Page 82 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

And then someone shouted.

“Two hundred seventy-two point four one! Alisa, that’s crazy! Is that your new personal best?”

Alisa froze.

“…What?”

“Two hundred seventy-two point four one!”

For a second she just stared.

They had really scored her that high?

After the fall?

After the mistake?

After everything?

“I… I think so,” she whispered, almost laughing in disbelief now, because tears were suddenly burning in her eyes all over again. “I think it’s a personal best… even with the bad jump… even with almost ruining everything…”

“Oh, stop it,” Anastasia said immediately, stepping toward her with a wide smile and wrapping her arms around her shoulders. “We all watched you. It was magical, Alisa, really, I had goosebumps through the whole program, every spin, every movement, and the jumps…” she shook her head as if she still could not believe it. “The jumps were something else entirely.”

“It’s true!” the blonde chimed in, hugging Alisa too. “We’re proud that you train with us, seriously, you’re incredible!”

Then the other girls came too, one after another, hugging her, smiling, talking over each other, and Alisa stood there in the middle of them with aching knees and red eyes and the taste of tears still somewhere in her throat, feeling two completely opposite things at once.

The terrible guilt that maybe she had broken somebody else’s dream.

And also joy… Huge, blinding, impossible joy.

Because for the first time in a very long time, she had done it and people fucking saw it.

III

Part III

OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION TOURNAMENT (Beijing),

SEPTEMBER 2025

Chapter 16

In honor of those who went to the qualifiers, they organized a party a couple of days before departure just to wish the athletes good luck, so to speak, so that they could secure the remaining quotas for the country.

All the athletes gathered in one popular restaurant - RoofTop, which had been booked out entirely for the evening. There was a pool on the roof, something that was very rarely used except on especially hot summer days in St. Petersburg, and it was usually too cold for it; today was no exception. Still, everyone was dressed in suits and dresses, the official dress code for the evening. Alisa stood in black pumps and a short black dress with a thigh-high slit; it somehow reminded her of her performance costumes, so she felt quite comfortable in it, even at such a short length. She held a glass of prosecco in her hands and looked out at the night lights of the city, the passing cars below, the people hurrying along about their business.

She felt a vibration in her purse.

Really?

No way…

Alisa reached for her phone with a flicker of hope and pulled it out of her small clutch; it took up almost all the space inside. Were the messengers working today?

She quickly opened the app and noticed incoming messages from Tora, those messages she had sent before, but Alisa had received no notifications, until now. The date showed they were almost a month old… they had not spoken for an entire month…

Tora: How are you doing there?