Page 87 of Ice Dance

“But it was my fault,” I added, hating how my voice got smaller.

Navarro pinched his mouth closed and stared out onto the ice, watching the children do crouches. “Parents are supposed to support their kids, Hasegawa, not shut them out when parenting gets tough.”

He had supported me. Right up until he’d learned some things about his son he probably wished he hadn’t. “He did what he thought was the best thing for me.”

“No, no . . . That is a whole lot of bullshit. Do you hear yourself?”

I frowned. He needed to drop it. “You don’t understand⁠—”

“No, I don’t. You should dance for you, not some guy who won’t return your calls.”

We fell quiet. Clearly, he was not going to listen. We came from different worlds. Mine didn’t allow for frivolous things such as wanting men. His gave him freedom to desire such things, perhaps too much freedom. And we’d both suffered in our own ways.

The sounds of the children on the ice filled the large, cold space.

“We should pack,” I said, colder inside than the rink air allowed for. “For the flight later.”

He drew in a deep breath. “Back to England.”

“For four months.” I agreed. “And now training becomes challenging.”

“It wasn’t before?”

“That was the warm-up.”

At least his smile was back, but clearly there was ground between us that would likely never be crossed. And perhaps that was a good thing. A necessary reminder that outside of dance, our lives were incompatible.

A reminder I would need to carry with me, if we were to survive what came next.

THIRTY

CAMDEN

England was unforgiving in everything. The gray summer rain, the endless pace, coaching and training, the gym, the studio, endless movement with no space to breathe. And by the fourth week, it had become clear, I was in trouble.

I had too much riding on this competition, on this dance partnership, to be anything but perfect. Like Hasegawa, who seemed to thrive when pushed to his limits every single hour of every day. But perfect, I was not. And the more I tried to match him, the more the cracks showed.

My hip was fucked.

I knew it. I’d known it after the second week back, when I’d been popping painkillers like candy and they’d stopped touching the pain. But there wasn’t time to think about what that meant. We had to drill the dance program into our bodies until we’d exceeded perfection.

My body was breaking.

And my head?

The headlines had begun to creep into my confidence.

Is Navarro Hasegawa’s Secret Weapon?

I could work with that. That suggested I was good enough to be considered a threat, right?

But then they started saying, Navarro Finally Finds Structure Under Hasegawa. As though the only reason I was good was because I danced with him. As though anyone could dance with him, and they’d suddenly be elevated to competition-winning standards.

Hasegawa Tames Navarro. What the fuck was that? He’d tamed me? The inevitable clips taken of our training and the sports commentator breakdowns all focused on Hasegawa’s form, his choreography. Me? I was his arm ornament, the scrappy sidekick.

The more I knew I shouldn’t watch the news, or search socials, the more I couldn’t stop scrolling in bed, when I was supposed to be sleeping but my hip was burning too much to let me close my eyes.

In the eyes of the press, I’d become the dangerous accessory to the untouchable Ren Hasegawa’s comeback.