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Chapter Text

She likes to watch the dancers in the rink, who spin and twist and leap like one of the snowflakes in the snow globes her mom gave her for Christmas last year. She loves the way the dancers pull apart from one another, following each other’s movements like two sides of the same coin, until the illusion breaks, and the female leaps into her partner’s arms. 

He never fails to catch her.

Nina Salazar-Roberts is not a figure skater. She is a ballerina with the knobby knees of an eight year old and scrapes on her calves, the product of one too many falls, but nimble limbs and graceful feet. She performs jetés and pirouettes, gliding across the shiny hardwood floors as if it’s her ice. Her movements flow like a gentle stream, each step measured and executed to perfection.

She is not a figure skater, but a ballerina. That does not mean she can’t sometimes think of more. 

It’s nearing Christmastime when Momma D asks her if she would like to try figure skating. Ilderton Arena is chilly, and the tip of her nose has become red, but Nina is not cold. She has come back from ballet to watch the skaters—this time, a girl who is not much older than her and a boy around the same age—struggling to perform a lift. The lift looks painful—the boy almost drops the girl, but at the last minute, he clutches her waist tighter, and the female skater successfully dismounts. 

When asked the question, she blinks once, then twice, trying to discern the right thing to say, but she thinks about the older skaters, about the pretty snow globe sitting in her room with the dancers circling each other, never touching, and knows her answer. Skating won’t interfere with ballet—if anything it would enhance her skills, because if she could balance on ice, she could do the same in pointes.

The skates she gets for Christmas are shiny, white, and new, with a small B engraved in the boot. They are not dissimilar from her points—both hard, both tight, both unyielding—and Nina can’t help but close her eyes and think about the twists, jumps, and lifts she could do in them. When she first steps on the ice in them, it feels like she’s getting ready for her solo in ballet.

And it turns out, skating is just like ballet, because she gets the concepts fast. The first time she lands a toe loop, she beams at her moms in the stand, and starts the backwards crossovers again into another one. Each scrape of her blades on the ice, the distinct clink of the toe pick digging into the well-used ice feels familiar, like she’s been on the ice all her life.

Solo skating could be just as rewarding as ballet. Her coach, Claire, says that she would be an excellent one, and if she chose skating over ballet, she would do great in competition. But twists and jumps and drags are nothing compared to the ice dancers she sees every Sunday, the lifts and mirroring of a partner, and Claire smiles. 

The next skating lesson comes with a boy.

“Nina, this is my nephew, Ricky Bowen. Ricky, this is Nina Salazar-Roberts, your new skating partner.”

Making a move to shake his hand, Nina pauses when Ricky’s mouth twists into somewhat of a frown. “Aunt Claire,” he says, turning towards their coach, “you know I’ve been playing hockey! I don’t have time to figure skate as well, and the guys—”

“You can do both,” Claire tells him firmly. “Nina skates and does ballet, and she’s great with it. Your mom said that you would be okay with it, and this will help you with being a better hockey player.”

Personally, Nina is not a big fan of hockey players and all, but the little town of Ilderton, Ontario, tucked away north of London, is famously small. Anyone knows everyone—unless you’re a rare tourist—and Nina really can’t escape a kid her age because chances are, she would probably run into them at school. Ricky is probably a few years older than her, seeing as she has never met him before today.

“But Aunt Claire—” he drags their new coach’s name out in an immature, totally hockey player way, “—figure skating isn’t a sport. The guys on my team will be so gross about it.”

Nina wrinkles her nose. Her best experience with a hockey player was when a boy in her class who was apparently the best ever at hockey, triple A or whatever, told her that ballet was not, in fact, a sport, and that she should pick up a stick or kick a ball or play a real sport to better use her feet. She then waited for him to get up, then promptly stuck out her proudly ballet foot and tripped this manly, triple A hockey boy.

If Nina was in Claire’s place, she would be at the end of her rope—niceties be damned—but her coach betrays none of that sort, only patiently stating, “It’s ice dancing, Ricky, not figure skating, and this is nonnegotiable, sorry. You could just tell the guys to shut up.” Her smile is gentle, a little apologetic, and for not the first time, Nina thinks that the woman is a saint.

Ricky looks like he’s about to protest again, but his shoulders slump. His frown softens into a line—not much better, but it’s still progress and Nina isn’t sure if she wants to count it as a win—and he sticks his hand out. It’s reluctant, certainly not the way any of her fellow dancers would have done it, but it was acceptable—you know, for a hockey boy, so she shakes it. 

“Nice to meet you Nina.” He gives her a small smile, before opening his mouth again, then closing it. A beat later, he adds, “Can I call you Nini? Nina just sounds a little snobby, no offense.”

And yes, Nina does take a bit of offense, it being her name and all, but he’s her new partner and a hockey boy being decent to her, so she’ll take what she can get. Ricky seems to notice her apprehension, and tacks more on his previous statement, more so stumbling it out in a pathetic but funny way to save face. “It’s still a really pretty name, and if you really like it, it’s totally fine, I shouldn’t have said that. I like nicknames though—my name is actually Richard, but I asked everyone to call me Ricky because Richard sounds like the name of a really jerky grandpa, and my best friend’s name is Big Red—”

“It’s fine,” she cuts him off, because although she finds it absolutely hilarious to see him stumble over his words, she can’t help but feel a little bad for the hapless boy in front of her. “It’s kind of pretty, because names that end with an e sound cooler.”

He beams. “Cool, cool, cool. I’m nine, by the way. How old are you?”

Ah. So he is two years older than her. She could work with that. “I’m seven.”

She has to give him props for his semi-successful poker face—he really couldn’t be a ballerina even if he tried his hardest—but the boy really couldn’t hide his surprise. But she’s already decided that yes, he will do, and no, she’s not totally in love with him or anything (even though he’s the cutest boy she’s ever seen in her life, and that includes the really hot guy from that show Momma C loves) so she’ll tolerate him. 

She hopes (knows) that her smile back to him is just as bright, and when Claire instructs them to hold hands—for the skating—neither of them protest.

That’s how it begins.

When she goes home that night, her Lola is sitting by the fireplace, reading a book. Lola is aging, with midnight black hair starting to streak with silver (like the stars) and crinkles around her soft eyes: her favourite person in the world.

“My Nina, how was your day?” Lola’s voice is always warm, like the flicker of heat from a campfire or the slow drip of honey from a spoon. She always calls Nina “my Nina”, something that makes her feel all fuzzy because her Lola is her favourite person in the whole entire world. “Did you have fun skating today?”

She nods her head enthusiastically, and after carefully hanging her coat on the hook and skating bag neatly in the closet, she takes a seat beside Lola on the coach. “Yes, skating was really cool.” She thinks about the boy with messy curls, brown eyes and the widest grin—the hockey boy with a smile that could light a thousand light bulbs that is going to be her skating partner. “Miss Claire gave me a partner today. His name is Ricky and he’s nine.”

“Ah.” Lola sets her book down, folding her hands neatly in her lap as she looks at Nina with soft eyes. Whenever she talks, Lola always listens, and it makes her feel important. Lola always makes her feel important. “How do you feel about it?”

She shrugs. “He seems nice,” she starts, thinking about the way he rambles when he’s nervous and talks himself into a stump, “and kind of funny, but he plays hockey.” She spits out the word hockey like it was dirty—which it is. “His real name’s Richard and he thinks it’s a grandpa name, which is totally true, and his best friend’s name is Big Red, which isn’t even a real name anyways.” She takes a deep breath, looking for the amusement in her grandmother’s eyes or the boredom she can get from other adults that don’t care about what she has to say when she rants, and finds none. “He wants to call me Ni-ni, though, Lola, ‘cause he thinks Nina is snobby.” She scrunches her nose. “It’s not snobby though, right?”

“Nina is a beautiful name, but so is Nini,” Lola says gently, humming a little bit. “It’s not my choice, my Nina, but I like it either way. What do you think?”

She sighs, thinking hard about it for a moment. “I like Nina,” she starts carefully, making sure to enunciate every syllable, “but names that end with an e sounds cooler. And if Ricky’s going to be my partner, maybe I should let him—”

“My Nina, never change yourself for anyone, even if you think you want to,” Lola interrupts, “because that’s a slippery slope that many can not get up from. Do you want to be called Nini?”

“I dunno,” she says. “I think it’s pretty. I like Nina but it’s a little fancy, and Nini has e sounds at the end, so it sounds cooler. Can I think about it?”

Lola smiles. “You can do whatever you want,” she replies quietly. “It’s your life. All I ask of you is to try to make sure you are happy.”

It’s been a few months since Nini—who insisted that everyone call her that after Ricky started to—and the aforementioned boy started skating together, she understands that Ricky has to try a few laps with other girls too. They’re not exclusive or anything, because Ricky is one of the best male skaters on the ice, and no, it’s not because of hockey. 

She watches him take a lap with Grace (Kate? Emma? The names blur together) while she’s taking a break, and she can see him grimace as his current partner stumbles while doing a simple crossover. She’s nice enough not to snort or roll her eyes, but the girl clearly annoys her partner. 

Her stomach flip flops uncomfortably as she watches them, which is not jealousy thank you very much, because jealousy is for the villains in her romance books and dumb characters in stupid love triangles in those trashy soaps she watches when her moms aren’t home. But, even with that in mind, she feels like she’s one of her worn out pointes being twisted until it finally snaps whenever she sees Ricky take another girl’s hand and skates a lap with her.

It’s only a backup plan. Nini is going to ballet camp in the summer because she is going to be the best prima to ever dance in the New York City Ballet—she went there with her moms one summer and absolutely adores it there—but she also loves ice dancing, and even more important than that, dancing with Ricky. When she’s gone in the summer, he’ll need someone to dance with as well, and she shouldn’t even be mad about it, since this is happening because she wants to be a ballerina.

There’s still a weight being lifted off her chest when he skates to her right after he finishes with GraceKateEmma. When she asks him how his skate was in an embarrassingly small voice, he rolls his eyes. “It’s just not the same,” he complains. “You’re actually good at skating, and we’re already partners, so why do I need to do more stupid tryouts?”

“But what about hockey?” the words fly out of her mouth faster than she can close it, and Ricky laughs. It’s clear, a little boyish, but he’s nine and she’s seven and they’ve been skating partners for two months and four days and she’s still not totally in love with him. 

“Hockey’s still awesome,” she doesn’t agree with that, “but this doesn’t mess with it. Plus, you’ve got your ballet too, and we really don’t need to have other people to skate with. You’re my only partner.”

You’re my only partner thrums against her heart like a tattoo, each syllable a beat of her heart, the very reason she’s still standing because yeah, okay, maybe Nini Salazar-Roberts is totally in love with Ricky Bowen, who is nine while she is seven and his skating partner of two months and four days, but she’s his skating partner. That has to break like, every single rule in the official partner rule book.

It doesn’t matter though, because they do end up dating for one day and it’s probably the worst time they’ve ever skated together. They didn’t talk at all and only held hands and it’s awful. Ricky breaks it off because his friends are teasing him about the little ballerina he skates with and now apparently dates, but it’s better anyway. Skating should always come first, because a stupid little crush will die eventually.

Nini Salazar-Roberts is a ballerina with knobby knees and feet that sometimes bleeds red into her baby pink pointes, who leaps and performs Grande Jetés. Jumps and loops and twirls are performed to the exact tempo of Swan Lake, a graceful pointe-encased foot spinning and spinning and spinning until she is told to stop. Dark hair is pinned into a spotless bun, never a hair out of place as she pirouettes once again. 

She is also an ice dancer with graceful legs and feet that cramp in ice-white skates, who can perform three consecutive twizzles and balance on  her partner’s legs without falling for the entire sequence. Glides and drops and the scrape of the ice from each turn of her blade follows her every move, in sync with Ricky while they perfect yet another sequence.

At the age of nine, Nini is a ballerina and an ice dancer and a partner. Dance is in her lifeblood, the thrum of her heart, the beat of her drum, and it’s hard to think of what she could be if she just chose one. She never thought she would have to choose between them so soon, since she was much more serious about ballet, but realizes that making a choice so suddenly is not the only option.

This summer, she attended the National Ballet School. It was one of the most stressful experiences of her life, the process basically being weeks of live-in auditions, all which weeding the ballerinas out until the best of the best remained. Only then would they make a decision of who would stay all year long as part of its academic program, until eventually the ballerinas would graduate and join ballet schools.

Her entire summer was spent obsessing over being the “perfect candidate”. Was her pirouette tight enough? Her leg seemed a little low on her Jetés. There was one moment where her bun—always flawless, always—came unglued, and she spent the time after profusely apologizing to her teacher, swearing up and down that it would never happen again.

Joining the National Ballet School was her dream since she was three and learned that she liked to move along to the music in graceful, small movements, with a little lift of her leg and softening of her hands. It was everything she has built up to since, pushing and pushing to become good then better then great then the best, because that’s how much she’s wanted it. There was no time for smiles. No time for laughs. She hasn’t done that since she started.

So, when she’s given the letter telling her that she’s been accepted into the school of her dreams, she doesn’t jump up and down in her room and blast Hall and Oates. She hesitates when writing an acceptance letter, her hand trembling as her neat letter is smudged through uneven, squiggly lines. 

This choice should be easy. This is everything she’s worked for and more, something she’s pushed and cried over and screamed about. But skating, more importantly skating with Ricky, is a shiny asterisk in the corner of the page, something that makes her pause and revise everything she thought she wanted versus what she actually wants.

She knows then, what she wants to do, and signs her rejection with Nini Salazar-Roberts in loopy cursive pink. 

When she returns to the rink a day after, Ricky’s smile is so bright that it makes the lightbulb in the back of the rink that always flickers stop, and she finds herself smiling harder than she had since the start of ballet school, and when she runs to her partner, she knows she made the right choice.

Ricky Bowen does give the best hugs, after all.

Later, she’d ask Lola if she made the right choice. As always, she smiles gently, placing a kiss on Nini’s head, and says in her quiet, soothing voice, “If this choice makes you happy, My Nini, then you have made the right choice.”

It turns out that being really serious about ice dancing causes big changes in Nini’s life as well. After driving to Waterloo for training since they were 7 and 9, she and Ricky moved in with families to be closer to the rink. Ilderton is 113 kilometers away from the rink, and Nini misses her moms and Lola more than anything, but she can’t help but think they’ve become real skaters.

She tells Ricky such after a gruelling practice with Paul and Suzanne, their coaches. They’re walking back to Nini’s place while light snow falls on the ground, just adding more to the white banks piling up on the side of the walkway. He looks down—he’s not getting the lift that they’ve been perfecting for weeks and it’s been weighing down on him—but when he looks up and fully registers her question, he laughs.

“Ballernina, we’ve been real skaters since we were seven and nine, you know,” he replies, stepping on a pinecone to hear a satisfying crunch. “Well, I was a hockey player on the side and you were a ballerina,  but still, real skaters.”

She shrugs. “We’ve moved 113 kilometers away from home to train with really great coaches, which is something I can say with confidence that no normal skater does. It’s been six years working together, you know. Real skaters now. ”

“Ew, you’re thirteen. I forgot about that kiddo,” he says, bopping her nose after she scrunches it at the nickname. 

“I’m not a kid,” she retorts hotly. “You are, though, because you have to sing along every time we practice our short dance! Like, you really don’t need to do both the low parts and the high parts! Your voice cracks are awful.”

Ricky grins. “Well, if this skating gig doesn’t turn out, I can always go into opera singing. I feel like I would be great, the prima assoluta and everything.”

“The prima assoluta is a ballet term,” she corrects, laughing with Ricky trips over a rock. “Dummy.”

He sniffs as he gets up from the snow. “I knew that.”

When they stop in front of the house Nini’s staying in, she pauses on the door stoop. “Want to stay?” Her heart thrums against her chest in one two, one two, one two, and she doesn’t even know why she’s nervous because this is Ricky—her best friend since she was seven and he was nine and her skating partner for life. “Lane and Tyler are at work, and Marley is out with friends, so you don’t have to deal with her staring at you the entire time we watch The Cutting Edge.”

Ricky snorts. The daughter of the couple who’s letting Nini stay with them when they were training in Waterloo, Marley, has a crush the size of Canada on him. Nini could see it; Ricky is funny and laid back and super charming, and a bunch of the girls at the rink had a crush on him as well. She is pretty sure that people at his school did too—but it didn’t matter to her. Ricky is allowed to do whatever he wants to. They’re just best friends and confidantes and ice dance partners.

“Sorry Neens, I’m going out with Allison after I dropped you off at home. Maybe tomorrow?”

His smile is awkward, apologetic, and so very Ricky Bowen that her heart can’t help but stop—not a slow one, but one where it’s sixteenth notes playing in allegretto and fortissimo until suddenly both hands have rests with a fermata. It takes her years of ballet training from ages ago and her more recently and extensive ice dance ones to keep her smile from slipping off her face.

“Sure, that’s fine. I’m probably going to work on some school things then. Biology and cells, you know.” She forces cheer into her voice, ignoring the flip-flop of her stomach that’s been happening more often than not. Her chest feels heavy as she adds on in a tiny voice, “I hope you have fun with her. Allison seems pretty cool from what I know about her at the rink.”

His eyes are soft, so soft, and he’s looking at her the way he’d look at puppies or one of his little cousins who were just so small and tender, and she hates it. “Thanks kiddo,” he says quietly, kissing her forehead the way he does before competitions, and that only makes her heart ache more because he sees her as his kid sister. Always had. Her toes wiggle in her boots as she resists the urge to fiddle her thumbs, ignoring that cold running through her veins. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” she breathes out, making a face as Ricky messes her hair from her perfect bun. “Don’t forget to do your homework, Ricky. Your mom would be really mad and then tell my moms and then I’ll have to nag you again.”

His brown eyes twinkle as he replies, “Sure thing, Nina Ballerina. Have fun with your—'' he pauses, obviously not remembering what Nini said before. She rolls her eyes at him, shoving him over, “—hey! Science! Have fun with your science. Jeez. ”

Nini laughs as she waves him off, watching him jog on the sidewalk, presumably to pick up Allison. Once he’s out of sight, however, her smile drops, and suddenly she feels very, very cold. She reaches up and fixes her hair, twisting it into a ponytail, and goes inside the house, not stopping until she reaches her room and flops on her bed.

Over and over in her head, the sequence of the lift they couldn’t quite nail plays in her head. It’s going to be a long night.

The crowds are blinding as she and Ricky step onto the ice—it’s their second time ever skating at the Canadian Championships, with last year ending with a resounding success as they were placed first in the pre-novice category, and now, a category up, the chills don’t hurt any less.

She spent the night before talking to Lola about everything—fears, doubts, expectations—then nervously paced their hotel room in Hamilton. She threw up twice before coming to the rink, and now, dressed to the nines for their final performance—the free dance—her heart did not beat any slower.

“We got this,” Ricky whispers into her ear before they get into position. She nods back at him, mustering a small smile before assuming the starting pose. When the first three beats of the music start playing in, it all clicks.

It goes like this: Moving in sync, like the two skaters from the first time she stepped into the rink in Ilderton but better, she and Ricky make eye contact.

She crosses over into her two-step sequence, each clink of their blades against the ice in perfect sync, before she twists and grabs Ricky’s hand. It’s soft and warm and so very Ricky, but it’s not what she cares about in the moment as she mounts his legs to go into a lift, bending backward as Ricky leans back into a sitting position. Her dismount is flawless, and if she wasn’t so concentrated on the dance, she might have smiled.

Their twizzles move at exactly the same time, and she doesn’t dare make eye contact with him as she drops her blade to make the second twirl. Each scrape is perfect and sharp—no toe picks are caught and every is going great. 

When the song finally ends, she feels like she’s skated the best in her life. Ricky makes eye contact with her and he beams, his smile much larger than a normal Ricky Bowen smile. They bow and curtsey, and then Ricky skates over to her and swoops her up into his arms. 

“That was awesome kiddo,” he breathes, before taking her hand and skating off to exit the rink. Nini smiles back at him in acknowledgement, squeezing his hand once, twice, three times, before letting go to embrace Suzanne and Paul. Her moms are in the crowd, and she waves at him. Every step, although hindered by the brilliant white skates adorning her feet, feels lighter than air as she and Ricky fall into an even pace towards the Kiss and Cry.

Ricky takes her hand again—what he always does when getting their results—and they both stare anxiously at the screen. When their score and overall pop up on the screen, Nini’s hands fly to her mouth. It’s the highest score they’ve gotten all season, and she can’t think because holy shit holy shit holy shit. Her heart beats and beats and races until she’s pretty sure that everyone in the booth—no, the rink—can hear it, and it soars until—

“Nini Salazar-Roberts and Ricky Bowen, third place.”

The organ in her chest that pushes the lifeblood of her veins, the very reason she’s standing, really, stops. She can feel all of the blood draining from her face and suddenly she feels very, very cold. 

This is the best they’ve ever danced in their life. Every lift was executed perfectly. Their twizzles, which they had a hard time getting just right, were done down to the “t” and there were no trips, no falls, nothing. Yet still, after spending the entire season being good, then better, then amazing, they still fall short. Two places short, to be exact.

Nini Salazar-Roberts is an ice dancer who has moved 113 kilometers away from home, with a small group of friends that are never really there because she’s always at the rink or catching up on work, and bunions from her skates and aches in her calves. She is a child alone, away from her family, her moms, Lola, and only has Ricky, who’s there for her but not. She spends her time always working, always pushing, and yet, everything she does seems to always be close, but not close enough. 

Going to the Olympics and winning gold is something she’s wanted since she fully committed to ice dancing. Everything she does is a step towards that goal, but now, it seems like every step forward is met with one step back. It’s worse than one of those skating treadmills—a push is met with nothing, you’re going nowhere—and what’s more terrible than that is that they’ve technically gotten worse since the last season. That, or people keep moving forward and forward and forward with the tide, and Nini’s stuck in limbo, trying to swim against the current while being repeatedly shoved back.

She doesn’t have to look to her right to see Ricky’s face. He’s obviously disappointed as well, from the way his hand falls from her loose grip. When they leave the kiss and cry, his face is ashen. Sunny and happy Ricky Bowen feels as gray as she does, and that seems even shittier than being saddled in third place.

Suzanne and Paul are happy though, and Nini can’t understand why. They lost. They won last year, but they lost this year. They got worse. There’s nothing good about that.

“What’s with the long faces, guys? That was awesome!” Paul exclaims, ruffling Ricky’s hair as the boy only frowns harder. “Best skate of your lives! Rhythm and choreography were down pat, and the score was your highest so far. We’re really proud of you, and I know your parents are too.”

Her mouth curls into a scowl, while Ricky laughs. It’s harsh and bitter, cutting through the chilling air of the rink, which only seems to be getting cooler. “How? We lost.”

“This is the Canadian Championships,” Suzanne interjects smoothly. Nini’s eyes fixate on her, biting back a “so what?” as their assistant coach continues. “You guys are the youngest ever to compete in the novice category. Technically, you should be in the pre-novice still, but we know you guys. We know how hard you work, and we know how talented you are. Tonight proved it.”

“We still got third place,” Ricky reminds her. Nini doesn’t say anything, just biting her lip and staring at the ground. To be honest, she didn’t know what to say. What Suzanne and Paul were saying makes sense, but it doesn’t mean that the third place didn’t sting all the more. It was the best score of their season. Shouldn’t that count for anything?

“Third place in a group of people who are about four years older than you, have had that much more training, and are generally stronger than you,” Paul states simply. “Ricky, Nini, you guys have beat kids who have trained longer than you. You have worked so hard and we’ve seen you guys improve a lot since you’ve started, and we know you’re going to keep going. Trust me, this is only going to be the beginning.”

Nini bites her lip, then nods. Ricky is still fuming, but has simmered down a lot considering how his temper seems to flare easily. “So, what’s next?” her voice is tiny, sounding more defeated than anything, and so, so tired. 

Beside her, Ricky mouths the words, “Olympics.”

Suzanne smiles then, wide and glowing. “We keep working.”

That night after she and Ricky force a smile on the right side of the podium with heavy bronze medals around their necks, Nini opens the video of her and RIcky’s performances over the season with a pink pen and notebook beside her. She’s biting her lip and rubbing her eyes as she studies each move, each crossover, each push of a blade and scribbles notes down in cursive pink.

Hour after hour, combing tirelessly throughout each dance, her pen is the only thing that can be heard besides the playing of the score over and over again. Her moms and Lola, who seems more tired than usual, have gone to sleep already, and it’s just her. She should be sleeping, but she can’t as she rewatches the lift that she’s put a bunch of asterisks beside and wincing on her stance. Each time she watches it, the dismount becomes worse and worse, and she's writing down notes and notes about what they need to work on back in Waterloo.

Be good, then be better, then be the best. If that’s what it takes to one day win gold in the Olympics and become the first person ever of Asian descent to win a medal in ice dance, it’s worth it. 

And the next day, they get to work.

The next few years are a blur. 

She and Ricky fight more now, with her wanting to focus on the technical aspect and points system of the dance, while Ricky prefers to move along to the beat of the music and dance through there. The tensions rise higher and higher, especially because while Nini dedicates all her time off the rink practicing moves off ice, studying videos taken from practice, or catching up on school work, Ricky spends time hanging out with friends, sometimes girlfriends. It’s not that he’s not dedicated, but it’s a little frustrating she’s the one who’s fighting and pulling them along, trying to put all of her time and energy into accomplishing their joint goal of going to the Olympics, while he spends his time elsewhere.

She knows it’s not fair of her to ask him to do more. But that doesn’t stop it from hurting any less.

One particular fight starts after Ricky misses the dismount and Nini is at the end of her rope, snapping at him, “Well, if only you spent more time studying the lift, maybe you would have got it by now.”

His face is red as she yells at him, “It’s not my fault I have a life outside of skating, Nini! I don’t have to spend all of my time obsessively rewatching videos and taking notes each time we make the smallest screw up. Skating is supposed to be fun, and you’re not making it anything like that with a major stick up your ass!”

Red hot anger surges through her veins because how dare he. Can he not see that she’s doing all she can to be better? To be the best in their age category, to push to be the best and near-perfect partner? As she stands by and just lets him waste his time fooling around with all of those different girls, while she spends it making sure that they know what to fix, how to be better, how to be the best? 

Everything she does for him, for them, means nothing. She’s a little blip in his life, a hindrance, a burden. Just a toy that you like playing with when you’re young, only to be shoved aside in the corner as a big, dirty reminder that you’re growing up and have obligations. Life sucks, but in life, you have goals you want to meet. And Nini isn’t sure that she can meet them without Ricky. No, she knows she can’t make them without Ricky.

“How-how dare you?” her voice is bubbling over, on the tip of spilling out boiling hot water that melts and melts and melts. “I’m spending my time watching over it because you can’t seem to find any time to even look at our routines outside of practice. Everything—this, skating, me—is an inconvenience to you.” She’s shaking now, tears threatening to burst, and she can see Paul opening his mouth before Suzanne places a hand on his arm. 

“Nini—” Ricky starts, still fuming, but his eyes are softer, less harsh and angry looking at her than he’s been all year, but she’s not letting him cut her off. No, after a year of being pushed aside and being taken for granted, Nini is done.

“No, you don’t get to say anything. I feel like I’m the only one in this partnership that remembers our goals. Remember? Olympics, winning gold. Does any of that ring a bell?” her vision clouds with tears, and she sucks in deep breaths, willing them not to fall. She can’t let them fall. “If that doesn’t matter to you—if I don’t matter to you anymore—why can’t you let me go? Why can’t you tell me? Because yeah, I’ll be angry, but Ricky, you’ve been my best friend and I’m your partner and you have to be honest with me. If you want to stop, we’ll stop skating together, and you can have a normal life with no weird hours and a girl that’s two years younger than you always hanging out with you because I know your friends make jokes about it. But please, just be honest with me. If you don’t want to do this anymore, fine, you don’t have to, but if you want to keep doing this, if the Olympics are still your dreams like they are mine, please put some effort into this. I can’t do this alone Ricky, I’m sick of doing this alone.”

She’s crying now, her tears pitter pattering on the rubber surrounding the rink, and she’s just so tired of fighting with him. She wraps her arms around herself—something she did back in National Ballet School after a terrible rehearsal with her bun coming undone—and wills herself to stop crying.

His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “Ballernina,” he starts, and Nini almost sobs at the nickname because it’s been so long since he’s called her anything other than Nini, “I want to keep skating with you. Of course I want to keep skating with you. You’re my partner, you know? Forever and ever until you get annoyed with me. I’ll put more time and effort in, I’m sorry that I didn’t before. I will, I promise.”

She sniffles, weakly putting out her arms. “Hug it out?” she asks in a small voice, feeling like she’s seven and he’s nine again and Claire just made them hold hands. 

He laughs and wraps her in a giant, Ricky Bowen hug, and she buries her head into the crook of his neck, letting the rest of her tears fall. 

He stays true to his word. He goes over to her place, spending the time with her off the rink studying moves and practicing the lifts they didn’t quite get before. There’s a rapid improvement in their relationship once again, and they’re closer than ever. It’s obvious with the benefits of their performance as well, and their season is filled with personal bests being made every performance.

They travel all around the globe: Croatia and Slovakia are cool new places where Nini gets Lola scarves and her moms mugs, and Ricky gets her a tutu charm because she’s Nina Ballerina. It’s their debut for the ISU Junior Grand Prix—a segway into the senior level competitions, which eventually lead up to the Olympics—and they place fourth and sixth respectively. 

But the highlight of the 2003-2004 season is the Canadian Championships in Edmonton, where after a night of puking and compulsively dancing through the night in her hotel room, she and Ricky place first in. This time, she gets confirmation that they did the best they could yet—the score is a personal best and they’ve beat out over 20 other junior teams who are hailed as some of the greatest in Canada—and Ricky whoops and wraps her in the tightest hug before kissing her forehead as he does every time they do great.

Her heart is pounding and her stomach flops, but for the first time in the season, she doesn’t feel nauseous. She feels giddy and a huge weight seems to have lifted off her shoulders, because every step she takes in skates that gave her bunions and calves that ache a little too much seems lighter than air. When news of their qualification for the Junior World Championships breaks, Ricky hugs her so tight that she’s gasping for air, but laughing as if he told her the funniest joke in the world (though, any joke he tells makes her laugh without fail).

Eleventh best in the world is a sobering thought, something that crashes down on her in waves back at her hotel room in the Netherlands, and like most times, she throws up twice when it finally dawns on her. Eleventh best won’t get you on the podium. Hell, it won’t even get you on the world stage as a recognizable pair. 

Like most nights after a performance, she watches the video of her and Ricky dancing, as well as every other pair’s performance from those three days, and gets to work. There’s a long road ahead.

Do what makes you happy. You know things are right when things make you happy.

But Lola, she thinks, I love skating and dancing with Ricky more than anything. And I’m not happy now, but I will be. When we get there, when we make it, I will be. I promise.

The silence doesn’t reply, but it speaks in magnifying volumes.

“If we weren’t real skaters before, we definitely are now,” she tells Ricky as she plops beside him in the car. He grumbles, currently being buried under pillows and half-asleep, but she shoves him. “Ricky! It’s 9 AM. Seriously, you’ve been awake for only an hour, and I know for a fact that you can wake up earlier.”

He says something unintelligible, before Nini socks his arm, causing him to yelp. “Hey!” his curls are a mess, and she resists the urge to fix them. They really are a disaster. “What were you saying again?”

She smirks. “I was saying that we’re finally real skaters now.”

“Ballernina—” he starts dramatically, rubbing the last of sleep from his eyes, “we’ve won the Junior Canadian Championships and have went to Junior Worlds. We’ve been real skaters for at least two years now.”

“But now we’re training under Jenn Reinders. You know, the Jenn Reinders, who trained Katia Romanova and Sergio Ivanov, and Tanith Lichtemen and Ben Reed, and—” she rambles off, watching his eyes drift close before punching his arm again. His face is comical when she does it—with hazel eyes widening and his mouth forming an “o”. 

She and Ricky are moving to Canton, Michigan after being offered to train under Jenn Reinders and Zach Hough. Jenn Reinders is legendary in the skating world—having won 2 Skate Canada Internationals and coached several skaters into Olympic gold medals. It’s crazy to think that they’ve been given the chance to skate under Jenn, even more so that they’re doing it at her private rink, the Arctic Edge Arena.

This only reminds of their goal, and it makes her heart race when she thinks about how it’s getting them closer to the Olympics. Jenn has coached champion after champion through Olympics and Worlds and Four Continents, and maybe, just maybe, she and Ricky will be one of them. 

Canton is further than Waterloo—in a different country, actually—but Nini has been independent since she was 7 and started getting serious about ballet with ice dancing on the side. And like always, it’s just her and Ricky, alone in a different country 250 kilometers away from home. Times with him often feel like they’re the little dancers in her snow globes, circling around each other and isolated from the rest of the world, and really, it’s fine, because they’re going to be somewhere one day and then it’s going to mean something. It has to.

And yeah, sure, Nini is going to miss the friends she made back in Waterloo, but she travels a lot and spends more of her time at the rink or analyzing her routines anyways. There's no such thing as a balanced athlete, and that’s okay. If she wants to get somewhere—if she and Ricky are going to be at the top of a vermeil podium with heavy gold medals around their necks—she’s going to have to give up a lot of things. Friends, potential boyfriends, the chance to be with her moms every day, and just the company of other people are all gone. But it’s okay. It’s going to be okay one day. 

Ricky has nudged himself back to sleep, and she doesn’t have the heart to wake him up again. She said goodbye to Lola earlier that morning, who tells her what she always tells her. “Please, do what makes you happy, and stop worrying about what you think people expect of you. My Nini, that is all I want you to do.” 

Momma D is in the driver’s seat, with Lynne, Ricky’s mom, beside her in shotgun. Some of their stuff is loaded in the trunk, but Mike and Momma C are following them in another car with the rest of it. They’re going to leave a car behind for them because Ricky can drive now, and then, after making sure they’re settled in with their host families, they’ll get going back to Ilderton. Just like that.

“Are you scared?” she whispers to him like she’s seven and he’s nine again and it’s their first day going to Waterloo for training. He mumbles something undecipherable, and she sighs, leaning back into her seat. Momma D and Lynne are engrossed in a conversation that fills the car, overpowering The Tragically Hip in the background, and once again, Nini feels so, so small. “I am.”

But Ricky says nothing back, because why would he? He’s sleeping, not magical. She takes a shuddering breath and turns her back away from her slumbering partner, staring out the window to look at the cars passing them by. Red, black, brown, blue, and the occasional odd coloured car all zip by, blurring into a mirage of colours, and she can feel herself being lulled to sleep with the flashing colours, The Tragically Hip, and Ricky’s snoring beside her.

By the time she wakes up, Ricky is rocking her shoulder and mock-whispering, “Nina Ballerina! Wake up! We’re here!” 

She yawns, stretching her arms out and accidentally hitting something solid. There’s a yelp, then a laugh, and when she opens her eyes, she can see Ricky holding his nose dramatically, while Lynne and Momma D are snickering. “Huh? What happened?”

“Neens, we’re in Canton,” Momma D explains, sparing a look over to Ricky with a big smile forming on her face, “and we’re at the place you guys are going to stay at.”

“Oh,” she says. Her heart sinks and sinks in her chest as the warm fuzzy feeling she felt from sleep slowly is overtaken by the frost crawling through her veins. “That’s cool.”

Momma D,  either not noticing her hesitation or doing a good job of not showing it, drags Nini out of the car and pulls her into a tight hug. Nini hugs her back the best she can, but her arms feel like lead and her calves are screaming and everything feels numb numb numb. She feels like she wants to sob and scream and cry, which is absolutely ridiculous and over dramatic because she’s done this before and it was fine. So she stares over her mom’s shoulder, willing herself to be stronger, to be steelier, to be happier.

She manages a forced smile as Momma C comes with a luggage in her hand, and Nini leaps towards her mom in a hug. Her smile is perfectly  intact as she pulls away, and there are no tears in her vision. Perfect. She turns to the house she’s going to stay at, memorises the number, the colour of the shingles, the paving of the driveway, and takes a deep breath. She’s going to be okay. She’s always okay.

When she pulls away from her mother, she feels the urge to cling on tighter, to tell her mother, “please, please don’t let me go,” but she doesn’t because Nini knows that she can’t be this weak. The urge is there, though, clawing under her skin and arms like a puppeteer, and it takes all of her self-control to cut the strings. 

There’s a man and a woman and a girl who looks to be Ricky’s age standing in front of the house. They’re all unfairly stunning, a picture perfect family with a handsome father and beautiful mother and pretty daughter with shiny, sleek black hair, luminous green eyes, and flawlessly tanned skin. “Neens, Ricky, this is Adrian and Cassia Diamandis, and their daughter Selene. You’re going to be staying with them while you’re training here in Michigan.”

She looks over at Ricky, who smiles gently at her. Back in Waterloo, they stayed in different houses, but since they’re older, she guesses that their parents were okay with it. Also, probably because Ricky can drive now. Definitely because he can. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says, shaking Adrian and Cassia’s hands. Selene doesn’t want to, shaking her head and instead, settling for a wave. She’s already making eyes at Ricky, like Marley and just about every one of Nini’s female (and some male) friends did back in Waterloo, and yeah, maybe things won’t change too much. 

Adrian and Cassia take them to their rooms. Nini’s is between Ricky and Selene, a little bit bigger than the one she stayed at with Lane and Tyler. She’s sharing a bathroom with Selene, and Ricky gets his own, which is fine because she shared one with Marley. The girl in question curls her lip, though, when her hosts mention it, and her heart sinks just a little because she knows she’s an unwelcome addition to Selene’s life. 

Her stuff is placed in the room in the form of neatly stacked boxes, and by the time it’s done, the clock reads 4:58 PM. Their parents don’t have to leave. They could stay a night in Canton and then drive home tomorrow. Nini says that to them, but they laugh.

“We want to give you time to settle in, Neens,” Momma D explains while she’s shutting the trunk of the car after the final box is moved by Mike and Ricky. “And we’re going to call every night if you want to. It’s going to be like Waterloo.”

It’s not, she bites back. It’s further, and bigger, and emptier, and I’m going to miss you so much. Momma, please.

But Nini nods, and Momma D wraps her in a hug. Momma C joins in, pressing her face in Nini’s hair, and she can feel a tear trickle from her mother’s face. “I’m going to miss you,” she says, just like she did two years ago when she was moving in with Lane and Tyler in Waterloo. “Promise me you’ll call?”

“Of course sweetheart,” Momma C replies soothingly. “We’re so, so proud of you, you know that? Look at you! You’re all grown up, you don’t need us anymore.”

I need you, she almost says, because I don’t know what I’m going to do now. What’s going to happen. What if I fail in front of Jenn and Derek? What if Ricky ends up resenting me? What if you get so used to me not being there that you don’t need me anymore? What if Lola doesn’t want to see me anymore? What if no one needs me anymore?

But she shakes her head with a million other things on the tip of her tongue, and instead tells them, “That’s not true. I need you, momma, I need you a lot.”

“We’ll be in touch, Neener. We love you so much and we’re so proud of you. We’re also only a two and a half hour drive away, so you can always make Ricky drive you home if you miss us a lot.” This draws a choked off laugh from her. “Bye sweetheart, we’ll see you soon for your big competitions with Lola. We love you.”

“I love you mommas.” She feels like she’s thirteen again and unsure of where she fits in the careful mold of her host family’s life, while trying to fit into a new school with pre-established friend groups and eighth graders angry at everything in the world and themselves. Her moms give her one last smile before meeting up with the Bowens, who wave at them before getting in the car.

Her eyes never leave it as it pulls out the driveway and disappears from the horizon.

Ricky wraps an arm around her, placing his head on hers like they always do when studying routines. “Just you and me again, kiddo,” he says, eyes trained on the spot the car was last visible.

She can hear herself faintly agree.

Every night, she calls her moms and spends hours on the phone talking to them. After that, she dials Lola, and talks in depth about everything that happened that day—school, assignments, practice, and her relationship with Ricky. Jenn is cracking the whip hard on them, always telling them that they “need more passion”, “look like you’re in love with her, Ricky!”, and “Nini, no one would want to watch a dance where the female is stiff and unappealing.”

Lola listens. Lola lets her talk about her problems. Lola makes her feel important, because lately she’s been feeling like she’s screaming at a brick wall, with nothing to hear what she has to say since she doesn’t matter. It’s a routine she’s grateful for every day, because without it she would surely have exploded or crumpled under the weight of the sky forced upon her shoulders with no relief in sight. 

And more and more often, she can feel the force becoming heavier and heavier and heavier, and it takes all she can to make sure she doesn’t fall.

“This is bullshit,” Ricky says, throwing popcorn at the screen. “We should be in Italy right now, skating there. Do you see those twizzles? Sloppy. We could spin circles around them. Literally.”

She sighs, bending over to pick the popcorn off the ground. “We were listed as alternates, Ricky. We’re still technically qualified. We just missed the cutoff.”

“Yeah, by one fucking place,” he snorts, continuing to throw popcorn on the tiny screen displaying the Canadian pair who beat them out by 0.01 points trip. “It was a fluke too—just because they didn’t like the hand placement—the fucking placement of a hand, Nina Ballerina. It’s a stupid decision, we would have been better.”

After making their senior debut nationally, she and Ricky slowly climbed up the radar as “Canada’s favourite junior ice dancing duo!” The youngest pair to compete at a senior level and place in the top 5—fourth last year and third this year—and the team Salazar/Bowen started to make waves throughout Canada. The Olympics was so, so close, and then they just… missed it. 

“Ricky...” she starts, but she’s cut off with another voice in the room.

“No Nini, he’s right. You guys were snubbed.” EJ Caswell, a fellow Canadian skater at the Arctic Edge Arena, interjects. EJ is tall with broad shoulders and is a bit of a meathead, but sweet and blunt all the same. He takes a swig of a foul-smelling drink that Nini knows is some type of cheap beer he managed to trick someone into letting him buy. “I mean, so you fuck up your CD by a 4.01 point gap. Whatever. But you beat the second place team by 4 points in the other two dances and place second in both your OD and your FD? The math works, Nini.”

Beside her, eating a pack of Lays, EJ’s partner, Gina, snorts. Gina is beautiful, tall, and graceful, statuesque even with the air of respect being commanded when she walks into a room. Together, the Porter/Caswell team is one of the best junior pair teams worldwide, and yet, they didn’t make it either. “EJ, it really, really doesn’t. You do know that 4.01 minus 4 is 0.1, right? So even though they beat the other pair with a total of 4 points ahead in the other dances, no matter their placements, that’s still a zero point one lead.”

“Still,” EJ insists, swinging his bottle towards the screen, “the team that ‘beat’ you is doing really shitty right now. You see their CD? How could they beat you with that shitty thing? Let me tell you, the country really made a mistake not sending you guys instead.”

Ricky nods, grabbing a can of beer EJ brought with him and cracking one open. “The twizzles, man, they keep fucking up the twizzles.” He nudges his head over to Nini. “EJ Caswell knows what he’s talking about. He can do death spirals.”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure he has brain damage from all the times he’s fallen backwards from doing death spirals,” she retorts. “Either that, or you both are super drunk right now if you think we would listen to your mansplaining.”

“But Ballernina—” Ricky whines, drawing out the nina, “the Olympics are our dream and we were so close this year. Hell, we were so, so close.”

She gives him a half-heart smile. “We still went to Four Continents with EJ and Gina,” she reminds, no, tells him, “and we got the bronze medal, which is pretty cool. We’re also going to Junior Worlds next month, so it’s not so bad. Next Olympics, alright? We need to get some more titles under our name.”

“National junior champions,” he starts, stumbling a bit over the word national, “third in the world for junior teams, third in Canada for senior teams, silver medalists in the Junior Grand Prix, third in the world for senior level Four Continents and only at the age of sixteen and eighteen—”

“We’re still primarily juniors on an international level,” she points out even as a prideful smirk spreads slowly across her, “and the Olympics are like for the best of the best seniors. Next Olympics, and we’ll shoot for the gold right at home.”

Ricky and EJ mumble something that she really, really can’t understand, and Gina nudges her with a soft smile. “Boys, am I right?” her tone is light, and Nini snorts. “No, but you guys did great this season. You need to know that Neens.”

“Thanks,” she says. “You and EJ were awesome too. Oh my god, your free program was absolutely insane. Like, your jumps? Could not do that. That’s probably why I went into ice dance, because you know what they say. Pair skating is the NFL of figure skating.”

Gina hums. “I don’t know Nina Ballerina, I think that you could probably do some of the jumps with Ricky. Jenn and Zach are in Turin right now for Tanith and Ben, so do you want to try that tomorrow?”

She shakes her head regretfully. “As much as I would love to take you up on that offer, we have Worlds in March and Jenn would absolutely murder me if I got hurt. She’s already been telling me that I’m ‘not sexy enough for the audience’. Whatever that means. Ugh.”

“I don’t think you need to,” Gina says. “I’ve watched all of your performances and I think it’s just a polishing sort of thing? You’re in the groove but you’re not in the moment. You’re working so hard to be in there in technicalities but you’re not really in the dance.” She chews on a chip. “Or that’s what I think at least.”

Nini blinks. “Thanks Gi, I never really thought of it like that.”

The other girl gives her a smile. “No problem Neens, anytime.” After glancing at the screen, she turns to the boys. “Please shut up now, Alice Lauzon and Benjamin Mazzara are up next and Nini and I both want to watch this one.”

Alice Lauzon and Benjamin Mazzara are the best ice dancers in Canada at the moment, having won 2 World Titles and 3 Four Continents. They were first in the Canadian Championships, and Nini obsessively watched their original dance to Ne Me Quitte Pas at least hundreds of times. They are the favourites to win gold for Canada this season, which would make them the first Canadian ice dancers in history to take home the gold.

When the first beat of their compulsory dance starts, Nini is just as blown away as she was the first time she watched it in person at the Canadian Championships. Alice and Benjamin move in sync, like the snow globe she has sitting in her room back in Ilderton. Push and pull, with Finn Steps in sync and twizzles executed perfectly.

But then, something happens. Alice, who must have done this lift hundreds of times before, drops from midair, falling and falling and falling until her leg lands on the ice in a sickening crack. Nini’s eyes are blown open, mouth hanging open in shock as Benjamin stops his sequence and kneels beside Alice, whose face is twisted in pain. The music stops, and the Palavela must have been eerily quiet. With a grim expression on his face, he scoops his partner up off the ice and exits it. 

The room is silent too. Ricky and EJ, who were rambunctiously loud before, are staring at the TV in open mouth horror. Gina’s face is pale, and Nini can feel the blood rush from hers as well. 

“What just happened?” EJ breaks the silence, his voice trembling as he does so.

No one answers. She doesn’t think that anyone wants to, because what happened to Alice is every skater’s worst nightmare come true, and at the Olympics she was projected to win— “I think Lauzon-Mazzara just withdrew from the Olympics,” Gina answers weakly. No one says anything after that.

And for another Olympics, for another year, the Canadians don’t take home a figure skating medal.

BREAKING: Ice Dance Duo Salazar/Bowen Becomes the First Canadians to Ever Take Home the Junior World Champions Title

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA -- Nini Salazar-Roberts, 16, and Ricky Bowen, 18,  known in the skating world by their last names Salazar/Bowen, became the first Canadians to ever take home the title at the 2006 World Junior Championships on Sunday. Beating out 26 other teams, Salazar/Bowen stunned with their original dance to a medley of Beautiful Maria and Do You Only Want to Dance and their free dance to Malagueña, scoring first in all three categories and beating out the silver medalists by a whooping 4.16 points.

Salazar-Roberts is the first person of Asian descent to not only win the Junior World Championships, as well as the Junior Canadian Championships and the ISU Junior Grand Prix. She is also the only ice dancer of Asian descent to be placed on the podium for Four Continents and the Canadian Championships.

Salazar/Bowen has been making waves in the skating community for years since their debut in the pre-novice category for the Canadian Championships in 2001, where they placed first. Last season, Salazar/Bowen shocked viewers around the world in becoming the first Canadians to win the Junior ISU Grand Prix Final. 

The pair of Canadians are the most decorated junior-level ice dancers in their country’s history.

This historic win comes two months after the pair was shortlisted as the alternate duo to compete at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

SEE ALSO: Canadians Win Big at the Junior Worlds Championships with Salazar/Bowen and Porter/Caswell

Making History (Again): Salazar/Bowen’s Senior International Debut

After their performance at Junior Worlds last season in Ljubljana left the skating world on the lookout for the decorated Canadian team, Nini Salazar-Roberts, 17, and Ricky Bowen, 19, end the 2006-2007 season with a bang. And wow, what a season for the Canadians indeed. 

Starting strong with their Grand Prix debut, Salazar/Bowen placed second at the 2006 Skate Canada International with a narrow 1.19 lead over the Italians. They trail Canadian Champions Lauzon/Mazarra, who after their tragic loss at the Olympics, come back at the season with full force, through a 20-point gap.

Not to be outdone by the previous year, Salazar/Bowen snagged the silver medal at the Canadian Championships, placing second in all three categories and once again trailing reigning champions Lauzon/Mazarra. Their routines to Assassination Tango and Valse Triste has CBC ice dance commentor Tracy Wilson calling them, “The [next] best thing that will ever happen to Canada in sports. Just you wait.” Jenn Reinders and Zach Hough, the duo’s coaches, were seen cheering the team on from the side boards. 

After maintaining their bronze at Four Continents and beating American training partners Lily Keegan and Howie Ashman by 5.2 points, Salazar/Bowen went on to have the highest debut at the World Championships in over two decades. Placing sixth behind World and Olympic medalists including Lichtemen/Reed and Lauzon/Mazarra, the pair of Canadians continue to turn heads in the skating community. 

Coaches Jenn Reinders and Zach Hough had 3 pairs in the top 10: Americans Lichtemen/Reed, who went on to take the silver at Turin 2006; Keegan/Ashman, who placed seventh overall; and, of course, Salazar/Bowen. 

The Canadians end the season as sixth in the world overall.

Salazar/Bowen are Canadian Champions

After two years of slowly but surely clawing their way to the top, decorated ice dance team Salazar/Bowen claimed their first title of national champions at the 2008 Canadian Championships in Vancouver. With a stunning 33.5 point lead in front of silver medalists, the duo goes on to secure their spots at the World Championships and Four Continents. 

This win for the Canadians comes after the pair becomes the youngest ice dance duo to qualify and place fourth for the ISU Grand Prix, which is arguably the most elite competition in the skating community. Only the top six from the season are selected to participate in it.

Canadians Fight Off the Frost at 2008 World Championships and Four Continents

Junior World Champions, Junior Grand Prix Champions, and newly minted national champions Nini Salazar-Roberts, 18, and Ricky Bowen, 20, add two more titles under their belt: Four Continents champions and silver medalists at the World Championships. 

After beating American training partners Keegan/Ashman once again, Salazar/Bowen goes on to place first in all three categories, at the Four Continents with a 7.87 lead overall. The World Championships, however, may have been the pair’s career highlight from an already stunning display of titles under their belt as their program to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg soundtrack leads to them placing first in the free dance program and second in the world. 

Out for the Season? Salazar/Bowen Drop Out

Following a stunning season that led to three titles being placed under their belt, seasoned ice dance duo Salazar/Bowen withdraw from the first half of the 2008-2009 season. The reason for this decision is not yet disclosed to the press. More will come soon.

Every step hurts.

She grits her teeth as she takes another one, tears starting to form in her eyes as she grabs onto Ricky’s arm to keep herself from falling. 

The pain in her calves is lancing, stabbing at every nerve ending in them. It’s so unreal that she doesn’t even think it’s just physical now, but each small movement of her leg leads to pinpricks on the tiniest needles inserting itself into her legs, her arms, her calves, and her heart. 

She stumbles off the ice, with one arm locked in a vice-like grip on Ricky’s arm, and the other clutching onto the boards. Jenn is there with worry written all over her features as she catches Nini’s other side from falling. Nini leans her weight onto Ricky, but every miniscule movement makes it almost impossible to want to do anything.

“Nini, what’s wrong?” Zach asks, coming over with a stretcher they use for people with broken legs who can’t move, and embarrassingly enough, it’s the only thing that looks comfortable to her. She can see Gina and EJ enter the rink, ready for their session, and shuts her eyes closed as another shot of pain rips through her. She muffles the urge to scream, and tries to normalize the pain. Her calves have always ached. This is nothing new. This has to be nothing new, because they had the best season of their careers last year, and if they stop for one second then Lily and Howie will pass them and—

“It’s nothing,” she grits out, forcing a smile as another dig in her calves almost forces a scream from her. “I’ll be fine, just give me a chance to—argh.” She lays down on the stretcher, biting her lip so hard she can feel hot, hot red blood flow from it. The phone dial starts to ring, and her eyes snap open to Jenn, who’s dialling a number into the rink’s phone, and then to Ricky, who’s never looked so ashen before as he grips her hand. “No, no seriously, I’m fine. Just give me a chance to sit down. I’ll be back soon and we can finally nail that Finnstep sequence—”

But everyone ignores her as Jenn, who has called up the hospital apparently—for reasons Nini seriously can’t understand because she’s fine—takes off her skates. Ricky’s eyes never leave hers as it happens, and she suppresses another scream as Jenn yanks too hard.

“Ballernina—” he says, not sounding like her suave and smooth and charming and arrogant skating partner at all, and she can personally attest to that because they’ve been skating together for twelve years, “don’t worry. You’re going to be fine. We’re going to get you to the hospital and we’ll see what’s wrong with you.”

“But the routine,” she mutters weakly, finding it impossible to move as she lies immobile on the stretcher, “we need to nail the Finnsteps.”

He shakes his head, laughing in a teary way that makes the situation feel much worse than it actually is because it’s fine. She’s had cramps in her calves before. This is normal. “No,” he tells her softly, “kiddo, we need to make sure you’re fine first, okay? Skating can wait. It has to wait until you’re better.”

“But the Olympics,” she whispers back, finding it too hard to raise her voice any louder as the pain makes her want to drift into sleep, “Ricky, our goals. We’re so, so close.”

“And we’ll make it, Neens, and when we do it will be because you feel better, okay? Not because you can’t walk and are being silly and want to skate when you’re hurt. Even if you get right on the ice right now and try to skate, I won’t be there because I know you’re putting yourself through hell every step of the way, and then we can’t work on our Finnsteps. So stay, and we’ll see what’s wrong with you first.”

The pain is making her hazy now, her vision a little fuzzy as she finds it difficult to keep them open. “Mm, ‘kay,” she manages. “Love you.”

His eyes soften a bit, and maybe it’s the stabbing and twisting knives in her calves that are making her delirious, but maybe, just maybe, his grip on her hand tightens. He kisses her forehead softly, like she’s thirteen and he’s fifteen and they’ve just moved 113 kilometers away from home and Nini was crying because she missed her moms and Lola more than anything. “Love ya too, Nina Ballerina.” And it’s comforting though, because even though he loves her like his kid sister, she decides that she would rather have him in her life and love her like that than lose him in any other way.

But, the thoughts are a product of the pain, and she decides that as the ambulance carries her off to the hospital, with Ricky sitting right beside her the entire way.

“Nini!” Momma D gasps as she grabs Nini into a hug. Momma C and Lola are close behind, the Salazar/Salazar-Roberts women embracing each other into a tight, tight hug. “Sweetheart, when we got the call, we were terrified, and I— I was so worried.”

She manages a smile and sits upright in her hospital bed. It’s a few hours after arriving at the hospital, and the doctors have run a few tests on her legs already. Ricky sits beside her, clutching her hand, talking to her about anything and everything, and it’s nice, really, if you think about it, except that she could have been perfecting her programs with Ricky by now.

Still, it’s nice because her family is all here now, and she can see Ricky smile beside her, until Momma C beckons him into the hug. He buries his face into her hair, which has long since been out of its perfect ponytail, and the pain seems to subside, if only for a moment. 

“Do they know what’s wrong?” Momma C asks once the hug breaks. 

Ricky shakes his head. “They came in to do tests, but nothing much. I think it’s coming soon, though.”

“Oh sweetheart,” her mother says, combing her hair back and kissing her forehead. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She shrugs. “It’s probably just a fracture or sprain, mommas, and I’ll be back on the ice soon. I’m fine, I promise.”

Her mothers don’t look convinced, and neither does Ricky as Lola approaches her, running a hand softly over her matted hair. “My Nini,” she says warmly, “don’t worry about the results, but also don’t try to overexert yourself. You are still human, and you need to make sure you take a break sometimes.”

“I’ll take a break when we win gold at the Olympics,” she replies, and she can see Ricky’s mouth open, “and I know my limits. I’ll be fine. I am fine. I feel better already.”

She’s lying through her teeth and Ricky can tell, seeing from the way he glimpses back at her unconvincingly. He won’t say it out loud, because he respects that for her, but she knows it’s bothering him. 

The doctor comes in with a clipboard and kind smile on her face. She is middle aged, with rich cocoa skin and beautiful dark hair pulled into a curly ponytail.  “Hello, family of Nini Salazar-Roberts?” After a nod from her parents, the doctor continues. “I’m Doctor Meghan Nichols, and I’m the doctor on Miss Salazar-Roberts’ case.”

“Do you know what’s wrong?” Momma D asks, taking Nini’s hand and squeezing it tight. “Do we need to take her home? How long should she be off her feet?”

Nini rolls her eyes. “Dr. Nichols, please tell my family that I’m fine and after a few days off my feet I’ll be fine to go back to skating.” The doctor’s mouth softens into a frown. “I can go back to skating soon, right?”

“What Nini has is chronic exertional compartment syndrome,” Dr. Nichols explains, and with every word the doctor says, her heart sinks a little lower in her chest. “It’s a condition where increased pressure in certain limbs, in Nini’s case, her calves, which results in insufficient blood flow to the tissue in that area.”

“Is— is it treatable?” she can hear herself ask, her voice tiny and small and as miniscule as this entire situation is making her. She hates it as much as the situation itself. Beside her, Momma D stifles a sob, and Ricky takes her hand, kissing her forehead.

Dr. Nichols,  in the calm way she answered the previous inquiries that were starting to annoy her, nods her head. “This doesn’t cause permanent damage to your veins and tissue, and it’s not as severe as it could be. We can use surgery to restore blood circulation to your calves and alleviate your symptoms.”

“What triggered it?” she turns to her left, where Ricky’s face is grim. “This couldn’t have just, you know, happened. What made it happen?”

“Usually, chronic compartment syndrome is caused by the repetitive use of muscles,” she tells him. “Since Nini is, after all, an ice dancer, anything from there could have started it. Has Nini been over exerting herself lately?” That question is directed to Ricky, but she didn’t want him to answer. Her parents and Lola would not be alright if they knew how much stress she puts herself under.

She lies back down on the bed. “No more than the average ice dancer,” she says. “When the end goal is winning gold at the Olympics, it’s kind of hard to not work hard, but I don’t overexert myself. At least, I don’t think I do. I’m used to the pain, I used to be in ballet.”

“She’s always been a hard worker,” Ricky interjects, “but she’s been putting much more on herself lately. Everything she does has to be perfect, and I know it’s stressing her out.” She opens her mouth to interrupt, but he pushes forward. “Everything Nini does is for skating first, then everything else, then herself. She probably has a lot more pain than she’s letting on and hasn’t told any of us.”

Dr. Nichols frowns. “Nini, you said you were feeling pain before? For how long?”

“Maybe a few years?” She bites her lip, thinking back to every moment her calves did a little more than ache. Her second Canadian Championships, World Juniors, the ISU Junior Grand Prix, Four Continents, World Championships, practice; the pain became a blur, really, a normalcy in her life that she never really had to think about until now. “Probably longer than that. Maybe since 2001 when we placed third in Hamilton.”

Ricky mutters, “And you never told me,” under his breath, clearly hurt. He probably thinks she can’t hear him, but she can, and it makes her feel all the more guilty. Her heart, apparently damaged in more ways than one, squishes against her chest, eaten alive by guilt and slowly stilling, maybe because of a lack of blood flow.

“How long will I be out for?” she asks, then, because if this changes anything—if she screws up this season for them—

Dr. Nichols gives her a reassuring smile. “You would probably be on bed rest after surgery until December,” she says, “but even then, I don’t advise you to be on your feet and skating until a few months after that.”

“But it’s October now,” she protests, thinking about Skate Canada later this month and the Trophée Éric Bompard in early November. She’s costing them the first half of this season because of her stupid legs. “Are you sure there’s no other way? Something quicker?”

“Nini, you have to understand that surgery is the fastest way to treat it,” the doctor tells her in that annoying patronizing voice. “Other options will take months, even years, to alleviate the pain. We’ll restore circulation to your calves, and after a few months of bed rest and check-ups, you can go back.”

She sighs, not daring to look at her mothers who probably agree with the doctor, or Ricky, who is most likely looking guilty and concerned, and instead focuses on Lola. Her grandmother gives her a soft smile, and Nini slumps, defeated. “When can I get the surgery?”

Later, when it’s just her and Lola in the hospital room, with her mothers grabbing food and Ricky being sent home for a shower and nap, her grandmother speaks to her. “How is the pain, My Nini?”

“Unbearable,” she replies back, miserable not because of the physical pain, but the fact that she’s let them all down. Ricky moved hundreds of kilometers to train for a season that he will miss out on. Her mothers have done so much for her and her skating for it all to be for nought. And her Lola, her strong, brave, beautiful Lola who always is kind and there for her. 

“Surgery is tomorrow. You should get some rest.”

“Lola,” she says, “what am I going to do now?”

“Make yourself feel better first, because you cannot be happy when you are in pain. Skating will wait a few months, and you will be back, doing what makes you happy.”

“I don’t know who I am without skating.” Her mind is blank, failing to grasp on any part of herself that is not interconnected with the sport that has become her lifeblood, the sport that failed her in return with the lack of blood flowing through her calves and the very fucking reason she can’t be out there, doing what defines her very soul in the neat little packages that make her up. 

Lola sighs. “Well, then it is your time to learn more about yourself. Become your own friend, My Nini, and you will learn what makes you happy outside of skating. You will learn more about yourself, and then, will find a way to love yourself for your faults and not just your successes.”

“I don’t even know if skating makes me happy.”

She doesn’t, really, and it’s been something rattling around in her mind like the last crayon in the box that no one wants because it’s broken. She never wanted to admit it, but with her dreams all but coming crashing down on her like the rails of London Bridge, she may as well give it up now. 

“Well then,” Lola shifts positions, easing her back, “now you know what to do. All I ever wanted you to do is to do what makes you happy, My Nini, and when you do that, my life will be complete and my heart will be full.”

She bites her lip, thinking a little. What would she do without skating? Who is she without it? The next few months seem more daunting than before, because Nini Salazar-Roberts is an ice dancer who has dedicated her life to the sport that used to pump blood through her veins, but now devastated her beyond imagine. Her calves are trembling and in more pain than even imaginable from lifts and twizzles and over exertion. Everything that defined Nini Salazar-Roberts is gone. It died as soon as the first ache in her calves that she never noticed before started to form, and along with it goes her Olympic dreams. 

Her voice cracks a little. “I’m scared,” she tells her grandmother.

The woman says nothing, only hums a little bit, and places her hand on the top of Nini’s head, kissing it. “And that will be alright.”

It’s one month after her surgery and Nini is back in her childhood room in Ilderton. She spends most of it in agonizing bed rest, watching old television and listening to the radio, where she discovers an artist named Taylor Swift whose songs make her sob like a child. Ricky is back with his parents as well, choosing to practice by himself at the local rink where they first met, and he comes to visit every day.

She privately thinks that this may be the most time he’s willingly spent with her in, well, years, and maybe there is an upside to the shittiest thing that’s happened to her—to them—in years. 

She has a forest fire on her mind most days, restless and wanting to get back on her feet as soon as possible, but with her moms and Lola and Ricky and now, after reconnecting, Big Red all looking after her, she knows it’s nearly impossible without everyone making it a big deal. So oftentimes, she sits in her bed, frustrated and wanting to go out and just breathe fresh air, or do that self-discovery stuff Lola was talking about back in that hospital in Michigan.

Her bed is large and her room is a meticulous pink, the furniture all white and reminiscent of a younger girl who wanted nothing more than to be a ballerina and some. She digs around her bedside table, trying to find something—a book, maybe—that will get the boredom off her mind. Taylor Swift plays quietly on her CD player, with the bridge of The Best Day filling the otherwise silent room. When her hand feels something, she pulls it out and almost gasps.

The book is small, a clean white with dust slowly collecting on it, and if she opens it, she knows she’ll see The Diary of Nini Salazar-Roberts written in cursive pink. She left it behind after moving to Waterloo, deciding that she was too grown up for it. After making a split decision, she turns to the first page.

February 7th, 1997

Dear diary,

Today Miss Claire decided that I could skate with a partner. His name is Ricky, which seems really silly, and he’s a hockey boy who’s two years older than me. And, I know hockey boys are mean and rude and stupid because they hate anyone who doesn’t play hockey, but Ricky seems nice. Maybe one day we’ll dance together like those skaters at the rink and do all those cool moves or the dancers in my snow globe.

He wants to call me Nini though and says Nina is totally snobby, which is not true but Nini is really pretty, so I’m going to let him. I had to hold his hand today, and it was nice. A little sweaty though, which is only kind of gross.

Signed,
Nina Nini Salazar-Roberts

—

July 19, 1997

Dear diary, 

Ricky called me Ballernina today, which is really annoying and dumb. I think it’s because I’m going to the National Ballet School finally and he doesn’t want me to go, which is really weird because I’m almost going to be a ballerina! Mommas already helped me pack and everything! It seems scary though because if I do make it I would have to stop skating with Ricky, which would be really sad. He’s really, really nice and gives great hugs.

What should I do?

Signed,
Nini Salazar-Roberts

—

September 27, 1998

Dear diary,

Ricky Bowen is so stupid. He shows up to practice late, then expects me to not get mad? Seriously? And then he spends it fooling around. He called me a b-word, something Momma C says is really bad, and I called him a jerk. I think it’s because he’s embarrassed of me because I’m younger than him, which is not fair because I could be embarrassed of him for being a hockey boy. Ugh, he’s so dumb. I hate him.

Signed,
Nini Salazar-Roberts

—

January 19, 1999

Dear diary,

We won our first national competition today! Our routine was so, so good, and the medal is so shiny! Suzanne and Paul said that they’ve never seen anything like that from us and that they’re super impressed. Ricky hugged me after and said, “Good job, kiddo.” It was sweet, but I’m not a kid. I’m only two years younger than him! There’s talk about us moving to Waterloo, but that’s really scary. I don’t think I can do it because I’ll miss Lola and Mommas too much.

Anyways, I hope we keep getting better and working well together because I haven’t told Ricky yet, but I want to go to the Olympics one day and win gold. I think we can do it!

Signed,
Nini Salazar-Roberts

Nini stifles a sob, rereading the last line of that entry. I want to go to the Olympics one day and win gold. I think we can do it! Her eyes keep combing over the words of her younger, much more naïve ten year-old self. The Olympics. We can do it! Maybe before, she thinks ruefully as tears of pain and broken dreams and being stuck in her damn bed for a month well up in her eyes, but not now. It’s impossible now.

In an attempt to shove her diary back to her bedside table, she knocks something over blindly. It shatters on the ground, probably bringing everyone to come to her room, but she doesn’t care as she sees her shattered snow globe and the figurines that never stopped spinning—not even  after all these years—on the floor. The male is intact, mostly, but broken off from the female, who lays in pieces.

She slips off her bed in an attempt to clean it up, running her hands over broken glass while hitching breaths make their way up her throat. Her hands are bleeding from the shattered figurines and broken dreams as she tries to clean up the snow globe the best she can. The attempts are all futile—red, red blood stains the pure white of the furniture from a girl with big dreams and no reality as the woman, no, still a girl, with reality crashing down on her in incandescent rocks and dreams that are impossible, attempts to clean up the mess her idealism left her. 

It doesn’t work.

She stares helplessly at the mess she created and amplified with tears dripping from her eyes, hiccups making its way through her throat and snot coming from her nose, and collapses on her bed frame, unable to move her legs of stone, and picks up the broken figurine. The paint never faded, and the dancer’s delicate features were spared in the fall, but her bottom half is distorted, devastated into millions of pieces she will never find. She throws the dancer at the wall, feeling only a little bit of satisfaction as the figurine is crushed from the force of the throw and the wall.

Only White Horse plays in the background, but she can’t hear it. Her ears are ringing.

“Nini?” her eyes drift from the mess and wander to her door, where Ricky stands with bags in his hand. His eyes assess the damage, mouth opening and closing as he takes in the magnitude of destruction her rage and grief have created. He was always a bad actor, she thinks, and it makes her feel a little bit better. “Oh Nina Ballerina.”

He drops the bags and helps her up on a chair. She wordlessly plops down, staring down at her bloodied hands ashamed of the mess she created. He leaves for a second, coming back with hydrogen peroxide and gauze, and wordlessly cleans her hands. There is no glass in them, thankfully, but the hydrogen peroxide makes her wince as he cleans the cuts. After wrapping them up, he cleans up the broken snow globe, and she sits and watches, unable to do anything else.

When he’s finished, he sits on her bed, facing across from her, and utters quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?” He’s worried—she can tell—and his hands are still a little stained with her blood. The catharsis in her room must have made him scared for her, but she’s not fine, hasn’t been for a while, and he has to know that because he’s been her best friend for almost ten years and those years have to mean something.

She shakes her head after words fail to come out of her mouth, and he nods, shutting off Fearless and just watching her. The silence is no longer ringing, and as he studies her, she does the same. He looks tired. His eyes, usually bright and full of life, have dulled. There are bags under them that weren’t there before, and a shadow creeps around his jaw. He hasn’t shaved in a bit. He looks thinner than before, as if he lost a bit of muscle mass from just the month back home. 

A pang of guilt shoots through her, and not for the first time, she thinks that this is all her fault. “I’m sorry,” she mutters, almost ashamed to say it out loud because then, he has reasons to blame her. It’s all her fault on why they’re stuck in Ilderton and not practicing for the season. It’s her fault that they’re never going to get an Olympic gold. “I just— I just wanted to say that.”

“What do you have to be sorry about?” he asks, looking genuinely confused about her previous statement. He’s probably trying to make her feel better, because he blames her. He should blame her. Even she blames herself. Somehow, he catches it, maybe from her poker faces that have been getting worse and worse since the start of her exile in bed. “No, Nini, this isn’t your fault.”

“What are you saying? Ricky, I’m the reason we’re not on the ice right now, practicing for the dream we’ve had since we were kids. It’s because of my stupid fucking calves that I’m here, stuck in the shittiest situation I’ve been in, and that you’re not hanging out with EJ and Gina at Arctic Edge. Why don’t you blame me?” Her voice breaks, wavering as she adds on, “I blame me.”

He moves off her bed, taking her hand and squeezing it. “No, Nini, I don’t blame you. Why would I blame you? These things happen, and yes, it sucks, but c’est la vie. It’s life.” His voice gets harder, almost harsh. “Your calves are not your fault. The scars are not your fault. Nini, this would have happened even if you tried your best to avoid it. I love skating, kiddo, don’t get me wrong, but the reason I love skating is because I do it with you. So don’t blame yourself. Things happen.”

“It’s hard,” she admits with tears in her eyes, and he’s holding her hand like she’s seven and he’s nine and he doesn’t know how to do it because she might break if he grips too hard. “I’m just sitting in my bed, doing everything in it, and the only times I can get on my feet and walk around it by someone helping me stand and letting me lean on them. And I can’t help but think that it's my fault that I’m in this situation. Alone in my thoughts. Doing nothing. Everything I hate.”

He’s silent for a bit, running his thumb on the back of her hand in a soothing motion. “Let’s go,” he says, helping her up off the seat. Before she opens her mouth to protest, he tacks on, “I’ll be with you every step of the way. I promise.”

Somehow, they manage to get down the stairs and into his car, when after what seems like forever, he pulls up in a forest and helps her out. It’s an awkward process; she’s basically leaning on him while hobbling every step of the way, but each step hurts just a little less. By the time he helps seat her down on the grass, she stares out.

They’re on a cliff overlooking the city. London at night is beautiful—with street lights lit and buildings gleaming against the dark, dark sky. If Nini was sentimental, she would say that London was like a kingdom, and that the lights shone just for her and Ricky. But she’s not. That part of her died years ago. “It’s pretty,” she comments, carefully moving her legs up and resting her chin on her knees. “I can’t believe I haven’t seen this before.”

“We haven’t been in Ilderton to stay for a long time,” he notes. The lights from the city seem to highlight his features, giving him an ethereal glow. “Red showed me this. Said it was the best spot in the town.”

She hums. “He’s right. London looks beautiful up here.”

And like most days now, they sit in comfortable silence, just with each other. It’s peaceful here, as the wind blows leaves from their trees, and how the forest behind them slowly starts to make its way from fall to winter. There’s not much that needs to be said. They know everything about each other, but maybe they don’t know themselves. 

“Back at the hospital, I told Lola I don’t know who I am without skating,” she starts. He looks over at her, not so much as shocked but just a little concerned. “I remember thinking about anything that defines me other than this sport, and then I realize that maybe I don’t love it as much as I think I should. If I even like it.” She laughs a little, rocking back and forth off her spine. “I was supposed to use this time to find myself, whatever that means, but instead, I spent it feeling sorry for myself.”

He says nothing for a bit, just watching the view. “You still have time,” he points out. “You’re not cleared for another month, maybe even a month and a half.”

“I don’t know.” The wind howls in the back. “I just keep thinking, what would I do without skating? Who would I be without it? Because for so long, my entire world was the sport, and then, nothing. It’s gone.”

“You can still get it back. We can still get it back.”

She smiles ruefully at him. “We’ll try.” She doesn’t sound like she believes it. “So, I’ve been playing a game in my head that’s called What would you do in a life without skating? And it’s not fun, not at all, but it’s enlightening and keeps me busy while my calves heal.”

“What would you do?” His question is soft, a little meek and so unlike him, but the past month has been about unlearning and relearning everything she thought she wanted, and maybe that makes room for change.

She shrugs. “I would probably be a ballerina, dancing in pointes and tutus instead of skates and bodysuits,” she starts, thinking about a little girl with big dreams and no reality. “And even though I’m a ballerina, I would be at school full time for psychology, because I want to help people sort through their emotions, their trauma, and their experiences even when I can’t help myself.” She thinks of her thirteen year old self, off on a new journey with no familiars or anchors, so she makes a new one in a fifteen year old boy who doesn’t even know himself. “I would have time for friends and family, and take time to do things I enjoy.” Lola’s smiling face telling her that she just wants her to be happy, and her moms asking her if skating is really what she wants comes to mind. “And I’d fall in love one day with someone who’s with me and loves me just as much as I love them.”

She turns to him, watching the light reflect in his hazel eyes, and wonders what he’s thinking about. She wants to tear down the walls he seems to have with everyone, even her. She wants to know why he seems so sad lately, why there are bags under his eyes. She wants to know why he’s not telling her the things he used to, keeping them locked up in a little box only he has a key to. But instead, she settles for, “What about you? Who would you be without skating?”

“A hockey player, maybe in the NHL if I ever get good enough. Hey, I know you hate hockey players, but don’t judge.” His eyes are soft, but there’s a hint of rawness under there, and it’s a small victory to have one of his walls fall.

She smirks. “Someone convinced me that they weren’t all too bad.” He cracks a smile at that.

“I’d spend more time helping out at the skate shop, designing skates and helping kids try on their first pair. I’d help Aunt Claire with teaching new skaters, because it makes me really, really happy seeing them start the sport for the first time.” She smiles, thinking of his little cousins who give them the biggest smile she’s ever seen on his face. “I’d have more talks with my dad, and cook more with my mom. And,” his eyes turn onto her, staring straight into her soul, “I would end up with someone I love who loves me just as much as I do them. They’ll be kind, stubborn, ambitious, but one of the most loving people who do everything for everyone else and never think about themselves.”

“That sounds nice,” she whispers back. “Maybe in that fantasy, I’ll learn to love skating again.”

The look he gives her seems to have mended her shattered soul, slowly but surely through the new scars on her legs, and it’s nothing compared to what he says next. “And we’ll learn how to love skating again together.”

When they get back to Canton and are settled back in their rooms with the Diamandises, she gets ready to go to sleep. It’s December now, and the snow is falling, but more importantly, tomorrow is her first day back on ice. Before she turns off the light and calls it a night, she notices something glinting on her night stand.

It’s a snow globe, better than the one she had in her room. The figurines are not dancing with shoes, this time, but skates are delicately crafted at the bottom of the man and woman, who circle around each other. They spin and spin, and snow is falling, and she sobs as she watches them go ‘round and ‘round.

Beside the snow globe is a note written in a familiar scrawl. 

Let’s learn how to love skating again together.
x R

The night leading up to the 2010 Canadian Championships is full of tension. Nini has thrown up three times and counting, ignoring the ache in her throat as her heart hammers in her chest. They’re favourites to win, as they’ve won this title twice before now, and logically they should be shoo ins for the Olympics. But that doesn’t stop it from making it any less nerve wracking.

It’s day 1, and Salazar/Bowen place first and score a 43.98 in the compulsory dance. Nini throws up twice that night.

It’s day 2, and Salazar/Bowen place first and score a 70.15 in their original dance to Farrucas. After eating a salad, Nini throws up in her hotel bathroom while listening to Fearless by Taylor Swift.

And finally, it’s day 3, and nerves are through the roof. Their spot for first and the Olympics is all but guaranteed, and with Jenn and Zach cheering them on past the boards, there’s not much to be worried about. Her family—Momma C, Momma D, and Lola—are all there, supporting her and Ricky as they gear up for their free dance. 

Her dress is gold, billowy and innocent looking, and Ricky is bouncing nervously with his toe pick. They’ve aced the other two dances. They’ve got this. 

On the ice, after “From Western Ontario, Nini Salazar-Roberts and Ricky Bowen!” is announced, she takes her place. Ricky is behind her—she knows it—and as the opening beats to Mahler’s Fifth Symphony play, it all clicks.

She can feel Ricky’s hands come to her neck, and she turns, skating backwards as he takes her hand and places a kiss on it. The routine is innocent—a tale of two lovers madly in love, with the sickly sweet attributes of first love and the honeymoon phase. With elements taking out directly from ballet, Nini is right where she belongs.

The first lift that has her get twisted around Ricky’s head has the crowd cheering, and if the adrenaline wasn’t already pumping in, she would be grinning. But Nini is playing a role now—a girl madly in love with her partner, completely besotted, and happier than she could ever imagine.

Every move in is sync, and when the dance finally ends with her back resting on Ricky’s knee, the crowd roars.

After bowing appropriately and blowing kisses to the crowd, they make their way to the Kiss and Cry, where Jenn and Zach give them tight hugs. Waiting for the results shouldn’t be as painful as it is, but every second passed is absolutely agonizing until—

“The free dance score for Nini Salazar-Roberts and Ricky Bowen is 107.82, for a total score of 221.95, setting Canadian records for the free dance and combined total scores. With that, Nini and Ricky are in first place, and are one of two teams competing in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.”