Only One Bed

Squeezing Bree’s fingers, I said, “I guess we’ll see how we feel.”

“Yeah.”

Silence stretched out, but it wasn’t awkward. We’d agreed when we were paired up at fourteen that we’d go one season at a time. But of course with the Olympics in Calgary next season, we were going for it. There was a young team at our heels wanting that second spot in Canada, but it was ours to lose.

Except now Chloe and Phillipe would be number one. Anita and Chris would be number two. We’d probably be third, but it wouldn’t matter if there were only two spots for the Olympic team. Getting three wasn’t realistically going to happen.

“It’s not fair.” Bree whispered, her voice thick with tears.

I tugged her hand, and she moved across the couch, tucking against my side and under my arm. I kissed the top of her head. “It’s not.”

We both knew fairness had nothing to do with it. It was competition, and if two teams were better than us, that was fair.

It still sucked.

We’d both dreamed of the Olympics since we were little. We were so close. We’d spent two damn years here in Hackensack away from our friends and families, paying a fortune for scraps of our coach’s attention. To not go to the Games after all this…

“What was it all for?” I muttered.

Head on my shoulder, Bree sniffed loudly. “Sometimes I don’t know.”

“Because we love skating?” I always had. I’d given up piano for it. But now I felt hollow.

Bree laughed humorlessly, sniffing again. “Should that be a question?”

“Probably not? We do love it.”

“We do. Most of the time. We don’t have to love it all the time.”

“Right.” That was true. But I was afraid to tell her my love for skating was like a river that had slowed to a trickle.

She asked, “Did you see the text from Yaroslav?”

I was surprised he’d made the effort. His assistant, Svetlana, was the one who usually trained us. We were the bottom of the ladder, but we’d made the move hoping to break into the upper echelon. Sometimes, I honestly wasn’t sure we had enough talent.

I said, “Not yet. I need to reply to my parents too.”

Yaroslav was the hottest coach in ice dance at the moment, a former Russian champion who seemed to have cracked the code of producing winners and pleasing the judges. Training sites rose and fell, with all the top teams coming from Detroit for some years, then Montreal, and now Hackensack, New Jersey.

“He said, and I quote, ‘This can defeat you or you can rise like phoenix.’ So we’d better get feeling sorry for ourselves out of our systems before training in the morning.”

I snorted. “I am definitely not expecting Yaroslav to be sympathetic.” And I could admit that we were certainly feeling sorry for ourselves. We were allowed to wallow for a night. The thought of training in the morning had acid flooding my stomach. “Did you throw up?”

She exhaled hard, the air tickling my neck. “I tried not to.”

“It’s not your fault.” This concussion was brutal. Some days she just couldn’t keep food down.

“I should be better by now.”

“It’s not your fault.” I should have caught you. “Did you eat tonight? I’ll make soup.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’m making soup anyway.”

“Okay.”

I kept the light in the kitchen low as I warmed up the bone broth. I hated that this damn concussion made her so nauseous and dizzy. Some days she seemed so much better and then—bam—she could barely get out of bed.

I brought her the soup, but I was too anxious to eat yet myself. I cleaned the kitchen and paced the dark living room as she sipped slowly, the spoon scraping the bowl sometimes.

Finally, she said, “You’re making me dizzy. Go run.”

Even though I’d finished my cardio session at the gym before cleaning up everyone else’s sweat, I laced up again and yanked on gloves and a hat. It was a gray, dank night, but there was no snow. Too warm for icy sidewalks, which was good.

Warm was an overstatement, but compared to Quebec? For sure. At home in Montreal, I’d be wearing more layers. There wasn’t much wind as I started my usual loop of the suburb. The old houses were a little rundown like our apartment building, but it was fine.

Like a punch—bam in the face—I missed Vancouver. The foggy Pacific with driftwood on the beach. Mountains in the distance. Slowing my pace so Sam could keep up. Sam borrowing his parents’ car so we could drive up to Whistler. Sam and me roaming Stanley Park. Sam’s brown eyes lighting up as he laughed. Sam pretending to be bad at a new game to make me feel better about sucking.

Sam, Sam, Sam.

I’d been fourteen when I moved to Vancouver to train with Bree. Sure, Montreal would always be home in a way, but I didn’t miss it like I missed Vancouver. Like I missed Sam.