Page 64 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

Arkadiy nodded once more, already turning back toward the ice.

“All right, again! Come on, let’s go, let’s go!” he shouted, clapping his hands loudly as the boys launched themselves into the air once more.

Alisa turned and headed toward the locker room.

When she stepped into the shower room, it was empty. Thank God. Every time she walked in there now, she remembered that moment in Norway with Tora. It did not matter that she knew mostly all the girls here, that no one would look at her strangely. The memory still lived under her skin.

Tora had changed so much in her life for Alisa not to think about her now. Alisa wanted to tell her something good.

The messengers had been working badly again all morning, stuttering and freezing because the VPN kept disconnecting, but eventually the messages went through.

Alisa: Hey, good morning, champion.

Tora: Wow. Are you in a good mood, Slavic girl?

Alisa: I’m being… recruited to another team.

Tora: Really? That’s incredible! Are they preparing you for singles?

Alisa: I don’t know yet, but… I’m going to train with guys. Only guys.

Tora: I’m already jealous.

Alisa: Don’t be. Their boobies will never compare to yours.

Tora: 😂 Oh, right.

Alisa: Can we have a call tonight? Maybe play PS5? And just… talk.

Tora: Of course. But then you have to tell me everything about the first practice with your new coach.

Alisa: Deal.

“The season is over,” Alisa whispered softly to herself as she dried her hair and looked at her reflection in the mirror. “Time for a new me. Literally. A new me in singles.”

Then she called a taxi and left the arena, heading toward her favorite coffee shop for breakfast.

* * *

Alisa arrived for the second ice session at eleven in the morning with a smile on her face. It was the first real smile in two months.

Outside, summer had already settled over the city. June heat shimmered above the pavement, the morning already warm, the air smelling faintly of asphalt and sunburnt grass. It was barely eleven and already twenty-five degrees, and for the first time in weeks, Alisa was glad to push open the doors of the arena and step back into the familiar cold.

She sat on the bench in the locker room, pulling the laces of her Edea skates tight around her ankles until they almost hurt, smoothing the folds of her black training dress over her hips, tying her hair back one more time than necessary because her hands needed something to do.

Then she stepped out onto the arena.

There were already ten boys sitting along the boards and another five girls gathered nearby. Alisa recognized some of them vaguely from competitions and passing glimpses in the corridors of the rink, but she had never skated with them. Singles skaters. It still felt strange to think that now she was one of them.

There were no coaches on the ice yet. Apparently, the rink had been split between two groups today, divided between Arkadiy and another coach, all of them singles. After so many years of pair skating, it was unsettling to see an entire arena full of people skating on their own.

At the other end of the arena, the hockey players were still finishing their practice. They tore across the ice in a blur of black and red jerseys, chasing the puck and sending sprays of shaved ice into the air with every sudden stop. The figure skaters watched them with open irritation.

No one liked skating after hockey players.

Even after only an hour, hockey carved deep grooves and rough scratches into the ice, turning the clean surface into something uneven and unpredictable. For skaters, especially singles who needed perfect edges and flawless landings, it felt like trying to dance barefoot on a broken glass.

Alisa walked over and sat carefully on the bench beside the girls. They were all watching the hockey players with identical expressions of suffering and annoyance.