Page 45 of Hate You Most

No, she had to think about this logically. There wasn't a ring on her finger, so they weren't married—or it had been taken off her finger after the crash. The doctor hadn't said they were married, or together, just that Dakota was her emergency contact. There could've been plenty of reasons for that. Except that she was back in America, more specifically in the same city as the one where she'd met Dakota and built a life.

Okay. So—they were probably living together. That was totally fine. Totally and utterly and completely fine with her.

“How are you feeling?” Dakota was looking at her from across the room. She hadn't even noticed.

Viktoriya shook her head quietly. “You need to stop asking that question, or I will kill you in your sleep.”

“You don't want to talk about it. I get it.” Dakota exhaled slowly. She sat down cautiously on the edge of the plastic chair, as though even the slightest creak would scare Viktoriya off.

Viktoriya huffed. She wasn't a frightened deer or a wounded animal, she could take care of herself. “I want to go home. I want to sleep without a headache.”

Dakota's lips curled slightly to one side. “I want us to go home too, believe me. You've just got to get well enough first.”

So it was true. They did live together. They lived together in the same apartment, and Viktoriya didn't remember a single thing about it. She didn't even know what Dakota's favorite color was, if she was asked—she didn't really know anything about her. Viktoriya knew how Dakota was on the ice. If she closed her eyes and concentrated hard enough she could see every miniscule movement her competitor made. She'd memorized every part of her body and could almost trace her fingertips across it with her mind. Yet that was all she knew, because it was all she'd paid attention to.

“So, what?” Viktoriya asked. “We live together, yes?”

“Yeah,” Dakota's lips folded into a small smile. “We have a large apartment that overlooks the Detroit skyline. That view is one of my favorite things on the planet.”

“That, and skating, yes?” Viktoriya couldn't help herself. She needed to know if Dakota or her still skated, if it was still a part of their life somehow.

Dakota's eyes softened, as she moved fully into the plastic chair. She looked with her full attention into Viktoriya's eyes. “That view, and you.”

Viktoriya looked at her, sitting in that orange plastic chair in front of her hospital bed, and tried to find any response in her own head. A memory, or a spark of something that even remotely hinted at romance. She came up empty, her head was a black void and the only remaining image in her mind was her rival on the ice. The person that stole gold medals from her and challenged her.

The person sitting in front of her wasn't that person anymore, but her mind refused to acknowledge that.

“Sorry, uhm,” Dakota said and the smile faded from her lips. Viktoriya almost wanted to blurt out an apology. “You look a lot better today, I'm sure you'll be discharged soon.”

She clearly wasn't the person Dakota thought she was, or at least, she couldn't remember how to be that version of herself.

“Yeah,” she forced a smile on her lips. “Is okay, really. I'm sorry that I don't remember.”

"Don't apologize. You're alive and you're talking to me—that's all that matters to me. Nothing else matters, it's all background noise.”

Viktoriya wanted to agree, but how could she? She'd lost the last eight years of her memories. Sure, she was alive and she was talking, but she wasn't sure she could just go about her day as if nothing was wrong. She felt like a ghost living in her own body, like she'd already died and this was her punishment for returning to the living.

Dakota's hand jerked forward, as if she wanted to hold Viktoriya's hand as it rested against her own thigh. An instinctive movement, and Viktoriya had no idea how to react. Halfway, hovering in the air, her rival clenched her fingers and formed a fist. Her knuckles turned white, and her hand slowly moved back until it was flush with her own thigh.

Viktoriya noticed the movement, the way Dakota had reached out but retracted halfway. It should've been overwhelming, but to her own surprise, all she felt was slightly disappointed.

It was something. Even with an eight year gap in her memory, she felt something. Her mind had forgotten, but the feeling had remained in her body.

February 2014 - October 18th, 2022.

— Winter Olympics. Sochi, Russia. Henry Ford Hospital, Intensive Care Unit.

“Good morning, Ms. Volkova. How are you feeling today?” The doctor shut the door loudly behind him, a tablet in his hand. A nurse followed him around like a lost duckling.

The sound of the door closing sent a shudder through her brain, but she tried to not let it show. She wanted to get out of the hospital as quickly as she could.

“I'm fine.”

The doctor and nurse stopped by the foot of her bed, and he buried himself in the tablet for a moment.

“I've reviewed your latest MRI scans as well as the overnight results from the monitors.” The doctor was speaking to her but he wasn't looking at her. Instead he kept his gaze focused on Dakota, as if she was the one with the brain injury and splitting headache. She was being discussed like she was no longer a living and breathing person, but a problem from a textbook that needed to be solved and then tossed aside for the next one.

“And, what?” Viktoriya asked. It sounded harsher than what she'd meant. “Can I go home?”