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“Nothing?”
“Nothing I say in this room is going to change what those people think.” They still wanted their headlines. I could see it on their faces. “You can write whatever headline you want. You can call me a risk, a distraction, Hasegawa’s former partner, whatever. The guy who didn’t make the Meridian final. You can ask whether I’m good enough until you run out of different ways to say it.”
The room had gone church quiet.
“But tomorrow, I get on the ice.” My heart pounded harder, but it didn’t feel like panic anymore. It felt like the rush before the music begins. That moment, posing on vacant ice, when the entire stadium holds its breath. “Tomorrow, on the ice, none of you get to interrupt me. None of you get to tell me who I am, or where I belong, or whose shadow I’m supposed to be standing in.” I took a breath. “My skating will do the talking for me.”
I stepped back. The phones came up. But I was done. I turned away, and walked toward the door. Miles called my name. The door opened before I reached it. A volunteer flattened herself against the wall to let me storm through. I made it halfway along the corridor before my breath caught up, leaving me dizzy and hot.
I braced against the wall and breathed.
I’d fucked that up.
Badly.
By the time I got back to the apartment later, clips would already be online. By tonight there’d be headlines, edits, hot takes, and whole threads about my attitude. Team Canada would probably have someone standing over me while I wrote a public apology. Maybe the committee would call me back into that room.
Maybe Ren would see it and be relieved he’d thrown me out before I dragged him down with me.
The team filed out of the interview room and came up behind me, one by one. Zoe first, Miles next, then Casey and Jen.
“I’m sorry,” I told Zoe.
She folded her arms and frowned, but she didn’t look angry. Just tired.
“I know that doesn’t fix it, but I really am sorry,” I added.
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t. But it was brutal in there.”
Miles rubbed his face. “Do you understand the situation you’ve put us in? You were given clear instructions.”
“Yeah, I know—”
“C’mon, Coach.” Casey tried to help, but got cut off.
“You discussed a confidential drug test. You swore on camera. You antagonized the press. You all but accused officials of targeting you.”
“They are targeting me,” I whined.
Miles’s frown tightened. “That is not something you say in a press room without evidence.”
I had evidence. The panel. The photo. The warning. That wasn’t an accident. I just didn’t know who was behind it. Or why.
Miles sighed. “I’ll deal with this. Right now, you go back to your apartment, you eat, you rest, and you stay off social media. Understand?”
“Yeah.”
He walked off, already pulling his phone from his pocket, probably to call the Team Canada media manager to report the disaster wearing their team jacket.
Jen gave me a sympathetic smile, then followed.
Casey hung back. I expected a joke, but he put his hand on my shoulder. “For what it’s worth, man, you were right back there. They shouldn’t be asking you shit like that.”
“Yeah, there are just better ways to say it, I guess.” My damn voice wobbled.
He let his hand fall and followed Jen.
Zoe was stuck with me, for better or worse. “I shouldn’t have been late, and I shouldn’t have let them make it about me. You deserve better.”
