Page 72 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

Everything was going to work out for her.

Chapter 14

By seven in the morning, Alisa already felt completely exhausted. Two and a half hours of jumping had almost broken even her stubborn spirit, her entire body ached, and her head hurt too, either because of the cold or because of the phase of her cycle, because sometimes during the luteal phase, when her hormones dropped, she got headaches so terrible that they felt unbearable, and now she could not even tell what exactly was tormenting her more, her body, her head, or the fact that the jumps still did not work out the way she wanted them to.

She watched other girls go into quadruple jumps as if it were easy, while she still struggled even with triples, and sometimes even with that damn double axel, which today had turned out especially badly.

The coach was angry. And in the end they decided to stop jump practice for today.

Alisa only clenched her teeth and dragged herself to the locker room with a miserable expression.

After her shower, while she sat on the bench and rubbed ointment into the bruises on her legs, because after every practice her knees and hips seemed to bloom in new colors, the girls from Cherry’s group came into the locker room. Somehow that nickname had attached itself to her completely.

Cherry smiled as soon as she saw Alisa and immediately came over to hug her.

Alisa hugged her back awkwardly, without really using her hands, because both of her palms were covered in that awful-smelling ointment.

Cherry only giggled, then she sat down beside her and began changing with the other girls. Unfortunately, Alisa still remembered their names badly, but apparently that did not matter at all, because they immediately started talking among themselves.

One blonde girl spoke first.

“Oh, did you see Hermann on the ice today?”

Another immediately rolled her eyes.

“Why are you stalking that poor guy?”

The blonde instantly looked embarrassed.

“I’m not stalking him! I just wanted to know… well…”

Then the third girl, Anastasia perhaps, if Alisa remembered correctly, snorted.

“She’s lying, she’s probably already licked every single one of his Instagram photos at least a thousand times.”

Everyone burst out laughing, including Cherry, and the blonde blushed so much that even her ears turned pink.

“You’re awful!” she huffed and turned away, pulling on bright pink leggings, through which the outline of her underwear with a tiny butterfly on the back was faintly visible.

“Did you wear such cute panties just for him?” Cherry asked with a grin.

The blonde immediately smacked her lightly on the arm, offended, although not really.

“They’re pretty, okay?”

“They are pretty,” another skater agreed immediately. “We’ve all already noticed.”

“If only Hermann had noticed them too,” Anastasia said dramatically, clutching at her heart and pretending to faint.

The girls exploded with laughter again.

And then, as if she could not take it anymore, the blonde suddenly disappeared from the locker room like a bullet, apparently running off to the rink in the hope of seeing Hermann.

After that, everything returned to normal.

The girls calmly continued changing clothes and discussing hockey players, figure skaters, boys in general, and apparently teasing that blonde friend of theirs was something completely ordinary.

Cherry mostly sat quietly and listened, barely taking part in the conversation at all.