“If you’d known, would you have told me?”
Garrett hesitated, eyes cutting toward his sister. There was my answer. And obviously Sheila was well aware. I recalled Bella’s words, that night by the pool:I find it best to assume my mother knows everything.For all I knew, the entire thing was Sheila’s idea.
At the time, I told myself I was only angry because they hadn’t been honest with me. Now I can admit that wasn’t true. There was no circumstance in which I could have accepted Heath and Bella skating together.
Her betrayal stung, but his was worse. Because Heath hadn’t simply improved since leaving me—he’dtransformed.He wasn’t the same skater he’d been when we were together. He was the skater I’d always dreamed of him becoming.
His love for me hadn’t been motivation enough to reach his full potential. His hatred, though? That made him capable of anything.
Ellis Dean:So for three whole years, this motherfucker dropped off the face of the earth. And then, out of nowhere, he shows up? Tell me that’s not some epic daytime soap-opera shit! You can’t. I wish I’d been there to see Kat’s face.
Garrett Lin:After Nagano, I was afraid Heath might have…hurt himself. I never said so to Kat. But I imagine it must have crossed her mind too.
Video of a Lin Ice Academy practice session in summer 2005. Heath warms up, improvising some choreography to match the song another team is performing to across the rink. Several skaters stop what they’re doing to watch him, but he seems oblivious to their attention.
Francesca Gaskell:He’d always been good at the expression and performance parts of skating. But now he had the technique to back it up. Heath could, like,becomethe music.
Kirk Lockwood:It’s not impossible for a skater to improve so much in such a brief time. But it is unlikely.
Ellis Dean:I mean, he had to be on ’roids or something, right?
Garrett Lin:He wasn’t taking anything. Doping isn’t all that prevalent in ice dance—mostly because it wouldn’t help much. You could improve your stamina, sure, but ice dance is all about artistry. There’s no magic pill for that.
Jane Currer:The U.S. Figure Skating Association has a zero-tolerance policy for performance-enhancing drugs. That’s all I have to say on the matter.
Ellis Dean:The boy was always cute and all, but he didnothave those muscles before.
Garrett Lin:My mother made everyone at the Academy drug test weekly—and yes, I mean everyone, her own children included. If Heath was on something, she would have caught him and kicked himout.
Ellis Dean:Kat must have been kicking herself for letting him go. Everyone was talking about it—skaters from Canada to China had betting pools going about how long it would take before Kat Shaw and Bella Lin clawed each other’s eyes out.
Garrett Lin:You think my mother would have stood for that sort of petty infighting? We all wanted the same thing: to go to the Olympics. We didn’t have time for anything else.
Sheila coaches Katarina and Garrett, while Bella and Heath skate by in the background.
Garrett Lin:Honestly, Bella and Kat avoided each other for the most part. It was sad, after they’d been such close friends for so long. But anyone who knew Bella knew she’d always choose skating over everything—and everyone—else. And if their positions were reversed? I’m sure Kat would’ve done the same.
Chapter 30
I was determined to ignore Heath and Bella. I couldn’t afford to waste my energy on them—not if I was going to become an Olympic gold medalist.
But they didn’t make it easy. Every time I turned around, there they were: wound around each other on the ice or sitting shoulder to shoulder in the stands. If Heath saw me looking, he’d lean closer, find excuses to touch her—and Bella didn’t exactly discourage him.
It pained me to admit it, but they were good together. Heath had improved so much, he made every style from the polka to the mambo look easy. The combination of Bella’s petite stature and the muscle Heath had put on during his mysterious absence meant they could perform lifts and tricks out of reach for most other ice dance teams.
Plenty of rumors flew about where Heath had been training—after all, there were only so many elite ice dance instructors out there, and even fewer who could compete with the likes of Sheila Lin. A couple of coaches tried to take credit for his transformation, but Heath refused to confirm or deny. All anyone knew was that he’d somehow gone from serviceable to world-class in a few short years.
Meanwhile, Garrett and I were struggling. For our free dance that season, we skated to a medley of R&B tracks. Our choreography was meant to be a steamy slow burn, with lots of longing looks and lifts where my legs wrapped around Garrett’s waist. We’d done romantic programs before; nothing so overtly sexy, though. We could execute the technical requirements, but the whole thing felt awkward and forced—especially with the only man I’d ever loved watching from the other side of the ice.
I couldn’t avoid seeing Heath at the Academy. But I’d started taking some of my off-ice training elsewhere. I wasn’trunning away,I reasoned. I just needed some fresh air. A change of scenery, a new challenge.
Yeah, even back then I knew I was full of shit.
My favorite workout spot was in a canyon near the Lins’ house: hundreds of concrete steps winding up a steep hillside. In mild weather, it would have been a challenging workout. In the scorching heat of Los Angeles summer, it was pure torture—more than enough pain to keep my mind off the true source of my suffering.
By the fall, I was escaping to the canyon three days a week, sometimes more if I could fit it in between all our ice sessions and dance lessons and promotional commitments. It was quiet there: nothing but the calls of birds, the pounding of my shoes against the concrete, and my breaths turning from steady to panting the closer I got to the top.
Until one early October afternoon, when my solitude was shattered by the sound of footfalls coming up fast behind me.
