Page 51

“Cam,” Miles said. “Stop.”

Stop defending myself? Fuck that.

I was back in the chair across from Dr. Varga. Back in high school, outside the principal’s office. Back at the rink, while the coaches told me I had talent but no discipline, no future, no chance.

All of them waiting for me to agree that people like me didn’t belong beside people like Ren.

“You know what’s funny?” I asked. “Hasegawa walks into one of these rooms, and you ask him how it feels to be the favorite. You ask him how many points he thinks he’ll win by. You ask about his legendary father and his flawless technique.”

Nobody interrupted me now.

“But I walk in, and you ask about the cup I pissed in. You ask about every stupid thing I’ve done since I was fifteen. You ask if I deserve to be here?” My voice had started shaking. “I qualified. Zoe qualified. We didn’t sneak in through the back door. Nobody handed us these jackets because they felt sorry for us.”

“That wasn’t my suggestion,” Aiko said stiffly.

“Wasn’t it? Because it damn well sounded like it.”

I looked around the huddle, at every phone and microphone aimed at me. Hot lights beat down.

“You want to know about my past? Look it up. It’s all there. I screwed up, a lot. I dropped out of school. I partied. I got hurt. I hid an injury because I was so fucking desperate to prove I wasn’t a joke that it nearly destroyed my career.”

Miles closed his eyes. I didn’t fucking care.

“But I got back up. I spent seventeen months doing physio while people wrote articles about whether I was finished. I learned to walk right again before I learned to skate right. Then I earned my place on this team.”

Someone at the back tried to speak.

“And yeah, Hasegawa is brilliant,” I went on. “He’s probably the best technical ice dancer in the world. I know exactly how good he is because I danced with him. Not behind him, with him. At his side.”

My throat tightened.

I could see us on Ren’s couch, him telling me how magnificent I was. He’d believed it for all of five minutes.

“He made me better,” I said. “And I made him better. That’s what a good partnership does. But I’m not skating with him tomorrow. I’m skating with Zoe.”

I looked at her, the anger on her face was gone. Her eyes were wide, face a little pale.

“She is an incredible skater, and she deserves better than to have every question about our work turned into another question about Hasegawa or my past.”

Zoe shifted closer. So did Jen and Casey.

Garaham lifted his microphone. “Do you believe you can beat them in the technical segment tomorrow?”

The sensible answer was that we respected every team and were focused on delivering our own program. The media-friendly answer. The professional answer.

“Yes,” I said.

“Despite Hasegawa and Ward being the favorites?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Despite this morning’s disruption?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have anything to say to those who believe your history makes you too great a risk for Team Canada?”

“No.”