I took a deep breath, waiting for the first note of the sedate string and brass melody that underscored our opening choreographic sequence.
That’s when I saw him.
He stood on the steps leading up into the stands, to the left of the judges’ table. He wore a black wool coat, and his dark hair was shaved close to his scalp.
He looked entirely different from the Heath Rocha I’d known and loved. And yet recognition struck my heart like a bell.
“What’s wrong?” Garrett whispered. Without realizing it, I’d lifted my head, drawing my body bowstring-taut in his arms.
But it was too late to explain. Our music started, and we were off—a beat too late, but Garrett skillfully caught us up without missing a step.
Skating with Heath, I always felt right on the edge of control, swept away. With Garrett, everything was precise. Correct. Controlled. All the things that came so naturally with Heath had to be manufactured. I had to remind myself to smile, to gaze into Garrett’s eyes, to reach for him at the right moments, with the right amount of passion and yearning. It became part of the choreography, one more thing to learn along with the steps and spins and lifts.
The artifice had bothered me initially. That day, though, I wasgrateful for it. By the time we reached our first set of twizzles—coinciding with the shower of woodwind flourishes that signaled the approaching musical storm—muscle memory had taken over, and I was performing impeccably as ever.
As I exited the final spin, though, I couldn’t help sneaking another look at the steps.
He was gone.
I told myself I was imagining things. Letting my nerves get the better of me. I’d stopped searching for Heath years before—after the authorities told me he was an adult who had left of his own volition and so couldn’t be considered a missing person, after the twins’ skating-world contacts turned up zero hints as to his whereabouts, after Sheila gave me a talking to about how I needed to let it go and focus on the present, because my personal preoccupations had no place on the ice with her son.
I’d stopped searching, but I’d never stopped looking. How many times over the past three years had I worked myself up with the worry that Heath would appear in the stands at a competition? How many times had I mistaken a dark-haired stranger for him—walking in city crowds, or waiting in line to board a plane or buy a coffee?
That’s all this was. Another phantom, conjured by my anger and heartbreak and the unspeakable fear that Heath was truly gone for good.
I didn’t have time for fear. I had a title to win. So I threw myself into the dance, picking up speed as Tchaikovsky’s tempest intensified with a thunderous timpani roll. As we reached the climax of the piece, turbulent strings and cymbals crashing like waves against rocks, Garrett swung me up into our most dramatic lift. I balanced with a single skate against his leg and spread my arms wide like a sorceress casting a spell, skirt whipping behind me as we shot across the ice with so much power it was as if we’d created our own gale, until—
There he was again. Closer now, watching from right behind the boards.
Heath. It couldn’t be. But it was.
My leg started to quake. Garrett dug his fingers in, trying to save the lift. As I was about to come crashing down, he improvised, catching mein his arms and bouncing me off his hip like we were doing a clumsy Lindy Hop. His quick thinking saved us from a fall, but it was ugly and took far too long.
I tried to do the math in my head, figure out what my error had cost us. The new rules meant we’d be docked at least a point for going over the time limit on our lift. Our awkward dismount position would cost us even more. We had a decent lead over the Russians, but any further mistakes, and it might not be enough.
I barely remember skating the rest of the program. My eyes were open, but all I could see was Heath, that hateful expression under his harsh new haircut. The next thing I knew, the crowd was cheering, and Garrett was hugging me.
As we made our way to the kiss and cry, Garrett scooped up one of the stuffed animals tossed onto the ice—a puppy with shaggy golden fur—and handed it to me. I held it in my lap as we awaited our scores, clutching its plush throat like I was trying to throttle it.
When our scores flashed on the monitor, I was still scanning the stands for Heath. I didn’t realize we’d won until Garrett lifted me off my feet with a victorious whoop. Sheila wrapped her arms around both of us, beaming like she’d gotten the gold herself.
I’m world championwas my first dazed thought.
My second was:Bella is going to hate me.
Garrett and I were hustled straight from the kiss and cry to a flurry of interviews—microphones and cameras stuck in our faces, overlapping voices asking questions in a dizzying array of languages. He did most of the talking, while I held fast to his arm.
Smile,I kept repeating to myself.This is the best day of your life.
I thought perhaps it would sink in once the medal was around my neck. But even as I waved to the crowd from the top step of the podium, I felt numb. As the national anthem played, I rested one hand over my heart and the other over the medal, trying to ground myself through deep breaths and the cool sensation of the gold against my palm.
Not real gold, only plated silver. Scratch it hard enough, the finish would come right off.
Tears glittered in Garrett’s eyes as he sang along to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” My lips moved too, but no sound came out.
Then, there he was again. Under the flag, where he could be sure I would see him. Nearly everything about Heath had changed since three years earlier in Nagano, but his eyes—they were the same. Heavy-lidded, long-lashed, so dark the irises blended into the pupils. So intense, they held me in place sure as a hand around my throat. I would have recognized those eyes anywhere.
We were supposed to stay on the podium for official photos, and then take our lap around the rink. Medal ceremonies had become so routine, I knew the procedure.
