Page 88 of Ice Dance

I was lucky Hasegawa had chosen me.

Then, the next day, on the gym steps, someone asked Hasegawa if I was difficult to control. They weren’t even a reporter, just a guy who’d caught wind of the gossip and drama and thought they could ask shit like that, while I stood there, like Hasegawa’s fucking pet project.

Hasegawa had snapped at the man, telling him to mind his own business in that brittle and savagely polite way the British had down to an art.

But the damage was done. I was the wild card again, the weak link, in his shadow, and while Hasegawa didn’t encourage the comments, he didn’t dissuade them either. Casey’s words came back to me. “Don’t let him claim he invented you.” Hasegawa wasn’t claiming that, but everyone else was.

The only relief, the only moments where I didn’t feel stretched too thin, came when Hasegawa showed up at my apartment without saying a word and we got each other off. But even then it was rushed, both too exhausted to really take our time, and when we were done, he left. He never stayed the night, never stayed in my bed, and anytime I tried to suggest we could do more, go further, he pulled back.

Clearly, I was too much.

During the day, we were different people. Professional distance, always. We didn’t go out, and we didn’t socialize. Anyone who saw us in training, probably wouldn’t believe we were friends, let alone lovers.

Four weeks after we’d nailed the preview panel, and with autumn settling heavy over London, I pushed hard in the dance studio, too caught up in my own head to know when to stop. I didn’t stop. Dylan wasn’t there, and neither was Hasegawa. It was just me, the mirrors, and my own need to go again, and again, until I stuck the landing. Hasegawa had been teaching me the quad axel spin. I could do it . . . I was going to do it. It would be our centerpiece, the crescendo of the argument in the middle section of our battle.

But I’d pushed too hard all day, and at the end of another fall, I lay on the mats, panting, wet with sweat.

I couldn’t get up.

My legs didn’t work.

They just . . . weren’t there.

Panic dug its icy fingers in first.

Why couldn’t I fucking move?

Then my body came back to me, piece by piece, fingers, hands, arms, thighs, knees, push up. Wobbly. The room spun.

“Hey, you okay?”

I couldn’t speak, didn’t know what to say. I knew the guy who’d asked. He danced ballet for an elite London school. We often crossed paths in the studio corridors. He must have seen me struggling and come in.

He helped scoop me up, then sat me on the bench. My hip hurt so bad, I couldn’t speak to thank him. My right leg tingled, half numb. I was breaking or already broken. A lump in my throat choked me. Fear rattled my heart. I couldn’t do this, my body was done. I couldn’t be perfect. I was a fucking mess.

My whole body trembled. My teeth chattered together.

I’d never been more scared in my life.

If Hasegawa knew, he’d drop me with a click of his fingers.

I couldn’t tell him, or anyone.

The pain would go. I just needed to breathe, to get some feeling back into my leg.

“Injury?” the ballet dancer asked, sitting beside me.

I closed my eyes and buried my face in my hands. It hurt. It hurt like bodies aren’t supposed to hurt. Hot shivers washed through me. I was either going to throw up or pass out.

“Here.” He rummaged in his bag and took out a pack of pills. “These will help.”

I looked at it, at the little white tablets in their blister pack. “What is it?”

“Tramadol. Half the ballet guys use it. It helps when you have to keep going, you know.”

I thanked him and scooped up the packet into my palm. He got up, asked if I was alright, then gave me his bottle of water. Mine were all stacked empty next to my bag. I thanked him again and stayed on the bench after he’d gone.

The pain didn’t fade, but the numbness in my leg did, until I had some control over it again.