Chapter 26
When we left Japan, I was still in denial.
I don’t know how long I stayed out searching for Heath. Long enough for the freezing rain to soak through my thin jacket and the sweater underneath, down to my skin.
Eventually, I gave up and returned to our hotel, but I didn’t want to get in the shower—what if he came back, came looking for me, and I missed him?—so I lay under the covers, sleepless and shivering until dawn.
Later that morning, as I dragged my bags to the bullet train alone, I told myself he would be waiting at the station. Or at the airport. Or back in California. I imagined throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him until I couldn’t breathe. I imagined choking the life out of him.
No one knew what to say. The other skaters on our flight avoided me, as if my failure and heartbreak might be catching. After takeoff, Garrett insisted on switching seats so I could sit next to his sister—my first time in first class. Bella split her headphones with me and queued up a terrible movie on the seat-back screen, tactfully pretending not to notice the tears running down my face.
Somewhere below the Bering Strait, I managed to fall into a fitful sleep. I dreamed of ice shattering under my feet, cold water rushing into my lungs when I tried to scream.
By the time we got back to Los Angeles, I was burning with fever.
The twins offered to let me come home with them and stay in one ofthe guest suites. But I wanted to be alone, so I went back to the dorm. For days, I stayed in bed—sweating, shaking, the only indication of time passing the light shifting over my closed eyelids.
Bella brought me food and medicine—not the usual chicken noodle soup or Sudafed, but extremely LA cure-alls: green juices, organic bone broths, packets of herbs labeled only with handwritten Chinese characters.
Nothing helped. I hadn’t been so sick since I was a child. And that time, Heath had been by my side, as miserable as I was.
—
It was February 1994—the first time the Olympic Winter Games were held in a different year than the Summer Games, and the first year of my friendship with Heath.
People talk about Great Lakes winters as though they’re hell frozen over from Thanksgiving to Easter, but it’s February you’ve got to look out for. After weeks of bitter temperatures, several feet of snow fell overnight, and even in the Midwest, they have to cancel school for that.
I knew Heath would be miserable trapped in that tiny house with his foster family all day, and I didn’t relish the thought of spending hours cooped up with my brother shouting at his Sega Genesis either. So I suggested we go to the lake.
At least once every winter, the lake iced over—though you didn’t have to venture out far before the surface became dangerously thin. My father had taught me what to watch out for: clear ice with a blue tinge is the strongest. If the ice is milky-white, tread carefully. If it’s gray or slushy, don’t even think about it. And if it starts to break apart under your feet?
Don’t run. You’ll only make it worse.
The high winds had cleared away the snowdrifts closest to the shore, leaving us with our own private rink surrounded by sky. I’d unearthed two pairs of old hockey boots from the depths of the basement, because Heath didn’t own skates yet, and I knew better than to let my pricey blades touch anything other than pristine indoor ice.
We were both awkward, tottering and sliding like baby deer on the dull, rust-speckled runners. Within a few minutes, though, we’d workedout a rhythm, and soon we were gliding across the lake’s surface, mittened fingers clasped, faces stretched into giddy grins.
Heath had been watching me skate for months by then, but that was the first time we ever skated together. He started spinning me around in a simple waltz step, and I shut my eyes and imagined we were skating to victory in front of an adoring crowd.
Sometimes I think my entire career was an attempt to recapture the elation I felt that winter day, with the wind on my cheeks and Heath’s hand in mine, moving so fast we were almost flying. I had no idea how long we’d stayed on the lake, or how far out we’d gone.
Until I heard the crack.
It only hurt for a second. Then I went numb. My legs were submerged in the lake. Shards of ice scraped my waist, but I was too shocked to scream. Luckily, Heath wasn’t.
“Katarina!”
Everyone always called me “Kat” as a kid, Heath included. Until that moment. He kept shouting my full name, over and over, like somehow the extra syllables would help close the distance between us.
“Katarina, give me your hand!”
When I tried, I only slipped in deeper, frigid water soaking my coat, weighing me down. Heath lunged forward and grabbed me by the shoulders. But I was sliding back, faster and faster. Dragging him with me through the hole we’d made in the ice.
“Katarina,please.”
He pulled, and I heaved myself up. I wouldn’t fully understand how we’d managed it until years later when we started doing dance lifts, achieving seemingly impossible feats through counterbalance and adrenaline and pure trust. All I knew was that I was out of the water.
I collapsed on top of him. The ice groaned under our weight.
