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THE GRAND PRIX SEASON
Sapporo, Japan and Montreal, Canada
***
AS THE DAYS IN THE Twin Cities grew shorter, the hours Aaron spent at the rink—and the gym—grew longer. There was constant strengthening, conditioning, and artistic polishing. His programs would never be perfect in the first half of the season, maybe not even until he got to the Olympics, assuming he did. But the work of improving it—and himself—was constant either way. That was the nature of competitive skating and what he loved about it: Every day was a challenge to get up and do better than he had the day before. And, in the process, become somehow even more himself.
The work was, at its core, lonely. Sure, he trained alongside Charlotte and Huy and all the others. They shared ice for part of most days, did warm-up routines together, went to pilates classes together, played board games on Friday nights, and hung out at the farm when they needed a break—or the opportunity to do hard work that wasn’t about the Olympic dream.
But still, when Aaron skated his programs, he was alone on the ice. And at night, falling asleep before nine because he was exhausted and sore, he was alone in his bed, too. No one could understand what those things felt like for him, even if they lived their own version of that too. He did his best to do what Huy had recommended, and he leaned into his own sadness and sense of isolation to let them be fodder for the program. It worked, at least as far as his skating went—in the last few weeks of the pre-season Katie had no complaints about the emotionality of his programs—but it wasn’t a fun mental place in which to live.
Aaron missed Zack, sometimes so much it startled him. In another year he might have found someone else to have some fun and blow off some steam with. But he had no time, and even if he had...nobody was like Zack. And Aaron, who had loved variety in his happily-ever-after one-and-only fantasies, now only wanted him.
The feelings of loneliness and missing Zack only fueled each other, and they grew more and more acute as Aaron’s first Grand Prix assignment—the NHK Trophy—drew closer. He couldn’t shake them even as he boarded the flight; his only relief was that some of the juniors had a competition the same weekend and, since Brendan was going with them, Katie was travelling with him.
Maybe it was her presence, at turns soothing and prickly as his own mental state needed. Maybe Aaron was tired enough of feeling sad that he pushed away the rest of his own mental chatter while he skated and focused solely on being on the ice. Whatever it was, to his own delighted surprise, Aaron was in fourth at the end of the short program and managed to climb to second in the free skate.
Aaron had never been so thrilled with a second-place finish as he was that night, taking a victory lap with Philippe Chastain and Yin Jae-Sun. Nothing was guaranteed until he was named to the team, and everything depended on how well Cayden did at his own Grand Prix events, but this was the best placement he’d ever had in an international event. He’d gotten off the ice at the end of the medal ceremony and fallen into a massive hug from Katie and about a thousand notifications on his phone, most of them texts from his family.
Still, something didn’t feel right. Aaron tried to explain it to Katie on their way home, while they waited in Warsaw’s Chopin Airport on an unexpected stop due to a storm. In his luggage was the silver medal, which had turned out to be oddly challenging to airport security.
Halfway through what was, he thought, a very eloquent discourse on skating and loneliness Katie interrupted him with a gentle nudge to his shin. “You want the guy who dumped you in order to, very reasonably, sort out his life and issues. I didn’t eat ice cream for three years so I could go to the Olympics. You just won a silver medal at an important event. I think you can deal.”
Aaron slumped back against the uncomfortable airport seating. “I feel like it gets harder the closer I get. And you always had Brendan.”
“Mmm.” Kate hummed thoughtfully. “‘Had’ is a word with a vast shade of meanings. He broke my heart all the time. I guess, more importantly, I broke his all the time too. We were a mess until way after we won.”
“I know, I’ve seen videos.”
Katie made a dismayed noise.
Aaron continued. “I believe you when you say it was rough between you two. But you still had somebody, you know? I’m busting my ass and getting on a ridiculous number of planes and not seeing my family for months and it’s just me. I don’t think you get how hard it is to be a singles skater.”
“If you want to try pairs, I can hook you up,” Katie said dryly.
Aaron laughed despite his frustration. “I don’t want to try pairs!”
“Didn’t think so.” Katie smiled. “And I’m afraid loneliness is the price you’re going to have to pay for a while.”
“I miss home,” Aaron admitted. “I’m lonely, and I feel like I don’t belong here. On the ice it’s all good, but for everything else... I feel like I’m masquerading as an actual person.”
“Because you’re a skater?” Katie asked.
“No. Or, yes, but not just that.” Aaron fiddled with the strap of his carryon. “Because of the island. The rest of you are all mainlanders and you don’t know how different it is here. How...strange I find all of you.” Even saying it aloud made Aaron feel even more different than usual.
“I had to pretend too, you know,” Katie said. “Brendan’s from the world and had money and was easygoing and fit in with the other skaters. I wasn’t and I didn’t. Still don’t, really. You’re from a place that’s hard.”
“I’m from a place that’s weird,” Aaron corrected. “I don’t know how to explain what it’s like, that we’re all waiting to go back to the water. I know people are afraid of you when you skate, sometimes, but have you ever scared somebody because of where you were from?”
“Oh, Aaron.” Katie’s voice was unusually tender. Which somehow made it all that much worse.
Aaron slouched lower in his seat.
“Well,” Katie said as she uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “I know I’ve scared Brendan a whole bunch of times.”
“That’s different,” Aaron said.
“Is it?” Katie asked. “I don’t think Zack was scared of you; he’s just doing something else. He just got divorced, and he’s selling a house in another state. He is also, may I remind you, a war reporter, and you, my sweet island child, are not the scariest thing he’s ever dealt with. If he’s into you, he has your best interests at heart and you’ll see him again when that’s right for both of you.”
“I know.” Aaron sighed plaintively. “But I just got silver at the NHK. That’s a really big deal. And I want someone to celebrate with.”
Katie leaned her chin on her hand. “You mean other than on the phone to your family? And sitting here with me?”
Aaron felt guilty just for thinking it, after all the support they had all given him, but it was true. “Yeah. More or less,” he said.
Katie seemed unbothered. “Fair. But there’s a bar on the other side of the terminal called Business Shark. If you want to have one brief terrible toast to your victory...”
Aaron appreciated the offer more than he knew how to express. But it wasn’t what he wanted. Even with Katie, with whom he cherished such a kinship.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “But I think I’ll hold out for the ice cream.”
***
THE GRAND PRIX SEASON was a marathon not just of skating, but of travel. A few short weeks after the NHK, was Aaron’s second Grand Prix event, Skate Canada in Montreal. With his strong performance at his first event Aaron had high hopes for his second, even if that didn’t seem truly reasonable to him. He still couldn’t quite believe he’d gotten a silver at NHK, but now corners of sports media were humming quietly about him.
That said, this was not an event where he had a chance of pulling off an unexpected, but not totally shocking, silver. For one thing, Huy was competing for Canada. For another, so was Aizat Beysenov for Kazakhstan. That they’d take gold and silver in one order or the other was a given. Beyond that, everyone from the major network broadcasters to the fans in the stands knew it was a race to bronze, which Aaron, frankly, did not expect to be in.
He also knew that there was no chance he’d place high enough to be able to advance to the Grand Prix Final. That was okay; U.S. Nationals was where it really counted for what he needed to make happen. All he had to do here was keep doing the work and place respectably.
In Montreal, Aaron found it harder to mire himself in loneliness the way he had in Sapporo. Not only Huy, but Charlotte was also competing, which meant he had hotel rooms to hang out in and companions for 5am wakeup times for practice. Brendan also wound up leading late-night yoga sessions to manage their collective nerves and insomnia.
The men’s short program was on Friday; both Huy and Aaron had skated relatively early and were hanging out together backstage watching on the monitor when Aizat popped what should have been a quad lutz.
Huy winced, presumably in empathy for a fellow competitor, but Aaron—rightly or wrongly—started rapidly calculating points margins. When the night ended, the leaderboard confirmed what he already knew: Aizat was lagging, badly, and the door to something other than third place cracked open.
Saturday morning, as Aaron he got dressed for his practice session, his phone barked with an incoming text.
Katie: Skate for your life.
He took Katie as literally as he could and attacked his long program as if it were his last chance to see ice in a dying world. It felt terrifying and reckless and electric and if he couldn’t keep just the barest edge of control over it, he knew he’d wipe out and into last place.
But he’d held on, because he’d had to, and when his scores were announced and he realized he was in second place behind Huy with a personal best. He screamed in the kiss and cry and then buried his face in Brendan’s shoulder.
Brendan closed his hand around the back of Aaron’s neck. “You just won a ticket to the Grand Prix Final.”
For the first time ever. Eat that, Aaron couldn’t help thinking in the general direction of Cayden. Who had all but qualified for the Final with a gold and a silver at his own Grand Prix events, but had already announced he’d be skipping that competition to ‘focus on preparing for Almaty.’ As if he’d already been named to the Olympic team.
Jerk.
In Aaron’s bag at their feet, his phone barked with incoming messages of congratulation. Huy tackled him in a hug on their victory lap, and Aizat, who’d managed bronze, shook his hand warmly. Backstage Charlotte, with her own gold medal from the ladies’ event around her neck, hugged him and kissed both his cheeks. Aaron let himself enjoy the moment, and the night; starting tomorrow, there was a hell of a lot of work to do. He’d been good and he’d been lucky, but the GPF was a whole new level and something he had never experienced before.
When the plane’s wheels touched down on the tarmac at Minneapolis−Saint Paul he had exactly eleven days until he’d be wheels up on his way to Saint Petersburg for the Grand Prix Final. Nothing and no one else could exist. Aaron barely had time to empty his suitcase, do his laundry, and repack it in between training sessions, food, and sleep. If he passed anyone coming or going at the rink, he didn’t notice them.
Medaling in St. Petersburg wasn’t likely for him. This time, truly only bronze would be open, and Aaron would be lucky just not to come in last of the six. And even a good performance wouldn’t guarantee him a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. But it didn’t matter. If he screwed this up or had a bad day, he wouldn’t have a chance. And he’d never forgive himself.
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