He nods and picks up his phone and two minutes later Tara appears in the corridor breathless and still in her physio jacket. She follows me into the office and closes the door.
We sit - Calloway behind his desk, Tara beside me.
“I’m going back to Sweden. As soon as I can arrange it. I’ve been in contact with a coach - Brita Fiske - and I’m entering a regional qualifier in four months. What I’m trying to say is - I’m going back to competitive skating.”
Tara makes a sound that is somewhere between a gasp and a laugh and grabs both my hands in hers, squeezing hard, and she’s beaming.
“Elida!”
“It’s not certain,” I say quickly. “The qualifier, all of it - nothing is certain yet. But I’m trying. I’m going back and I’m trying.”
“That’s enough,” Tara says firmly. “That’s more than enough.”
“I’m happy for you,” Calloway says simply. “Genuinely.”
“I’m sorry to leave the program. The women’s team especially - Dani and the others, they’ve come so far and I-”
“We’ll find someone good,” he says. “Don’t carry that. You’ve done more for this program in the short time you’ve been here than we expected. Both programs. It’s been a privilege having you here, Elida. Whatever comes next. If there’s anything you need - anything at all. A reference, a phone call - you call me. I’m not just saying that, I mean it.”
I nod. I don’t trust myself to say much.
“Thank you,” I say finally. “Both of you. For all of it.”
Tara pulls me into a hug, and I hold on for a moment longer than I mean to.
“You were always going back,” she says into my shoulder. “I think we all knew that.”
MATEO
Calloway runs our next pre-game briefing on Friday morning.
Eastlake. Away. Their defensive structure, their transition patterns, the things we need to exploit and the things we need to avoid. I’m listening and taking notes in the margins of my playbook the way I always do.
And then, completely in passing, like it’s just another item on the list:
“-and try to implement the skating work Elida has been running with you. The edge transitions especially. We won’t have her for much longer - she’s returning to Sweden as soon as she can get it arranged - so I want to see it embedded before then. Now, Eastlake’s power play-”
He moves on.
I sit very still with my notebook on my knee, and I think,what the fuck.
