Chapter Text
"Alright." Eteri Georgievna claps her hands twice. "Time to clean up, everybody."
Nobody dares to groan, but Anna sees multiple sets of eyes cast heavenward. Everyone was still breathing heavily from skating through their free programs, worn out after a full day of training. And now they're training jumps, because of course they are. They're always training jumps. Anna can hear nothing but the blood pumping in her veins, louder than the scrape of skates on ice. She starts to build up speed and finds her spot in the circuit, behind Adeliia and in front of Sofia.
Training for the Olympics is hard, Eteri Georgievna warned them it would be hard. Anna wakes, eats, trains and sleeps. She is barely keeping up with online school, barely keeping up with her sisters.
"Sasha!" Eteri's voice is the crack of a whip, turning heads across the rink. "Fix your landing leg."
Anna flinched slightly at the reprimand, even though it wasn't directed at her. Something about annoyance in a trainer's voice always made her mind go still and quiet.
Sasha grimaces and clambers to her feet, dusting the ice off her palms. Five quads was a lot. Anna knew how hard Sasha worked for her jumps and how badly she wanted this, but what if it was too much? There was no point trying to broach the topic with her. Anna had never met anyone quite as certain as Alexandra, no one with as unshakeable a belief that they were right, regardless of anyone else's opinion. Besides, everyone had their programs for the season, and as mean as it sounded, Sasha was not going to win with performance components. She needed to land those quads.
Anna shakes her head, and refocuses on her own problems. Her stupid Lutz edge. She needs to set up the crossover, check behind her. Jump, land.
Crossover, jump, land. Fall.
The stinging cold, all along her side and across the bare skin of her forearm, is worse than the impact. It always is.
Anna hastily clambers to her feet, shielding the curve of her belly with an arm. She feels so bloated and unwieldy, even though the scale says she's maintaining the right weight. Thankfully, no one seems to notice. They are all preoccupied with their own practice.
"Trusova, what did I say about your step outs." Eteri's tone has sharpened with displeasure. She hates repeating herself.
Sasha snarls wordlessly and brushes the snow off her pants.
Over the past few months, Anna has retreated into herself, a little bit. A neat and careful folding of her thoughts, like origami. She folds and folds, tucks the soft parts of herself like a paper bird deep into her brain, opens the rest of herself quiet and compliant to instruction. And when training is over, Anna unfolds, unfurls, smooths her paper-thin heart back into place.
Adeliia jumps a triple triple combination, and wobbles slightly on the landing.
Anna switches into the crossover, jumps, lands. Ignores the crunch in her knee. After the Olympics. There will be time for surgery after the Olympics. Aliona peels away from her spot in the circuit, neatly sidestepping Sergei Viktorovich. Her hair is up in a messy bun today and her eyes are tired. Ever since the Grand Prix in France, there has been something brittle in her skating and her smile.
Anna pops out of her next jump attempt, turning it into a single so she can twist to a stop near Aliona.
"Sashka has been inconsistent with her landings all day. How's the leg?"
Anna shrugs. "I don't know, she doesn't tell me anything."
Sasha isn't her friend in the same way that Aliona is, even though the three of them are together almost every single day. They don't meet outside of training, or talk about anything other than skating. Anna doesn't even know what her favourite colour is.
"Come on, you're always together, she must've said something."
Aliona is not very good at hiding her care for them. Ever since Evgenia went to Canada and Alina stopped competing, Aliona had been the oldest girl in single skating. Anna can tell that she feels responsible for them, in some strange way. She cajoles them into snacks and water breaks, makes a fool of herself to coax a smile out of the younger ones.
"I really don't know, Alena." Anna pounds her fists against her thighs, trying to force some feeling back into them. "You-"
"Kostornaia!" Eteri snaps. "Slacking off as always. Do you deserve a break?"
"No, Eteri Georgievna." Aliona speaks as if reciting from a script, staring at the floor, appropriately chastened. But her eyes flick up as their trainer turns away, boring holes into her head. "Won't happen again."
"You're not here to distract Anna. Show me your axel, we'll see if it's sloppy as last time."
Aliona glides back to her spot, throwing a lazy smile at Anna as she goes.
Push off the ice. Build up speed.
Crossover, jump, land.
The sun is out, and Inna is coming home to celebrate New Years' with the rest of their family. Eteri Georgievna is in a good mood for whatever reason that morning, and it's slightly contagious.
Anna skates through her short and her free programs without falling once. It's so incredibly satisfying, watching an idea become tangible. And the finished programs look good. They challenge her, both artistically and technically. All of her hard work is bearing fruit, and flowers of pride bloom alongside it.
This is why she's here, this is her calling. To convey a story and show her emotions through skating.
Anna can't resist one last spiral, despite Eteri Georgievna calling that practice is finished. The stretch and burn in her muscles is exhilarating. She eventually pulls herself away from the ice and offers a sheepish smile to the trainers waiting on her. Sergei Viktorovich offers a hand to help her balance and slip on her blade guards, with his usual patient, vaguely paternal bearing.
"I have always said that hard work and perseverance can lead to great achievement," Eteri says. "And your discipline is truly an example of that."
"Good work today," she reaches out to smooth Anna's hair back, placing her tissues and jacket back in her hands. "I say this with all the affection in my heart; the next great achievement for you, Anoushka, is a shower."
Anna's chest fills with so much pride that there is no room for embarrassment, even as wipes the sweat from her face. She practically floats down the corridor. She can't stop smiling.
"You broke her." Daria whispers, "I heard the last time she joked was in 2017, and it caused an assassination and several lawsuits."
"Shh! Are you trying to get us into trouble?" Anna hisses, trying to contain her own laughter. Daria started giggling halfway through her own joke, unable to maintain a serious tone. The tiny, proud smile pulling at the corner of her mouth meant she had probably been saving that one for quite some time.
In any case, they make it to the locker room without assassinations or lawsuits. Anna washes up and emerges rejuvenated and happy. For the first time in a long time, she knows that this is exactly where she's meant to be.
She catches sight of the pile of schoolwork she left this morning, and her good mood diminishes somewhat. On top of the stack, taunting her, is a literature assignment. It's going to take ages. But it's better that she does it now, instead of late at night after training. Exams aren't until March, after the Olympics, but there is a lot of preparatory work to be done before then. An essay on the conflict between faith and doubt in The Brothers Karamazov. Anna tries to keep up to date with required readings, but might be a chapter or two behind. Oh well. She can write something decent with the content she remembers.
Sasha takes the seat across from Anna and dumps her training bag on the floor. "Do you have the afternoon session?"
"No, I'm in the gym for the rest of the day."
"You're not going to lunch."
"Lots of stuff to catch up on. Did you just eat?"
"Yeah."
Anna pinches at the soft skin around her thighs. She has been fighting her body the entire season, keeping her weight down to keep her jumps up. It's the cost of being the best. She knows she doesn't eat as much as she should. And she knows that Sasha knows. It just goes unspoken, because neither of them can judge.
So Sasha doesn't point out the skipped meals, and Anna doesn't mention how Sasha is increasingly short-tempered these days, hard on everyone and even harsher towards herself.
"Doesn't your tutor normally get here about now?"
"No." Sasha jams her earphones in and starts staring at a book. She doesn't even seem to be processing the words on the page.
It's been a long time since Anna was unsure around her fellow skater. It's been a long time since she didn't know what to say. Everyone thinks Sasha is aloof and distant, but once she gets to know you, you literally cannot get her to stop talking. Anna misses that version of her.
They don't really have anything to talk about these days. Only skating, and that is quickly becoming a sore subject.
After the Olympics, she promises herself. They will all be back to normal after the Olympics.
Anna mechanically unlaces her pointe shoes and flexes her aching feet, slowly bringing her breathing and heart rate back down. Training requires absolute concentration and devotion, so Anna only lets herself think once it's over. And she worries, because of course she does. How much longer can Aliona keep shouldering this weight? There was less than a fortnight until nationals, and the pressure just kept building.
The older girl constantly argues with Sergei, often talks back to Eteri and is always brutally honest. Even when it makes people uncomfortable or makes things hard for herself. A small part of Anna envies her. A larger part wishes Aliona would just shut up and go along with things. There is no point fighting the trainers about the programs, or the costumes, or the training schedule. Even if there were too many people on the ice these days. Anna regularly had to abort jumps so she wouldn't crash into other skaters. There hadn't been any major accidents yet but it seemed increasingly likely, especially with the juniors around.
They scurry in and out of the locker room, changing quickly and exiting quietly, trying to take up as little space as possible. There's a new set of faces every season. Most do not last long. Anna always tries to learn their names, whether they stay for one year or ten.
"Anna!" Kamila brightly greets her, unfailingly nice and happy and uninjured, "Thanks for helping me out today, I swear I can never get my combination spin right unless someone is watching me."
Anna turns with a smile and prays that Kamila won't attempt to make conversation. She just wants to go home and sleep. "Of course, I'm glad everything worked out."
"Are you finished for the day?"
She hums in the affirmative, preoccupied with nursing the worst of her blisters. One of the bandages on her heel slipped off, and she almost bled through her stocking. By some miracle, the inside of her pointe shoe didn't stain.
"Well, I'll be here for a little longer. If you wanted some company."
Kamila might be able to Rippon all of her jumps, but she hasn't learned how to put herself away. To set aside her mind until there's somewhere safe enough to inhabit it again. She's still so young, which sounds stupid considering that Anna is only seventeen herself.
"I'm going to head home, actually. I'll see you tomorrow?"
Kamila thankfully seems unoffended. "Yeah, see you tomorrow!"
Anna waves goodbye with half a mind, pulling on her coat and bracing for the snowy Moscow night. Dad should be waiting outside to pick her up. The foyer is separated from the ice by a heavy door to help keep the rink cold, no matter what time of year it is.
So Anna is not there when Aliona falls. She does not see the panic on her face, or the crack of her arm against the ice. She does, however, hear the screams.
Nationals are a disaster.
Skaters are falling left, right and centre. Anna is not feeling the Christmas cheer. Her chest is tight with nerves all through the short program, which only worsen and spiral out of control during the free.
She gives one of the worst performances of the season.
Anna sits in the kiss and cry, on the verge of tears. She can't shake the feeling that everyone is mad at her. Disappointed, at the very least. She's so stupid, for letting the nerves get to her. She didn't prepare the quad flip landing in time, couldn't even get her leg out for the exit. Just went down, straight on her ass, like an idiot.
Daniil's arm is heavy around her shoulders and his breath is hot in her ear. "We'll talk about it later, just smile for now, okay?"
Third place. Behind Sasha and Adeliia. And with Kamila skating right now, she already feels herself slipping to fourth. Her anxiety rears its ugly head, because Anna knows how this story goes. One bad skate leads to another, and before you know it, public opinion turns on you.
Anna didn't manage a single quad, she didn't get enough height on her triple lutz-toe. Her performance components were good, as usual, but they weren't great. She doesn't know how to be great. The GOE points aren't enough to beat out Sasha's base value, or Kamila's… everything.
Anna knows she will not win the Olympics. Not when Kamila is there. But if there was ever a time for her to skate clean, to give everything she had and deliver the performance of a lifetime, it would be then.
Elizaveta congratulates her with an easy smile and a hug, same as always. Was she mad? Anna would have been mad, in her place. Liza was twenty-five now, and this was her tenth season as a senior. It was likely to be her last chance at the Olympics. Looking around the locker room, Anna knew that every single skater here was talented, every girl had put the hours in. All of them had sacrificed their childhoods and broken their bodies because they were trying so hard. They deserved everything she was getting.
If only it was a matter of deserve.
Despite Anna's own disappointment, her family are so proud, and so happy for her. Her parents take her out to a nice meal. Her sisters pester her into staying up late to watch a Christmas movie with them. Her knee screams for tape and painkillers and Voltaren.
Anna falls asleep before the title cards.
The entire flight to Beijing Anna can’t sleep, though a light nap would probably be healthy. She vlogs a bit, scrolls through the news, closes her eyes and just marinates in her own mind. Travel is never pleasant. The endless waiting, and standing around for ages, the jet lag and COVID safety protocols. But it goes smoothly, so Anna cannot complain. They settle in to the Olympic village and dive right in.
Beijing is so busy, even busier than Moscow, filled with cameras and people speaking so many different languages. There is practice, and off-ice training, and visiting the physio, making sure to eat right and get enough sleep. Anna goes to bed thoroughly worn out, having done the maximum every day. She's not used to the limited ice time, but it is wonderful to have only four people on the rink. She can jump five times more than in normal practice.
Kamila goes to explore the village, take photos and watch events with Mark and Moris. Anna spends lots of time in the gym, stretching and running. They each have their own rhythm. She emulates her usual competition routine as best she can, despite the short practices and covid safety measures. There is a charged atmosphere every time she trains, where everything feels heightened. Despite this, Anna finds that little pieces of home have followed her. Sasha is one of them.
The training schedule of Khrustalny is so deeply engrained in both their psyches that their routines unintentionally overlap. They go to training together most days and work separately in companionable silence. It's not home. But it's enough.
Alina (4:01): have you looked at the news?
Anna (4:04): no, what happened
Alina (4:04): kamilas skating for the team event
Anna (4:04): what about it?
Anna (4:04) we were literally there, she did a great job
Alina (4:04): no
Alina (4:04): shes doing both programs for the team event
For a moment that stretches into a minute that stretches into five, Anna thinks about the yelling and the conditioning and relearning how to walk, and can’t remember why she bothers. On the good days, skating was like breathing. So natural and so necessary that everything fell into place around it. Sometimes it is the energy of an audience that drives her, sometimes the obsessive desire to correct and perfect. On bad days, it's the threat of failure that keeps her going.
Anna puts her phone face-down on the desk.
It is a good thing that she has always been a quiet crier. She keeps her breathing steady and hugs a pillow to stifle her sobs. Being passed over in favour of Kamila twice stings more than she thought it would. It was unfair. Eteri Georgievna didn't even tell them personally.
Anna tries to keep a rational mindset; accept what she can and can't control. But they didn't need to do this. Kamila's triple axel made her the best choice for the short. But they could've given her or Sasha the free skate. Russia would still take team gold. Easily. Did their trainers make this decision, or was it someone further up the chain? Anna doesn't dare speculate, but the choice reeks of an all-too familiar favouritism.
Everything was going wrong.
She misses Aliona. She misses her mother.
Sasha is not a quiet crier. Anna can hear her through the wall of their shared house. She slams doors and screams into a pillow, then goes to the gym to be alone and angry. That is how they have always dealt with pressure.
But then - something different. A knock on her door that night.
"Anya."
"Sashka."
"Shall we cry together?"
It is unexpected, to say the least. For Sasha, of all people, to reach out. But they are both far from home and running on fumes. That seems like as good a reason as any.
"Let's cry together."
Outside, life goes on for millions of people. The Beijing skyline glitters, silver and gold, stretching out as far as she could see. Anna listens, for a moment, to the interminable rumble of voices, to the people on their way to an unknowable destination. Everything is so normal it hurts.
Sasha sits down behind Anna on the bed, and undoes her hair from its tight competition bun. She doesn't need it anymore. They don't speak about Kamila, or Aliona, or the team event, because there is nothing to say. Anna understands her perfectly.
Together they cry, and laugh, and fall asleep.
Anna wakes to the weight of Sasha's body on her. The lean planes of her stomach, her bony shoulders and cold hands. It's still dark and mostly silent outside, save for the occasional car driving past. Anna is closer to the wall, so she cannot get up without climbing over Sasha or trying to move her.
It's too early to be relaxing like this, but Anna feels her chest fill with something like hope. Maybe everything will work itself out.
Anna and Sasha are not friends in any traditional sense of the word. They are not the type of people who go shopping and have sleepovers and giggle over boys. But Anna instinctively sought her out in the dark, or maybe it was Sasha who found her.
Sasha laid herself down next to Anna, pressed the length of her body against Anna, because they are united by something more than friendship: they are the same. Same age, same rink, same jumps, same victories. And now they have another thing in common; the same rejection.
Anna lets her mind float in a comfortable, half-conscious haze as the sky incrementally brightens. It looks like another overcast day. She feels, rather than sees, Sasha return to consciousness. Her breathing becomes shallower, back instinctively arching in a stretch. Early risers, the both of them.
Anna considers pretending to be asleep so she can make a dignified exit, but it's too late. Sasha's half-open eyes trace over her face with something resembling fondness.
"Morning." Anna whispers, to not break the reverie.
Anna almost expects Sasha to extract herself, extend a semi-joking insult, and put something resembling a respectable distance between them. With some distance and sobering daylight, they can return to familiar territory. Polite boundaries and friendly rivalry. Safety.
Sasha just hums in response, and moves her head to rest on Anna's chest.
Anna is suddenly very awake. She remains carefully, torturously still for a collection of moments, unsure of what to do with this development. The warmth, the weight, the sliver of distance that separates her hand from Sasha's waist, her bare- it's… a lot. And yet something in Anna screams for more.
The significance of the gesture is not lost on her, this hesitant invitation and hard-earned trust. Anna wants to reciprocate, but she is afraid to overwhelm Sasha with just how much she wants.
"We don't have to be up for a while yet." she dares to inject a fraction of the affection she feels into the words.
Sasha's breathing slowly evens out again. There is no way that she doesn't hear Anna's traitorous, thundering heart, but she does not mention it. Anna doesn't know if she is relieved or disappointed. Either way, it feels like permission to relax into these nebulous waters, breathing in synchrony and letting the current draw them away from the world. Anna does not know where they are going, or what Sasha's flushed cheeks might mean. They are lost, but lost together.
The threads that bind them are too frayed and twisted to be called friendship. These days, Anna thinks they are the only thing holding her together.
Anna bites her tongue and hits send before she can think twice about it. This doping scandal had unleashed chaos like she'd never seen before upon the whole Russian team. The pressure worsened as you approached the epicenter, the closer you were associated to athlete in question. Anna can only imagine what it must feel like for her teammate in the eye of the storm.
Anna (1:29): i know everything is overwhelming right now, but i promise im here for you
Anna (1:29): whenever youre ready
Anna (1:29): please take care of yourself
Kamila does not respond. She probably hasn't looked at her phone since the news broke.
To no one's surprise, training is a tense affair. Eteri's criticism is even harsher than usual. She's stressed, and her mood sets everyone else on edge. Blame is being thrown in every direction.
Anna may not know exactly what happened behind closed doors, but she is not stupid. When the trainers say jump, you jump. When they tell you what to eat, when they hand you pills, you take them without question. Because if you won't, there is always another girl who will. Younger and stronger, ready to take your place.
So Anna jumps. Jumps and spins and jumps again until her legs scream and threaten to buckle.
Her run-through is not amazing. They only have half hour training sessions, which is not enough time to get anything done. Some more time would be really nice to break her new boots in. Instead, Anna spends the half hour getting worse and worse at a single step sequence.
"How is your neck?" Eteri turns her around to inspect the bandages, probing gently at its edges.
"It hurts during the layback, and sometimes when I jump."
"Okay."
"I can deal with it. The spray is helping, I-"
"What happened to your lutz-loop combination?"
This is a rhetorical question, so Anna just shakes her head mutely. Her nose is running from the cold and she needs to sneeze so badly. She holds it in. Everyone's so worried about infection these days, herself included.
"You must be better than this. I've been giving you the same advice for months, why can't you do it? You are jumping quads and yet you underrotate both triples."
"Sorry, Eteri Georgievna."
"I don't want you to be sorry, I want you to be better. Fix it."
Anna tries to fold herself away, to empty her mind of everything apart from the skate ahead, but her thoughts clamour for attention and spill out of her ears. She thinks of Alexandra downing a worrying quantity of painkillers before competitions. How her hands shake and her skin becomes even paler than usual.
Anna watches Kamila fall hard on the quad toe loop and goes a bit lightheaded with relief. Not satisfaction, she gets no satisfaction seeing her friend struggle. Anna is just slightly, guiltily relieved that it wasn't her. Because it could be. Any one of them could be gone in an instant.
Eteri Georgievna hands Anna her jacket with something akin to sympathy. "Don't worry yourself about others, Anoushka. Focus on your performance."
Eteri has to know. Surely she knows what she does to them, what she’s doing to them every single time. Eteri watched Anna grow up, and was there for her every step of the way. Even when Sasha and Aliona were training with Plushenko, or when Daria and Maiia were out with injuries. Eteri was always there. Trainers always protect and support their athletes. So Eteri must be looking after Kamila quietly. Where nobody can see.
There are cameras everywhere. Not just the usual crews who cover sport, but unfamiliar faces, new reporters who only have one thing on their mind.
"Anna! What do you have to say about the situation regarding Kamila?"
Anna wishes she didn't know English. She walks past them quickly as possible.
"Do you think Kamila will be banned for the positive test?"
Oh, so it's the Russian journalists as well as the Americans. Wonderful. Anna thinks of her own samples, sitting in a lab somewhere, and needs to throw up. There's nothing in her stomach to lose, so she bites her tongue until the urge passes.
She nods tersely at Kamila, who also looks on the verge of being sick. It's probably best that Anna keeps her distance. At least until the individual event is over. They cannot speak to each other with honesty here. Letting her anger out, at Kamila or anyone else, wouldn't help.
They have to be a united front.
The morning of the short program is bitterly cold and clear. It reminds Anna of home. For once, she hasn't had a single nightmare in the leadup to a competition. She hasn't caught covid, missed a bus or forgotten her skates.
The actual event is held late at night for peak TV viewership. Anna has the next seven hours to herself, and no idea what to do with them. She mills around the apartment for a bit, walks a lap around the block, becomes paranoid about losing her way and goes back inside.
She ends up arriving stupidly early, and preparing at a snail's pace. Each part of her preparatory routine is performed with intent and care. She's not just unpacking her skates, or sharpening blades, or getting dressed. She's drawing upon all of her experience from the last eleven years. Each action that was carefully learned, refined and applied. It's not about Anna anymore. It's Oksana Bulycheva, showing her how to tie skates when she was three. Mama driving her to practice in the blue pre-dawn. Sergei Viktorovich teaching her how to fall safely, Sergei Rozanov teaching her jumps. Aliona giggling over jammed zippers and fixing crooked eyeliner. Daria talking her through extensions and Kamila cheering from the boards. Daniil taking her hands and giving her breath.
Daniil, knocking on the door to her dressing room. "Hello? Hope I'm not interrupting."
"Of course not, come in."
"How are you feeling?"
"Everything is fine. I'm breathing. I've got my suitcase. My alarm to go to warmups is set. So is my second alarm, and my third."
"And your back is okay? Nothing hurts?"
"Everything hurts, you know how it is. And you know I never freak out before competitions."
"Exactly. You get so calm that sometimes I have to remind myself you're actually human."
Anna cautiously stretches her neck to feel out the boundaries of pain. "I promise I'm fine. And if I'm not, you'll be the first to know."
"Well. I just wanted to make sure. Call me if you need anything." Daniil shoots her an awkward half-smile as he leaves.
Anna turns back to the mirror, casting a critical eye over her reflection. The costume has lots of loose fabric and jagged edges that never want to sit straight. Her eyeshadow is dark and even. Not a single thread or strand of hair is out of place.
There is a little girl who lives somewhere deep within Anna's chest. A girl who loves the sound of blades on ice and wind whistling past her ears, who skates for the simple pleasure of it. She doesn't know what a scoring protocol is, and she performs backbends without a twinge of pain.
She can do so many things; this girl who loves to dance and jump and sing.
Anna spends the entire morning trying to find her.
She keeps her head down during warmup, skating in gentle circles and making sure her body remembers what is required of it. The sound of Kamila's In Memoriam is almost soothing in its familiarity and repetitiveness. Another little piece of home that has followed her to Beijing. It brings back warm memories. Long days at the rink and glowing pride in the younger skater.
Anna prepares her final run-through with her heart in her throat. Her final run-through.
She is only aware of the other skaters to the extent that allows her to stay out of their way. Anything more than that would be a distraction. Even so, Anna can't seem to get out of her own head. This skate is likely to be the most important performance of her life. She's not ready.
She has been shaky all season, her knee giving out at the most inopportune times. It screams with every jump and cracks with every landing, but she can push through it. After the Olympics. She will allow herself to feel pain after the Olympics.
She made a promise with herself years ago: as long as she skated to the best of her ability, she would accept the outcome. She tries to hold that promise in her mind, but it feels like a foolish sentimentality. The excuse of a child who isn't good enough to win. She doesn't have Kamila's technique or Sasha's jumps. She just needs to deliver one good performance.
One clean skate.
So many people have worked towards giving her this moment. Her trainers and family, most of all. Anna will honour their sacrifices with the best short program they've ever seen.
"Keep your spins fast, especially in the second half." Daniil seems on-edge as he provides last minute advice. "And don't overthink the axel, I could see you hesitating."
It's too late to change anything, but Anna understands why he does it. The same nervous energy has her drilling groupings and exits, over and over. It's more about feeling like she's doing something, rather than actual preparation. It seems like only a moment passes before the announcer is calling them off the ice.
Anna narrows her awareness, her thoughts, her entire existence to the next two days. The sound of blades on ice, and wind whistling past her ears.
Her phone is on silent, and sits underneath her tissue box, so she does not see it light up with a new message.
Kamila (06:44): thank you
Kamila (06:44): good luck for the short
Kamila (06:44): :)
The Olympics were over.
Anna remembers nothing of the free skate, only the way her mind had gone empty; terrified and blank as a prey animal during the chase. She did not fall or falter, not even once, because the possibility in front of her was so close and so bright she could not look at it.
Gold.
Anna reaches within herself for happiness and pride, to hug the little girl who lives inside her chest.
There's nobody there.
There is just… nothing. She can't even bring herself to feel bad for Kamila, as horrible as that sounds. Her life had just fallen apart - hero to pariah overnight.
Anna has nothing within her left to care. She is so tired. Her back hurts. Everything hurts.
Daniil Markovich is speaking to her. She has to be somewhere. She returns his hug on instinct alone.
"Why aren't you happy?"
Anna hesitates, not sure how to react. The question seems genuine, but Anna can never tell. There is always an incorrect answer that nobody tells you is wrong until you choose it. She just clutches Daniil's coat tightly and hopes he will not be angry with her.
Anna wants to go home.
If Eteri was here, she would instruct Anna to smile and wave. She should be happy and grateful, to show her appreciation for the audience and their support. But Eteri is not here. So Anna sits still. It's the tiniest, most pathetic rebellion; breaking this one unofficial rule.
There are cameras everywhere, cameras that follow her every movement, so she moves as little as possible.
She wants to leave.
But Sasha is right outside and screaming with fury. It's not her usual brand of light annoyance or bridled frustration, which Anna has gotten used to. Sasha sounds genuinely angry and it scares her.
Everyone cried after a bad competition, or a bad training session. It was normal. When the shouting never stopped and the jumps never landed and the pain stretched on with no end in sight. But Sasha cried gasoline. Every injury and failure only fuelled her, made her burn fast and bright.
Anna stares into nothing and tries not to cough up the ash on her tongue.
Eteri Georgievna taught her many things, but this is perhaps the most deeply instilled lesson: how to endure pain and look beautiful while doing it.
They call her name.
Anna climbs onto the podium and waits for the excitement to hit her. This is the culmination of the last eleven years. She waves and jumps for joy, because any moment now, the joy will come. Anna will be so grateful and humble and full of every emotion that she is supposed to have.
They give her a little plastic panda in a spacesuit. Anna can't look at it without feeling nauseous and disembodied, so she keeps her eyes up, gazing towards the empty rink and empty stands. The smile is plastered firmly onto her face.
It falters, a little, when the broadcast cuts to Sasha. The silver medallist stands tall. She tenses her stomach and carefully steadies her breathing. It reminds Anna of a girl bullied, braced for a blow she can't see but expects all the same. With the podium between them, Anna is a few centimetres taller than Sasha. What was the difference between first and second, anyway? Roughly ten centimetres. Roughly four and a half points.
None of this feels real.
Anna doesn't know what to do. Maybe she needs to celebrate now. Or if she's not happy, maybe she doesn't need to.
The only thing she knows is that the world is made of plastic. If she reaches her hand through the air and curls her fingers just right, the walls would all peel back.
Everything is covered in cling wrap.
Anna Shcherbakova wins the Olympics. Earns the highest honour that any skater could receive.
There are interviews and photographs and autographs.
Now what?