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“But you can’t, Adele. I will carry this around with me forever. Every day I’ll see the reminder of what happened and how it almost ended my life.” I sigh and look up at the sky. I’ve rewatched that video a bunch of times, as well as some of the other ones I recorded. Hindsight is painful. Because when I went back and watched all those recorded sessions, a pattern emerged. One that wasn’t obvious at first, and might never have been had I not ended up in the hospital as a result. Sometimes she could manage the combinations, and other times, I saw her adjust and lose form. It seemed harmless until it wasn’t. “I don’t understand why you kept intentionally screwing up. Were you afraid we weren’t going to place? If it was too much for you, why not say something instead of doing something reckless?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know about what part? Being afraid? It being too much? Some other reason I don’t know about? You had to have some idea of the risk you were taking.”
She wrings her hands. She looks tired. And like maybe she’s lost some weight since I saw her last. “I just… It was a lot of things, I guess.”
“Such as?”
“I knew when we started skating together, the goal was to qualify for the Olympics. You’re dedicated and passionate, and I understood how important it was for you to keep boundaries with our relationship. That part never changed. But somewhere along the way, your dream and mine started to diverge.”
I run my hand through my hair. “What do you mean?”
She exhales a long breath. “You’re an incredible skater, BJ. You have so much natural talent.”
“So do you.”
She holds up a hand. “It’s not the same. I wanted it to be. I wanted to reach the same level as you, and I believed that skating with you would help me get there. I know how careful you are, especially after what happened with Caroline. And you were always willing to stay on the ice for as long as it took to get the routine down. This year was different, and it wasn’t that I didn’t think you deserved to have a girlfriend, or a life outside of skating, but Winter changed things.” She sighs. “I wasn’t jealous of her; I was jealous of the fact that you could manage all the things—school, skating, friends, a girlfriend—and still be one of the best skaters out there.”
“But you were doing the same thing.” I’m trying to understand where she’s going with this, but I’m lost.
She shakes her head. “I wasn’t. I’m part-time in college because I couldn’t keep up with a full course load. I was late for practice with you all the time because I spent extra hours on the ice trying to perfect everything. I didn’t have any balance. And this year, the more challenging the routines became, the more time I spent trying to get it all right. I’m just not good enough, BJ. I wanted to be. I wanted to be the partner who could help you realize your dream, because if anyone deserves it, it’s you. But I just…fell short.”
My immediate inclination is to tell her she’s wrong, that she absolutely has the skill set. But when I think about how hard the past year has been, how much time we’ve had to spend on the ice and how much she’s struggled, it’s hard to argue. “How much of the sabotage was intentional?”
“I’ve been struggling to keep up for a long time, BJ, but the past few months…” She drops her head. “The last two competitions, we barely placed third. I knew some of the combinations in the last routine were bordering on too difficult for me. Landing the second lift was always a challenge. It didn’t matter how much I practiced. Executing it during a performance, I didn’t feel confident.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I didn’t want to disappoint you. I didn’t want to give up. I figured when I wasn’t able to get it, you would eventually realize I wasn’t good enough and move on. But you didn’t give up on me, even when I messed up over and over again.” Tears build in her eyes. “If I hadn’t been such a coward, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” She dashes the tears away. “I’m so sorry. I wish I’d made different choices. I wish I’d told you how much I was struggling, but we’d spent all those years working so hard, and the thought of having to tell you… I couldn’t do it.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t want to crush your dream, and then this happened. You were always so confident in my ability, but I could see where we were heading. I wasn’t going to be able to hack it at the Olympics. I figured if I couldn’t execute the combinations we would eventually pull out of the competition because you would see what I was afraid to admit.”
“If you’d just talked to me and told me how you felt, we could have avoided so much pain.” I wish I’d seen it before now, how hard it was for her. How my encouragement only made it more difficult for her to tell me the truth. “I have to start all over again. Do you have any idea the damage you’ve done to my body? How much rehab I need? I have no idea if I’m ever going to be in the condition to compete again. A conversation could have changed everything.”
“I wish I could take it back,” she says softly.
“Me too.” I’m reeling all over again—devastated that this is where we ended up because I couldn’t see what was right in front of me, and Adele couldn’t face disappointing me. I turn toward Boones. Right now I need comfort in the form of Winter.
“Do you hate me?” Adele asks.
I turn back to her. “I don’t hate you, Adele. I hate how cavalier you were with my trust and my life.” I push through the door and head straight for Winter.
“I’m going on break,” she says.
“I got you covered,” Rose replies.
Winter takes me to the employee break room. “Are you okay?”
I nod and wrap my arms around her. “You were right.”
“About?”
“Needing the closure.”
“Do you have it now?” She pulls back, her hands on either side of my face.
“I’m closer than I was before. I feel like I can start moving forward in a way I couldn’t.”
“Good. One step at a time, BJ. We’ll get wherever you need to go together.”
