Chapter Text
Anne had gone into the hospital chapel for some much-needed alone time - which felt strange and contradictory to want, because of how lonely she felt without Freddy - when the doors opened. Of course, Anne thought. Why should she get alone time?
That was a bitter and unkind thought. The chapel wasn’t private property. It was for anyone who needed it. She’d gotten enough of the time she needed to recover from rushing home from school to take Mom to her scans. Anne would be able to take notes on whatever the doctors said and then be calm and smiley when driving Mom home.
Footsteps.
Deliberate.
Approaching.
Right behind her, really.
Alone time was at a definite end. Anne swung herself up from where she had been laying flat in a pew, trying to stretch out her stiff back.
“Oh, my apologies,” someone said in French, sounding startled.
“No, no, I’m sorry,” said Anne, also in French, turning and embarrassedly smoothing down the skirt of her school uniform. “I, um…” She blinked.
She knew the guy in the black-framed hipster glasses hovering awkwardly in the aisle. How did she know him?
He took his glasses off to wipe a smudge off them. Where had she seen his face? Her mind supplied an ice rink and a podium.
“Oh, bonjour-hi Darcy,” said Anne. Then, realizing that - while they trained in the same city and went to the same competitions - there was no reason the Vancouver Olympic gold medalist and current world champion for Senior men’s singles skating would know a Junior pairs skater who was no longer Junior or even a pairs skater, she added: “Anne Elliot? I train under Coach Russell?”
The context helped. His expression smoothed and he stepped forward in a much more easy, friendly way. “Oh yes. We’ve met before. You skate with….” He searched his memory.
The pause was so painful that Anne blurted out, voice shaking only a little, “I used to skate with Frederick Wentworth, but he’s um. He’s training for the National Junior Team Training Camp. He got invited there in July. They’ll, um. Recruit from there for the Junior League, and Junior Worlds. It’s the best on-ramp to the NHL.”
“Oh.” Darcy looked dubious and disdainful. Anne initially thought it was because she’d gone into way too much detail, but then Darcy said, “Hockey.”
“He’s really good at it,” Anne protested. She felt a flare of furious defensiveness. She was this miserable and alone because she deserved to be after what she’d done, holding Freddy back in pairs, but she had made good, she’d atoned, and she’d done the right thing in the end. She could give Darcy a pass– she liked hockey but up until recently hadn’t understood what made someone truly good at it, because all her knowledge of skating was figure skating– but she had to explain. “Like really good. Sidney Crosby’s agency would send people to watch his hockey games. He’d been getting interest from scouts for years and years, and the only reason he hadn’t been taken seriously before now was because he was competing in pairs. Coach Russell thought it was a better idea to, uh, split up and for me to try out singles–”
“So you’re debuting in Women’s Singles in the fall?”
“Yeah.” Saying it still felt like announcing to someone that she was about to climb the Matterhorn with her bare hands.
“Yes, that makes sense,” mused Darcy. “I haven’t heard of any splits or retirements in all the Senior level pairs skaters in Canada, so you’d have to stay in Juniors this year, or maybe go skate for another country with lower standings– but why would you? Skate Canada has its flaws, but it has fewer flaws than other national skating programs.”
Anne actually felt a little extraneous to the conversation.
Darcy looked at the ceiling, his right hand buried in the pocket of his skinny jeans. “On top of all the expected retirements this year in Canada, Mia Grantley retired two years earlier than expected. Ava Pope will be out next season with her lower lumbar injury and may not come back, depending. Both the Webb sisters crashed and burned in the leap to Seniors, and Leilani Watson said next season will be her last… it’s a very smart move. Your spin series were the best in Junior Pairs, which… and this is just speculation, but I’d think that would automatically make you one of the best in Senior Singles since you learned to be precise enough to time yourself to someone, and none of the others have. You have an axel with a high GOE– not a thrown one?”
Anne had been sort of staring at him, unsure what to do with this firehose of insider Skate Canada information. “It’s a double, but… yes?”
Darcy made a dismissive gesture with his left hand. “No one since Ito-Bennet has had a triple axel in women’s singles. A double is all you need. And my coach said you had the highest GOE on your triple flip triple toe loop combination at Junior Worlds– you know, I think you might get into the Olympics team if you have a good season this year. Russell skaters who make it to Seniors are always very polished.”
Okay. This had been… a bewildering conversation so far.
More of a monologue, really.
“Um, thanks,” said Anne. “That’s the, uh. That’s the plan.”
Darcy then realized he had not, perhaps, displayed all the appropriate social graces when coming across a work acquaintance in a hospital chapel.
He played with something in his pocket and coughed uncomfortably. “Sorry. It’s been… a weird day, after several weird weeks. I, euh….”
Anne immediately felt bad for being a little taken aback by Darcy’s ramble. The hospital chapel was not a place people randomly found themselves on a Tuesday afternoon because it was a cool place to hang out.
“Are you okay?” Anne asked delicately.
Had that been the wrong thing to say? Darcy froze.
Anne scooted over in her pew. Darcy hesitated. Then, he sat down a little warily, like a cat going into a new room.
He looked… lost.
Her heart went out to him.
“We can just sit if you want?” Anne said, with all the quiet sympathy she possessed. “It’s okay. It’s been a weird several weeks for me too.”
Darcy pulled his hand out of his pocket. Anne had assumed he was playing with his keys or phone out of whatever anxiety had caused him to launch into an impromptu dissection of the state of the Senior Women’s Singles figure skating in Canada, but he was holding a rosary. Oh right. The Darcys were Catholic Catholic. Anne had only gone to a private Catholic school because it was the best (and as her maternal grandma had once grumbled, the most expensive and pretentious) all-girls school in Montreal.
“I’m guessing going from pairs to singles didn’t require a trip to the ER,” Darcy said.
It had felt like it.
“No, um… my mom had a heart attack not too long after Worlds.” Anne stared at the stained glass window at the front of the chapel. She took in no information about it what-so-ever. “They diagnosed her with myocarditis. She’s had it a while. Doctors just didn’t like… catch it. They thought my mom was just stressed. But, um… yeah. They did now and they’re pretty sure she’ll need a transplant because it did go untreated so long. They’re doing scans today to see just how bad things have gotten since the initial diagnosis and if there’s anything else they could do first and because like, she needs to deal with any and all other related health problems to get her in the best shape she can be if she gets a transplant.”
Anne managed to make it through saying all that without crying, which she considered a personal triumph.
Darcy swore softly under his breath.
It startled Anne into a laugh. “Yeah, I know right? A lot has happened since just like… Worlds.”
“And Junior Worlds is what, a full month before Senior Worlds?”
“Yup, the end of February, start of March.”
“Well,” said Darcy after a minute. “You’ve had a longer weird time than I have.”
“Wow I beat Fitzwilliam Darcy at something,” said Anne. He liked a little dry joke, Anne was now realizing. It made her feel friendlier towards him.
Darcy fussed with his rosary for a minute. Anne thought he might have been praying but instead he said, haltingly, “My own mother, she… a couple of weeks ago they found….” He bowed his head and stared intently at the little golden cross at the end of the beads. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the bowed head of Jesus, almost trying to prick his finger against the crown of thorns. Anne didn’t blame him. She was so tired that if she could prick her finger on a spindle and fall asleep for a hundred years she would.
“Last week she started chemotherapy,” he ended up saying.
Anne was familiar by now with the shape of pre-emptive grief, how it exhausted you to carry it, how it left all those strange tender places from where it had rubbed you raw. She said, softly, “That’s so hard.”
“It is.”
They sat quietly together.
“I’m glad you didn’t offer platitudes,” Darcy said. “I don’t know why but since it… happened, it’s like the whole world has made a bet to see how long they can go speaking only in cliches.”
“I know right? It’s so weird.” Anne shook her head. “You won’t get them from me. I know they don’t work. I’ll just tell you useful things, like the fact that the vending machine right outside the chapel is maybe like… the worst one in the whole building? I’ve never gotten exactly what I tried to buy, and never the right amount. Sometimes it does give me two bags of Lays Ketchup Chips, though, so I’m like… what were those experiments with the rats where they pressed buttons?”
“Skinner rats?” Darcy asked. He let out a snort of a laugh. “Well, yes, intermittent reinforcement. I can see why you got addicted to gambling on that one.” After a moment, he asked, “How do you… deal with it?”
“You just kinda do.” Anne turned her unseeing gaze back to the window. “If you find a better way out than through like, feel free to tell me. I feel like I’ve been walking through maple syrup since I hopped in the ambulance with my mom.”
The silence wasn’t awkward this time. Just kind of nice. It was nice not sitting alone in her grief.
“Ice time,” Darcy said abruptly.
“What?”
“Ice time,” he repeated. “That’s the only thing that’s helped so far.”
Anne frankly didn’t know why she had expected Canadian National Champion, World Champion, and Vancouver Olympic gold medalist Fitzwilliam Darcy to say anything else.
She was at first sure this was just one of his dry little jokes, and ignored it to go with him to visit his mother in the chemo ward, before picking up Mom and driving her home, but the next day she got a text from Darcy (on the improbable flip phone he somehow was still using) telling her he had ice time this evening, and his coach had just heard back from her coach that it was okay for her to have an unscheduled skating day with him even though it was technically her gym day, so please show up at this address in an hour with her usual gear.
Hunh.
Anne squinted at her phone screen. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more: that Darcy was actually inviting her to share his ice time, or that he texted in full sentences with perfect grammar and every single accent mark.
A loud argument between Elizabeth and Mary drifted up the stairs. Ugh. Usually they just ignored each other. Elizabeth being home more often had not been good for their relationship. Anne wearily dragged herself out of the beanbag chair where she had been disassociating for the last twenty minutes, knowing she ought to intervene, but then paused, eyes on her skate bag.
It beckoned to her.
The current unhappy noise of home faded in the remembered whoosh of air against her ears, the distant persistent thrum of her skate music faintly echoing around her. Her body ached to go into a layback spin. It felt like the only thing that could dislodge that knot of continual discomfort in the middle of her back; the only way she could center herself. The crisp, cool purity of the rink filled her mind.
Her brain felt quiet for the first time that day.
She was by the door with her skate bag by the time Elizabeth had burst out of the TV room shouting, “Where are you going? Mary’s got some godawful science project to finish and doesn’t have any of the things she needs to make it.”
“Practice,” Anne said, a little wistfully. Her mind was still full of the rink. But she could feel the doors to it closing already.
“What? Your season ended ages and ages ago. You need to take Mary–”
“Oh yeah, no, it’s um– Fitzwilliam Darcy invited me to share his ice time.”
Elizabeth looked pityingly at Anne as Daddy came unexpectedly out of the office to see why they were all shouting in the entryway. “Sure Jan.”
“Come, come, Elizabeth, you know Anne doesn’t like nicknames,” said Daddy, not recognizing the meme. (And also mixing up a fact about Elizabeth and Anne. Elizabeth refused to go by anything but Elizabeth. One of the happiest moments in Anne’s middle school years had been Freddy jamming her initials together and coming up with ‘Ace’ as a nickname. Anne had always had friends– she’d always been able to fit into any crowd– but she’d never had such a close friend she’d been given a nickname, and it had been just as wonderful as she had wistfully hoped it would be.)
“Anne is trying to sneak out,” said Elizabeth.
“On a date,” said Mary, salaciously. Not to be mean to Anne, just to stick it to Elizabeth, who was currently single and very crabby about it.
Still, it hurt. Anne winced.
Elizabeth snorted. “She is not trying to sneak out on a date. She’s just trying to sneak out of helping Mary with her homework and says that Olympic gold medalist Fitzwilliam Darcy wants to–” in a bad and moody mimic of Anne’s voice “--share his ice time.”
“Sounds like a date to me,” sing-songed Mary.
“He has a girlfriend,” Elizabeth said witheringly. “We’ve met her. Caroline something. She goes to McGill with him.”
Anne did remember someone blondely beaming next to Darcy at various galas and Montreal-based events. “So, you see? Not a date. It’s literally just skating practice.”
“He wouldn’t go for someone like Anne even if he was single,” added Elizabeth.
Mary, however, was already on her iPad and crowed triumphantly, “If it’s the Caroline Bingley majoring in pre-law at McGill they broke uuuuuup. Her friends have all tagged her in these memes about men being terrible, and her public Facebook says she’s single, and Insta stories are all thirst traps and party shots—”
Daddy turned away from Elizabeth and Mary to turn his full attention on Anne. “Darcy of the Darcy Foundation? That Darcy?”
Anne showed him the text, because Daddy was trying to keep track of everyone’s schedules to the best of his ability, but the best of his ability became a lot better if she provided physical proof of what she was doing right before she did it.
“Well well,” he said, eyebrows raised. “The Darcys. You’d better go, Anne. It doesn’t do to leave these pure-laine families in the lurch when they’re kind enough to reach out.”
Elizabeth stared, slack-jawed, at Daddy. There had never been a lot of conflicts between Anne and Elizabeth but Elizabeth had always won them before. “But I need to go! The nail salon closes in two hours, and after the spring we’ve had, I need to take just a little time to take care of myself! And Mary needs all this cardboard or whatever—”
“Mary has been through everything you have, so why not take her with you?” Daddy asked, patting Mary on the head perfunctorily. “I know it’s been a difficult and busy time for us all, but Mary, the state of your cuticles— looking at them makes my hands hurt. Put your hands in… well, the hands of a professional. Elizabeth, take the Amex and take your sister with you after you get her cardboard at the depanneur, won’t you?”
As always, the appearance of Daddy’s Amex resolved all Elizabeth-related issues. (A thought Anne was not happy with herself for having, but which she couldn’t dismiss once she’d had it.) But it did mean Anne could go skate, and things just felt… better with her blades cutting through the ice and her ponytail whipping behind her.
Darcy was very kind and welcoming, at his ease on a rink in a way he never seemed to be anywhere else. He also seemed to be at the stage of stress where he wanted a distraction more than anything and it became very clear that the only thing that could distract him even from something as terrible as his mother’s state of health was skating.
His skating wasn’t cutting it as a distraction. But Anne’s transition from pairs to singles?
Perfect. It was thinking about skating in a way that even Darcy had never thought before.
Anne had inadvertently provided him with a fantastic and wonderful puzzle. He was fascinated by how she and Coach Russell were building out her program, intrigued by her still very sketch-level choreo as she worked through it, and he nodded in interested understanding when Anne explained that her spin series was her best element so far because it was the easiest to do on her own. She and Freddy had always timed their spins to each other, yes, but once you were in a spin series it was very difficult to check what the other person was doing. It was the element with the least number of adjustments.
“I only have my free so far,” said Anne, as they skated back to the boards to pause her selected arrangement of the third movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” “Coach Russell was thinking of “Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons for my short program, but she’s also thinking of saving that for an Olympic year.”
“You don’t want to repeat a program?” Darcy asked, frowning. “I’ve done it myself but— ah, I suppose not in an Olympics year.” His frown deepened slightly. “Russell skaters don’t repeat their programs do they?”
“Only as exhibitions the following year, or in ice shows.” Anne chose not to comment on the implicit critique of her coach. She had no problems with having two new routines every year; she had always enjoyed learning a new program more than she did performing it. Why take away the best bit to focus on the worst bit?
Darcy leaned his elbow on the rink wall. “I have a question about your choreography.”
“Shoot.”
“What do you keep looking for?”
Freddy.
Anne stared at her phone. It still hurt. Even now that she was starting to feel accustomed to singles skating, she was so much more aware of Freddy’s absence than her own presence on the ice.
“I, um.” She cleared her throat. “It’s hard after being in pairs that long to realize there isn’t someone else on the ice you need to, like, match yourself to.”
“Ah,” said Darcy.
Anne dug her toe-pick into the ice, face flaming. “I know. I’ll learn to correct for it. I mean, it’s so early Coach Russell isn’t even worried that I don’t even have a short program yet.”
Darcy contemplated this.
“You… don’t think I can?” Anne asked in a small voice.
It sometimes felt like she couldn’t, like she would crash and burn like the Webb sisters and disappoint all the people who had invested in her and sacrificed so much for her to be that rare thing: an Olympian. The season suddenly stretched ahead of her like a death march.
“I wonder if you have to,” Darcy said thoughtfully. “There’s something interesting in that idea. I’ll figure it out.”
He did when Anne got tired of his Phillip Glass minimalist scores droning endlessly on one note, and Anne took over the rink speaker to make him listen to her current favorite song on what her high school friends called her Sad Girl Spring playlist.
“That’s it,” said Darcy, pleased. “Françoise Hardy’s “Tous les garçons et filles.””
“Yeah, that’s the song–”
“No, no, for your short program,” said Darcy. “It’s all about being alone while everyone else is coupled up, so you have a reason to be looking around for someone who isn’t there. You’ll have to cut it down to fit the time limits, but I think it could work.”
“What?” Anne asked blankly. She hadn’t known what to expect from sharing ice time with Darcy, but she really hadn’t been expecting him to be putting together a plan for her short program.
“Isn’t it your favorite song right now?”
“Yes but—“
“I know your family came here when the Anglos were in power back in the pre-war days,” said Darcy, drifting away in a cloud of regional pride, “but 1977 called. French is our official language. Skate to something in “the normal, everyday language of work, instruction, communication, commerce and business.””
“Why do you have the Charte de la langue française memorized?” Anne asked, mystified. “I only know it’s from that because I had a history exam on it like, last month.” But this was not the point. Anne put on a burst of speed and automatically matched herself to Darcy. “I don’t know if my coach would go for it. I’m already taking, like… kind of a lot of risks debuting in a completely different category at the Senior level and aiming for a spot on the Olympic team.”
“Coach Russell plays it very safe,” observed Darcy. More the way one observed roadkill than, like, a shooting star.
Anne personally and privately thought this was a pretty typical attitude to have as a Reynolds skater. They were known for big swings… but also, sometimes, really big misses. Darcy’s routine to Stravinsky’s “Firebird” had scored really well because of his jumps, but for Anne (and a lot of people on the internet, according to some of her rink friends) it had completely missed the mark aesthetically and aurally.
“How do you normally choose your music?” Darcy asked.
“I… don’t?” Anne then tried to explain, as nicely as she could, that the experiences of an Olympic gold medalist who hadn’t left a skating competition without a medal in years might not be universal experiences.
Darcy muttered something about asking his own coach about something and then they started comparing what they liked in a jump combination and Anne forgot all about it.
Darcy didn’t forget.
Anne discovered that the next week, when Coach Russell said, “Coach Reynolds reached out again,” in a very significant tone of voice.
“She has?” Anne finished lacing her right skate and looked up, mystified. “Um… why?”
Coach Russell still looked tired– she had ever since Mom’s heart attack– but she sipped on her venti Starbucks with a serene and rather satisfied air. “You’ve made quite the impression on her star pupil.”
Mary and Elizabeth gone the way of Cain and Abel at midnight after Mary had stained one of Elizabeth’s handwash only Dior silk blouses (something Anne had had to wash herself after Mom got up to try and wash it by hand when she should have been resting), then that morning their latest housekeeper quit after a record two weeks, and then Anne had had her community service club after an absolutely hideous math test she was sure she’d failed (she missed Freddy all the time, but she really missed all the help he gave her with her problem sets), and then— as part of being constantly ready for a heart transplant that might come tomorrow or might come in two years— Mom had to deal with any or all health issues that could cause her body to reject a new heart and Daddy was in way over his head keeping track of all that, so Anne had stepped in. She had been trying to help arrange Daddy’s schedule with his PA up until two minutes ago. Anne was frazzled. She had fried meat where her brain should be. She also had no idea what Coach Russell was talking about. “Sorry?”
Coach Russell was… smiling behind the lid of her coffee cup? “Alright, Anne, I won’t tease you. But I think it’s nice that you and Fitzwilliam Darcy hit it off the way you did. Coach Reynolds was glad too. She let me know a little about what he’s going through.”
“It’s similar, yeah,” agreed Anne. “I’m sorry he’s going through all that he is.”
“He’s just had a break-up too,” said Coach Russell, significantly.
The significance was lost on Anne. “Oh, I didn’t know that.”
She did feel tremendously sorry for Darcy. God, if he felt half of what she felt— no wonder he needed a distraction so badly he invited a random local skater to share his ice time. Some people found solace in sudoku. Some in… working through the practical difficulties of moving from skating pairs to skating singles, apparently.
“I thought you might not.” Coach Russell set her cup on the rink wall. “Coach Reynolds got the impression it was an issue of scheduling, and that… well.” Coach Russell sighed. “Serious illnesses do not always bring out the best in people, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Coach Reynolds also got the impression this was the case with Darcy’s now ex-girlfriend. I don’t know the details though.”
She did know a lot of details though.
Oh.
Anne got what was going on.
Now that Anne was competing in Seniors, Coach Russell was treating her like an adult— like Mom. The two of them had loved swapping skating gossip before Anne’s practices. Anne felt absurdly touched and heartened by this. She hadn’t felt like a child since her mom’s heart attack. It was kind of a relief to see that everyone else realized her childhood had ended that day too.
She didn’t have anything to add except that Mary’s tireless internet sleuthing had been right, but Coach Russell didn’t like how much screen time Mary had, so Anne pivoted. “Poor guy! That’s a lot at once. He only talked a little about his mom when we saw each other at the hospital. When we were skating we just talked about, like, jumps and programs. He’s doing Phillip Glass again.”
“He’s a very serious and dedicated skater,” agreed Coach Russell. “I don’t… always see eye to eye with Coach Reynolds–” that was an understatement; the two of them had Cold War levels of tension in the Montreal figure skating scene “–but she’s coached Darcy as long as I’ve coached you– longer even– and she’s said he’s always been that way. An excellent student. Never a cross word in all the time she’s known him. Very responsible.”
Had Anne done something irresponsible recently? She couldn’t remember. But her brain was like wet papier-mâché today so who knew. “Did I do something…?”
Coach Russell laughed. “Nothing bad, Anne. I’m trying to reassure you that you didn’t do anything bad. You made a very good impression on someone whom I hate to admit is Canada’s best current skater in any category. He’s a very admirable young man and I think you could benefit a lot from getting to know him better. Especially since you’re both dealing with such a tough situation with your mothers. Coach Reynolds agrees with me.”
Yeah, okay. Coach Russell and Coach Reynolds agreed on something that had to do with their skaters. That was definitely not a sign of the apocalypse.
Her shock must have shown on her face because Coach Rusell looked at Anne wryly, eyebrows upraised, and then picked up her coffee again. “Yes, yes, I know– you’ve probably heard me talk a thousand times to your mother about how chaotic her methods are. Young skaters need structure. They need solid foundations drilled into them. They need to grow the right way, with the correct support. But in the rare cases where skaters have that innate sense of drive and structure, her methods can’t do any harm.”
“Okay,” Anne said blankly.
Ever since her mom’s heart attack, people kept telling her insane information that completely upended her understanding of the world and expecting her to just live with it. Why not this too?
Coach Russell lowered her coffee cup. “And… look, this stays between you and me– but Coach Reynolds had been really worried about Darcy. She said he’s been lost and withdrawn. When he was talking about his idea for your short program with her and his father— well, Coach Reynolds says she hadn’t seen Darcy that animated since his mother’s diagnosis.”
That cheered Anne up quite a bit. She’d been feeling so useless lately. Just patching up holes in the hull of a sinking ship with like, duct tape, and meaning to go back and fill the holes properly, but never having the time to do it because there was another leak that needed duct tape and also she was running out of duct tape. It was so nice to know she’d actually helped someone.
“His father was very pleased, of course– Coach Reynolds said he was hoping his son would take an interest in choreography– and he has sent out feelers my way to see if you’d be interested in his choreographing that Françoise Hardy song for you, and if we were willing to let his son assist him.”
Anne’s jaw dropped. She really hadn’t expected that. “But I’m… just debuting in Seniors. He’s like….”
“He’s the choreographer of the hour,” agreed Coach Russell. She looked happier than she had in months. “He is very particular about who he choreographs for. I hope you realize it is a huge honor he’s even considering it.”
“I am– I do.” Anne was full of restless energy suddenly. She knew she couldn’t control it enough to skate yet, especially not with Coach Russell standing right there, but she undid her hair ribbon and pulled out her hair elastic to redo her ponytail, simply to have something to do. “You’d be okay with it, Coach?”
“It’s a little daring for what people expect from my skaters, but you scored all your personal bests in your Edith Piaf program. A Françoise Hardy program isn’t too much of a stretch, and it is a slower song, so it’ll offer a nice contrast to the Beethoven. Do you want to meet with the Darcys to talk about making it your short program?”
Actually… Anne did.
That surprised her.
She hadn’t wanted anything except for the world to go back to the way it had been since Mom’s heart attack.
But when she listened to the song, Anne instinctively felt the shifts in her center of gravity, and it was nice to have that lulling rhythm underneath the sad lyrics about being alone while everyone else her age were paired up, happy, and unafraid of tomorrow— everything she wasn’t really. She had been feeling stuck in that misery. The song… loosened it a little. Gently tugged at it side to side until she was no longer so crushed by it she couldn’t see the whole of it. There was enough breathing room to name it. And in naming it it did feel a little less isolating. People of every era had felt this and survived. She could too.
“I think so,” said Anne slowly. She was nervous to have been asked though. She’d nearly fucked up Freddy’s life permanently through her own choices. She didn’t want to fuck up anyone else’s, even her own.
Coach Russell beamed at her in a way that made Anne sag with relief. That had been the right choice.
“Good,” Coach Russell said happily. “I don’t think Coach Reynolds and I are likely to agree on another coaching decision, but… we are both very pleased by this. We think it’ll be good for both of you. And ah— Coach Reynolds did let me know that Darcy can come across as a little proud and stand-offish—“
A little?
“—but you know, it’s hard not to be proud in one way or another when you’re an Olympic gold medalist.” Coach Russell absently rested her fingertips over her sternum as if feeling her own medal around her neck again, even though it had lived in a brightly lit glass case in Coach Russell’s living room since before Anne had been born. “But he isn’t bad-tempered or anything of the sort. She called him, and I quote, the sweetest tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the world.”
Well.
Okay then.
Coach Reynolds clearly had her favorites.
But she wasn’t wrong, exactly. “This is, like, crazy nice of Darcy,” Anne agreed. “I mean, we knew each other a little, but we never hung out or really talked until we chatted in the hospital? I don’t know why he’s going out of his way like this to help me so much, but I realize it’s a great opportunity and I’m really grateful.”
“Yes, I wonder why,” said Coach Russell, with a fond smile and a weird emphasis Anne didn’t get but whatever. Next season no longer felt like struggling up Mount Everest without any ropes. It almost felt like it could be… fun again.