Now.
We walk back through the corridor, past the noise and the lights and the sudden attention from everywhere, my hand steady at his back. My phone is buzzing in my pocket, but I ignore it. I know it’s Sandra texting me with the prepared talking points, once we speak to the cameras.
Coaches clap him on the shoulder. Officials smile like they’ve always believed in him.
He belongs to them now, a little bit.
In the hallway, away from the ice, he finally lets go of my sleeve. He’s grinning so wide it almost hurts to look at him.
“What now?” he asks, breathless.
I open my mouth, then close it again.
One year ago, we were begging for ice time and stitching together training schedules with whatever scraps we could manage.
Now reporters are shouting his name in three differentlanguages while Olympic officials escort him towards the medal ceremony.
“Coach!”
I look up just in time to see Katia barreling down the hallway towards us in her Team USA outfit, credential swinging wildly against her chest. She launches herself at Rodrigo first, nearly knocking him back into the wall as she wraps both arms around his neck.
“Silver medal, baby!” she yells directly into his face.
“I know!”
“No, literally, what the fuck!”
Rodrigo laughs so hard he folds in half, still crying a little despite himself, and for one brief second he looks like the twelve-year-old boy instead of the athlete the entire world has been watching for the last thirty minutes.
Everything feels loud and bright and strangely unreal.
Then I hear someone shout my name.
“Cecilia!”
I know that voice instantly.
I turn just in time to see Isabella running in my direction from the far end of the corridor. Actually running. No composure or measured professionalism. None of that careful awareness of cameras or officials or the fact that she is technically supposed to be working right now.
Her accreditation badge is bounding wildly against her chest and her hair is half out of whatever style it started the evening in.
And she’s smiling. Beaming.
I barely have time to react before she collides into me hard enough that I stumble backward from the force of it.
“Oh my god,” she laughs breathlessly, arms wrapping around my shoulders as she practically climbs onto me. “Oh my god.”
I catch her automatically, laughing too now because there’s no other possible reaction to the sheer force of emotion radiating out of this woman.
“You’re supposed to be commentating,” I manage.
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Princess—”
“Cecilia,” she interrupts immediately, pulling back just enough to hold my face in both hands. Her eyes are bright and wet and completely overwhelmed. “He won a fucking medal.”
Like I don’t know.
