Page 86 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

Rivals… Tora was her rival once.

“Both. I’m trying not to fall apart before either of them.”

“Well, if you do fall, at least make it dramatic,” Anfisa smirked, “judges love drama.”

“Great,” Alisa shook her head, “I’ll just collapse beautifully in the middle of the program.”

“Exactly, with feeling and grace!”

Alisa laughed, and for a moment everything inside her loosened, just a little.

The arena was enormous in a way that felt almost unreal, and when they stepped inside, Alisa felt it immediately, the scale of it pressing in from all sides, and when she finally walked out onto the ice, she stopped without meaning to, looking around with wide eyes.

“Wow… it’s huge.”

Anfisa laughed beside her, glancing around just as openly. “Well, the Chinese definitely don’t do small.”

And then the blades touched the ice, and everything else fell away, because the moment she began to move, there was nothing left but the glide, the sound of crunching ice beneath her feet, the familiar rhythm that pulled her back into herself, into something steady and controlled.

They warmed up, and then, under Arkadiy’s watch, began to work through their elements, repeating the most difficult jumps again and again, every skater on the ice focused only on their own limits, until it was time to run the programs.

Each of them had five minutes, just enough for two runs, and when it was Alisa’s turn, she stepped into the first run and carried it through almost cleanly, except for the quadruple axel, where she entered from the wrong edge, and Arkadiy only shook his head slightly, saying nothing.

The second run, however, came together completely, and this time every jump was landed, everything aligned perfectly, and when she finished, she saw that small, approving nod from him, which meant more than any words.

She stayed to watch Anfisa afterward, drawn in by her program, which felt bolder, almost defiant, like a challenge, and Alisa caught herself thinking that she looked like a warrior, like Xena, stepping forward without any hesitation and no fear.

* * *

The next day arrived faster than she expected, and the short program felt like a blur that stretched and tightened at the same time, where the first jump came out perfectly, clean and strong, the middle almost slipped away from her in a moment that could have turned into a fall, and before the last element there was that pause, that dangerous fraction of time where doubt could take over, but she pushed through it and finished.

She held it all together anyway.

She took the first place not because she was perfect among all the skaters today, but because no one was, because this was not that kind of competition. Everyone here was skating under pressure that showed in every movement, in every small mistake, because this was the last chance for all of them, and everyone was fighting for it with sharp teeth, pulling points out of nothing…

It gave her a certain lightness for the rest of the day, a sense that she was still in control, that she could do this, and yet underneath it all there was still that quiet, persistent worry about Tora, about whether she would come at all, whether she was really going to be there for her, and Alisa kept checking her phone again and again after she performed, even though nothing changed, not a single message arrived.

Then came her rest, and then morning again, and with it the rehearsals for the free program, which demanded more from her—more strength, more endurance, more focus—because this was the performance that would decide everything, the quota, the next step toward the Olympics, and beyond that, the final selection, where only three would be chosen, even though they all would go to compete on behalf of their country, well, in her case, under the neutral flag of neutral athletes, but still everyone knew which country she was competing for, even without a flag…

By then she was so exhausted in a way that settled deep inside her, and part of her wanted it all to end, wanted to go home, to stop thinking, to stop carrying all of it at once, and yet she knew that tomorrow would decide too much for her to let go now.

Tomorrow she would skate the free program that could change everything, and somewhere in that grand arena Tora might be watching her or might not and that uncertainty alone was enough to make her hands tremble.

Chapter 17

Tora woke up to her alarm at 4:30, and, lazily stretching and yawning, she went straight to the contrast shower to wake herself up properly; afterward, wrapped in a towel, she moved into the dressing room and began choosing what she would wear for training, eventually settling on one of her favorites, that bluish, tight-fitting uniform that slightly revealed her stomach, although it was too cold for the ice on its own, so she pulled on white thermal layers underneath before heading downstairs.

Some regular podcast about space was playing from her phone, Tora loved anything related to space, even though she had never been destined to become an astronaut, although sometimes, during training, spinning endlessly in rotation simulators, she caught herself thinking that maybe she could have been one, because there were so many rotations, so many moments of dizziness and control, that it almost felt like preparation for something beyond Earth; she smiled faintly at the thought as she placed her mug into the coffee machine and continued packing her bag.

She added a pair of clean, thick socks for skating, the ones with a small pink chrysanthemum embroidered on the side, her mother loved to embroider, and she often decorated Tora’s clothes with these cute details, even though Tora didn’t visit as often as she should. For a moment, she ran her fingers over the soft stitching, feeling the familiar texture, before placing the socks into her bag, folding them neatly into each skate, and adding the foot warmers on top, the ones her mother had knitted as well, which she adored, because skating in them felt a thousand times softer.

Once everything was packed—skates, gloves, a hat, headphones, a cloth for the blades, foot warmers, spare socks, a bottle of water—she returned to the kitchen, poured her coffee into a thermos, and took everything outside to the car.

The sun had not yet risen, and wouldn’t for another couple of hours; the morning was still completely dark.

Tora wrapped herself in a warm jacket with the logo of her national team and hurried to the car, placing her bag and thermos on the front seat. She turned on the heater immediately, it was only +6 degrees, cold enough to make her shiver as she sat there, waiting for the warmth to spread, sipping her coffee in small gulps.

After a couple of minutes, she turned on some music, something louder this time like a Brazilian phonk, “MONTAGEM – PR FUNK” and as the bass filled the car, a bright smile appeared almost instantly on her face, her head moving slightly to the rhythm as she pulled out and drove toward her favorite sports palace, toward the arena that had become her second home over the years.