Page 113 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

Great.

She’d probably have to ask Hermann for a ride again. Lately, taxis had only been making her more irritated and exhausted, and Hermann didn’t mind, he actually liked picking her up before morning practices now that their schedules overlapped, even if they trained on different ice.

“Alisa?” Tora’s voice softened, careful, almost fragile. “Look at me…”

Alisa lifted her gaze to the camera.

“I’m sorry I can’t be there with you right now… to support you properly…”

“Yeah… that sucks…” Alisa forced a small, crooked smile, but her eyes were still wet and shining.

“Don’t cry,” Tora said gently. “Tell me what happened.”

Alisa put the phone on the kitchen table, propping it up carefully against a vase filled with dried roses, the same ones from Beijing.

“Are those… the roses from China?”

“Yeah… those ones.” Alisa gave a small, almost shy chuckle as she filled the kettle. “I kind of… well… dried them, as you can see.”

She moved around the kitchen on autopilot, putting the kettle on, setting out her dinner: chicken breast, buckwheat and boiled eggs. Then tea with honey and lemon.

When she finally sat down, it was across from the phone, where Tora’s face hovered from the screen like she was actually here with her.

“Nice ass, babe,” Tora suddenly said, completely serious.

Alisa snorted, caught off guard by the timing. “Thank you… yours is fine too…”

She pressed her lips together, hesitating. Deciding whether to say it or not, because once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop, and who knew how long the connection would even last… fuck.

“Well,” she exhaled, “I kind of had a nervous breakdown. Knees again. Same old shit.”

She looked down at her hands.

“It started a long time ago, back in childhood… doctors couldn’t figure it out, threw around weird diagnoses, or just said they didn’t know how to help. And now it’s back, and it just—”

“Hey… shhh.”

Alisa broke mid-sentence. The tears came again, rolling down her cheeks before she could stop them.

“Babe… it’s going to be okay,” Tora said softly, and then paused, like she understood that Alisa wasn’t resting at all, not before something this level of important.

“Yeah… I’ll get through it,” Alisa muttered, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “It’s fine. I’m training on pills, on ointments… I’ll manage somehow.”

She swallowed, forcing herself to shift the topic.

“What about you? You probably have your internal competitions too, right… before the Olympics? Have they selected anyone yet, or do you already know you’re going?”

“Yeah,” Tora nodded, “we know. We were selected a while ago.”

“Oh…”

Of course.

“Well… I hope you win your internal qualifiers anyway,” Tora said confidently. “And go to the Olympics… even with all of this.”

“Yeah…” Alisa closed her eyes for a second, then got up to pour the tea. The kettle clicked softly, the only sound in the kitchen.

But when she came back—