I looked down at the envelope again, long enough to feel the weight of what I was holding and how deliberately it was being taken away.
Then I dropped it into the nearest trash receptacle without hesitation visible enough to be questioned.
Sokolov’s smile held approval without warmth.
“We continue.”
“Yes,” I replied. I touched Mila at the elbow before either of us said something reckless. “We have practice.”
Decision made. Path closed.
That was how these things worked.
Back on the ice, Mila watched me through warmups with growing anger she barely bothered concealing.
“That had nothing to do with lifts,” she muttered eventually.
I didn’t bother replying. We both knew it was true.
I looked down at my empty hands while cold air burned inside my lungs.
The envelope was gone.
Practice continued.
Life continued.
Over the following weeks I told myself the same things often enough that they began to sound reasonable.
I will improve anyway.
I will succeed here.
I do not need Montreal.
Eventually I learned how to repeat those thoughts without hearing the doubt underneath them.
That night I had lain awake staring at the ceiling of an apartment that never once felt fully mine and allowed myself a single dangerous thought.
What if they are afraid of what happens when I leave?
I’d buried it before morning.
The memory lingered anyway.
The scrape of blades returned first, then voices. My hands still gripped the edge of the bench.
I had thrown the envelope away exactly as instructed. I had done everything correctly.
Yet when Dean Foster’s hand closed around my arm earlier that day, I hadn’t stepped back immediately. I’d stayed exactly where I was.
For years, obedience had been automatic.
Now there were moments when it wasn’t.
Dean
I toldmyself I wanted extra ice time.
