Page 34 of Hate You Most

The results are in. According to this test you're 71% homosexual. You're definitely more than a little bit gay and could find comfort in labels such as Bisexual, Pansexual, Lesbian or Gay.

71%. No.

“No, that’s—that’s not…” She shook her head, pushing back from the low coffee table slightly. “That’s not real. That’s—this is some internet garbage, it doesn’t—” she was talking to nobody, and she knew that, and she didn't care. She couldn't possibly be a lesbian. She'd just taken this stupid test because she was curious. This wasn't her newfound moment of radical realization and self-acceptance—the test was wrong.

Her throat tightened.

“That’s wrong,” she insisted, louder now, like raising her voice to the audience of nobody could somehow make it truer. “It’s wrong.”

Dakota’s laugh flashed through her mind. The way her hand had lingered on her hips for too long. The way Viktoriya had let it. The way she had wanted it.

Her vision blurred.

“No,” she said again, but it broke halfway through.

The laptop snapped shut with a sharp crack and darkness flooded the apartment.

Viktoriya sat frozen, her hands still resting on the closed screen as if she could hold everything inside it and trap it there, before it spilled out into the real world. She hadn't realized she was crying before the tears had stained her cheeks. Her breathing was too fast.

“This is stupid,” she whispered again, but her voice wavered, and this time it didn’t sound convincing at all.

She scrubbed at her face with her hands. What the hell was she even crying for? It was just a stupid quiz that didn't know anything. It didn't know her at all.

She blinked back another tear, pushed back from the table abruptly and too fast. The couch legs screeched loudly against the floor.

She pressed her palms to her eyes and tried to force the tears back, trying desperately to regain control the same way she would before stepping onto the ice.

Control. Precision. Composure.

But this wasn’t like skating at all, it was her emotions. It was harder to control, but that too could be managed.

If she was what the quiz said she was, then her nation wouldn't accept her. Because figure skating was seen as a public sport, she could be seen as promoting a lesbian relationship or alternative lifestyle. Her family could be fined. She could be sent to prison, and she would most likely lose what little contact she had with her little sister. So the truth was quite simple, really—she wasn't a lesbian.

CHAPTER EIGHT

February 20th, 2014.

— Winter Olympics. Sochi, Russia.

The noise inside the arena was physical. It pressed against Viktoriya’s chest as she stepped onto the ice, a wall of sound swallowed her name, drowned in flags and the weight of her country behind her. Sochi glittered under the lights, the Russian tricolored flag rippling across the stands. Cameras followed her every move. Her entire life had led up to this moment.

She centered herself on the ice and took a breath in.

Her music began, and everything in her body narrowed to a singular point. She was winning gold for Russia at the Olympics. She'd already gotten the highest points in the short program the day before, so there was no stopping her.

Her edges cut clean against the ice, every movement she did was deliberate and trained to perfection.

She landed the first triple axel perfectly and directly moved into a triple lutz. She landed it without hesitation, momentum carrying her forward as the crowd erupted.

Viktoriya didn’t look up at the crowd or at the judges. She skated for herself and for Russia, not for their validation.

She skated around the rink freely, landing another triple axel.

Viktoriya did a scratch spin and tried to take her mind off the fact she was about to do a quad axel at the Olympics. It was four and a half rotations in midair. It surely defied all rules of physics.

She went for it, her rotation sharp. She landed deep and controlled on the ice. Her blade bit into the ice and held. The roar that followed was deafening.

Viktoriya finished the program with her heart racing, arms lifted in the final pose as the music faded. For a moment, she stood still, emotionless—years of pressure, of sacrifice, of being told she was too cold, too rigid, too much.