Life on the Edge (26 page)

Chris showed up at my door as I finished corralling my hair into a tight bun. “I got tired of sitting in my room, so I thought I’d come sit in yours.”

“I’ll be ready in a few minutes.” I plucked the bottle of hair spray from my rolling bag and returned to the bathroom.

Satisfied every lock of hair was firmly in place, I gathered my makeup case and spare hairpins and shut off the bathroom light. Chris was sitting on my bed, reading the
Lyrics
book.

His brow wrinkled. “Did Sergei loan this book to someone else before you?”

I shoved everything from my hands into my bag. “Mm . . . I don’t think so. Why?”

“He wrote something in here.”

Curiosity and concern combined to speed up my pulse. I held out my hand for the book. “Where?”

Chris passed it to me, opened to the page for the song “Desert Rose.” Under the lyrics was a handwritten note–
You are my desert rose.

After my heart stopped fluttering, reality slapped me in the face. I stared at the page, not wanting to look at Chris.
This cannot be happening. We have to skate the most important program of our lives in two hours.

“Why would he write that?” Chris asked.

I made a snap decision to lie because this wasn’t a discussion we could have in ten minutes. “I don’t know, but this wasn’t meant for me.” I set the book on the bed and turned to my bag.

“Who’s it for, then? I’ve never seen him with anyone or heard him talk about a girlfriend.”

I zipped and unzipped the compartments of my bag with such force I was surprised they didn’t break. “I don’t know his personal business.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chris pick up the book and flip through the pages.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m looking to see if he wrote anything else.”

I shot over to the bed and tried to pull the book out of Chris’s hands. “Don’t worry about it. We don’t have time for this.”

He gawked at me and refused to loosen his grip. “What’s your problem?”

“Nothing! Just forget about it. We need to go.”

He took a quick look at the clock. “We still have time.”

My mind scrambled with thoughts, some of which spilled out of my mouth. “If he wrote stuff, then it’s private and we shouldn’t be reading it. I’m going to give it back to him.”

“If it’s private, why’d he lend it to you?”

I returned to my bag, swallowing the bile in my throat. “I don’t know. Maybe he forgot that was in there.”
How many more lies can I tell?

“There’s something you’re hiding. You’re acting too weird.”

I focused on the striped wallpaper in front of me and prayed for a phone call, a fire alarm, a miracle from above–anything to interrupt the conversation.

“I’m not acting weird,” I said, but my voice betrayed me with a discernible crack.

Chris became quiet. “Has he tried to put the moves on you? Is he messing with you? That’s it, isn’t it? You can tell me if he’s doing something–”

My stomach plummeted. I whipped around and blurted out, “He’s not doing anything I don’t want him to!”

Chapter Twenty

Chris picked up his jaw from the floor and sputtered, “You’re hooking up with Sergei?”

“No, not like . . . not like that.” I forced myself to take a deep breath. “We’re not
hooking up
. We’re dating . . . seriously.”

His face contorted, and he stood up, tossing the book onto the bed. “How did I not know about this?”

“I was going to tell you next week when we got home. I know it’s a shock and it sounds a little weird, but it should tell you something that you haven’t suspected anything. It means nothing has changed.” I went over to Chris and put my hand on his arm, hoping to make him understand. He shook off my gesture and shoved past me.

“It doesn’t sound a little weird. It sounds a
lot
weird.” He paced up and down the small space between the two beds. “What happens if you break up?”

“We’re not breaking up.”

He stopped pacing to glare at me. “What, are you marrying him?” He snorted.

I had a hard time finding my voice. “I . . . I don’t know. I mean, not right now.”

He ran both hands through his thick hair, causing tufts to stand up like the mountain peaks I’d admired earlier. Any other time, I would teasingly nag him for messing up his hair before a performance. This was not a moment for jokes, however.

“I can’t believe this,” he said.

“We know what we’re doing. Nothing has changed as far as our partnership is concerned, and that’s what’s important.”

The melody of an incoming call on my cell phone prevented Chris from responding. The cheerful ringtone contrasted sharply with the mood in the room. Chris resumed wearing a hole in the sandy brown carpet as I dug in my bag for the phone.

“Hey, are you on your way down?” Sergei asked.

“Yeah, I’m with Chris. We’ll be there in a minute.”

I hung up and Chris said, “We’re not finished talking about this.”

“I don’t blame you for being upset, but we need to put this aside for now.”

He didn’t move, and I feared he might refuse to leave until he’d said his piece. “Please, Chris.” I tried to reach his stony eyes with a pleading look. “We have to go.”

After a long pause, he picked up his bag and walked to the door.

On the bus ride to the arena, I kept a close watch on him. The only thing that could make the situation worse would be Chris confronting Sergei.

We made it to GM Place without incident and followed the long gray corridor to the bowels of the arena. The area buzzed with skaters walking through their programs, coaches mingling, and media personnel running around with tape recorders and notepads. In the distance, the familiar tune of
Swan Lake
played. The competition had already begun, but with the large number of pairs in the field, the event would span over four hours.

Chris and I split off from Sergei to stretch and warm up, and I eyed Madeline Hyatt and Damien Wakefield as they jogged past us in perfect tandem, chatting with ease. The Canadians didn’t have a monstrous cloud hanging over them like we did.

“How long have you been dating?” Chris asked before I could begin my exercises.

“We can’t talk about this right now.” I sat on the painted concrete floor and stretched my legs.

“It’s a simple question.”

I held his stare, begging him to let the issue drop. He raised his eyebrows, urging me to answer. I let out a sigh and reached out to touch the toes of my sneakers.

“Two months,” I said quietly.

He squatted next to me but didn’t make any motion to start warming up. “Wow. I must be really blind.”

“You’re not blind.” I touched his knee. “No one knows except Aubrey and my parents.”

“What did your parents say?”

“My dad is being amazingly cool. My mom, on the other hand . . .”

“Is that why she showed up out of the blue at practice last week?”

“I’ll tell you about it later, I promise.” I stood up and extended my arms over my head. “Please let it go for now.”

“
Em
, are you sure this is what you want?” He straightened up and peered down at me. “You’re sure Sergei hasn’t been putting pressure on you–”

“No! I’m with him because I want to be with him.”

He gazed down the hallway, and I thought we were done with the discussion until he said, “This whole thing is
weirding
me out.”

I set my hands on his shoulders. “Then stop talking about it. I can explain everything later. Can we please focus on getting ready?”

He complied with my request and remained quiet as we stretched and walked through our program. We left each other to dress in the locker room, and I rushed to put on my costume. If Chris met Sergei outside first, I wasn’t sure he could hold his tongue.

Amidst the mob of girls dressing and primping, I hastily tugged my costume’s stretchy fabric over my body. With a quick check in the mirror, I determined all of the sparkly red and black beads were still in place.

Chris and I reached Sergei at the same time. He handed us our jackets, and I zipped mine up to my chin to stay warm. We had a few minutes until we needed to lace up our skates, so we did some light stretching to keep our muscles loose.

After we put on our skates and advanced to the tunnel, Sergei reminded us of the changes we’d made to our footwork. I nodded and kept silent as usual, staying in my own little world. Chris did the same, not chatting in his normal manner, and Sergei observed him with concern.

Our group took the ice for the six-minute warm-up, and the raucous cheers for Hyatt and Wakefield reminded me we were on Canadian soil. Chris and I received the second loudest ovation as numerous American flags showed in the stands. With a perfect triple twist and clean side-by-side jumps completed, we set up to practice the throw triple Lutz.

Gliding backwards with Chris’s hands on my hips, I glanced over my shoulder at the last second and saw Madeline skating toward us at full speed, her back to us. Before I could yell a warning, she crashed into Chris’s side, the impact knocking her to the ice. Chris held onto my waist and stumbled but didn’t go down. The audience gasped, and my heart rate burst upward. Both Chris and Damien helped Madeline to her feet as she massaged her lower back.

“I’m so sorry,” Chris said.

Madeline glared at Chris but didn’t reply. She and Damien skated away and did slow circular strokes around the ice, while Chris and I went over to Sergei at the boards. He offered us our bottles of water and made a motion with his hands indicating, “Settle down.”

My hand trembled as I raised the bottle to my mouth. Chris always checked behind him when we practiced the throw on a crowded rink. He was known as one of the most observant skaters, constantly alerting our training mates at home and preventing crashes. His mind was clearly not on the task at hand.

We were first in the group to skate, so hand-in-hand we skated leisurely around the perimeter of the ice during the warm-up’s final minute. Without looking at me, Chris said tersely, “Promise me you’re not
gonna
quit.”

I swiveled my head to face him. “What?”

He kept his focus straight ahead. “If things go bad with you and Sergei, promise me you’re not going to quit.”

“Are you seriously bringing this up now?” I asked in hushed tone.

“I need to know.”

I gave his hand a firm squeeze. “You know I would never cut and run on you.”

Still staring into the audience, he said, “I thought I knew you, but I’m not so sure now.”

A sharp pang of sadness cut through my anxiety. I wanted to stop and assure him he could still trust me, but the announcer alerted us the warm-up was over. We circled back to Sergei, who studied our grim expressions intently.

He smiled and spoke calmly, “Just like any other day in practice.”

Pushing off from the boards, we glided across the ice and took a few moments before we prepared to start. I set my jaw and locked my eyes on Chris’s.

“Let’s do this.”

To the rousing notes of “Capriccio
Espagnol
,” we sailed through the elements on autopilot, executing the technique we’d practiced for countless hours. But between the elements, Chris barely looked at me. He didn’t give me the positive energy I was accustomed to receiving from him. I might as well have been skating with a stranger.

The audience applauded the technical precision, but they didn’t leap to their feet. The program lacked spark. Sergei waited until we’d received our scores and retreated backstage to question Chris.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked.