Page 108 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

Alisa lazily stretched, yawning, arms spreading wide as if she could shake the exhaustion out of her body. “Yeah… yeah, I’m coming. Thanks for waking me up.”

“Yeah, well, your something has already woken up half the arena,” Anfisa giggled, pointing at Alisa’s phone, which had apparently been ringing for half an hour. Was I really that deeply asleep that I hadn’t heard it? Rough…

Her legs still felt like an elephant’s, so heavy, almost alien and barely hers. Her left one throbbed sharply where the skin had been rubbed raw to blood. She had overdone it.

Still, Alisa went to the infirmary, wrapped the wound tightly, swallowed painkillers, and went back to the ice, repeating to herself that it had to be today. There was no time left. Not a second to waste.

She stepped onto the ice with her teeth clenched, still feeling the wound through the bandages.

This was the third time she attempted the loop jump, the Rittberger, and it was still too low…

“What are you doing, Alisa! Come on, do it properly, don’t rush it! We need to hit the beat, do you understand? Here — clap, then clap—”

Alisa went into the jump again.

“Yes, that’s it!” Arkadiy clapped sharply and skated after her.

* * *

During these last days of training with the updated choreography before the internal competitions, Alisa had almost stopped feeling her left leg entirely, it was swollen from the constant repetition and endless jumping. She chased perfection in every attempt, forcing her technique to its absolute limit.

Before stepping onto the ice each time, she jumped in place near the boards, trying to feel something in her legs, but all she found was anxiety, fear, and suffocating horror that she would let everyone down.

And yet, every time, she walked out of the rink victorious.

But how long could she last like this?

The question lingered heavily in her mind.

Alisa wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand and stepped onto the ice again.

Chapter 22

Alisa desperately wanted to give in and snap into sweets, just eat an entire bucket of chocolates from every brand imaginable, but instead she sat before training, dangling her skates from her feet back and forth, waiting for her turn again after the hockey players left the ice.

She wasn’t exactly angry at them, but sometimes they really didn’t leave the ice in the best condition, and Alisa secretly dreamed they’d come here a little less often. Unfortunately, their training schedules sometimes overlapped.

She watched Hermann aggressively firing pucks at the goalkeeper, who caught every single one, which only seemed to make Hermann more irritated. Apparently, today was not his day.

He finally took off his helmet and skated over to the side, stopping in front of Alisa. He placed the helmet next to the blade protectors and bottles, ruffled his blond hair, half damp from the intensity of training, and let out a long, exhausted sigh.

Then he nodded at her. “How are you today? You look sad…”

Alisa snorted and rolled her eyes. “Look at yourself!”

Hermann gave a small, almost pitiful laugh. “Yeah… definitely not my day. Anthony is catching everything today. Not a single goal…”

“Sorry for you, blondie…”

He just nodded again.

Alisa pulled a can of zero coke from her sports bag beside the bench, opened it with a sharp hiss, and slid a metal straw inside the can before taking a few sips. Almost immediately, the urge for sweets dulled, coke was her emergency survival system whenever sugar cravings hit full force. Before important competitions, though, she kept a very strict diet… painfully strict.

She noticed Hermann watching her drink with a kind of exaggerated interest, almost like he was considering stealing it.

Alisa raised an eyebrow and held the can out. “Want some?”

“Yeah, I’ll take a sip, if you don’t mind?”