Daya stepped on the ice with Pavel and the other skaters for the reserved practice hours. Her belly was full of ice too. Belousova selected the last possible eligible regional qualifier for them to get the score for entering the Canadian Challenge. Just like all other hopefuls from around Canada.

"Failure is not an option. You'll get the scores, and then you won't stop competing," Belousova had said.

"For once I wish it was not the one and only, the last chance," Daya murmured to Pavel, as they started on the back-cross. 

And she wished that Shanti could come. Yes, she was almost twenty-four, and she still wanted her big sis to watch her skate. But she was twenty-four, so she said, "Oh, Shanti, don't worry. I know Sameer is at a conference this weekend, and you have a good time with the kids. Don't torture them with sitting in a cold, smelly arena for hours."

"Every competition is your first and your last chance. Fortune is fickle." Pavel's happy grin almost made up for Shanti's absence. The guy was eager to compete, like a warhorse pawing the ground for battle. "Speaking of fortune, I want to repeat the star, that's been shaky last time. God helps those close off all avenues for failure."

Daya nodded, checking behind her back for the opening in the mill of other skaters for Pavel to do his rotations. It looked good, so she gave him a go. They sped up, Pavel's hand went to her hip, their hands clasped, she went up—

There was a wobble as her hand planted on his shoulder. First she thought she could compensate for it. She did not have time to be scared, but Pavel's eyes were fully flung in terror when her face plunged past his.

That's what cut into her memory. Not the wobble, the whites of Pavel's eyes.

His hands grabbed frantically to break her fall. No matter how good his reflexes, he couldn't slow her down enough. He skated out of the way, protecting her from his blades.

She almost braced, she almost took a breath in, her heart almost completed one beat.

No other sound penetrated her cocoon of fear. Time froze, like in the wrong fairy tale, not Cinderella, the Sleeping Beauty one.

Belousova pressed herself to the glass by the gate.

Pavel kept back choice words in two languages behind the bluish lips. His How bad? was the first thing that she had heard before the sound of the blades on the ice, the shouts of the coaches and the distant music returned. 

The light was no longer sheer white bleaching color from her surroundings. She spotted the emergency amber of the short is tomorrow, flashing in the green depths of Pavel's eyes. He did not give voice to his panicked thoughts.

She tried to sort out the pain. Good pain that she could shake off. Bad pain that meant withdrawal, the two scariest letters on the scoreboard, WD.

Her heart thudded one more time.

She extended her arms to Pavel, and he asked if she wanted to stand in a trembling voice.

"No, I prefer to take a nap on the ice," she snapped and vaulted to her feet... wobbly feet.

Under speculative glances from their rivals, Pavel huddled her, and they skated two slow laps, her body still reacting to the shock with shakes. Soaking with sweat, her jacket clung wetly to her back, warm only where Pavel touched her, chilly everywhere else. 

The pain numbed.

"I'll be okay. I just need to sit somewhere," she murmured into Pavel's warm chest. He nodded, maneuvering them to the gates.

Belousova held Daya's eyes. "Medical?"

She shook her head. "No, no. I just need a time out." She clutched a wad of tissues that Belousova handed her to her runny nose and wet cheeks. 

The fall wasn't that bad, but it was a sign, and Belousova picked up on it... damn her.

"Stay on the ice, Sorokin. I'll see to her." Belousova navigated the halls, listing the painkillers without the banned substances. She dropped Daya in the dressing room and returned with the ice. The bruising was setting in, but her breathing calmed down. 

"I'm going to make it," she said.

"I can see that." Belousova took her chin between her fingers. "You need to tell me if you're ready to skate with confidence tomorrow. To erase everything, empty your mind, and skate."

Empty her mind... that meant more than blocking out crushing by Pavel's feet and the cruel punch of the ice in the face. To endure everything that would come with competing again, she needed more than that. She needed--

"I... I need to talk to someone," Daya stuttered, pressing the tissues to her nose again. It dripped, but there weren't any blood stains. I'm a drama queen...

After a long pause, the coach finally nodded. "I'll check on you in twenty minutes. Don't sit the entire time, keep moving. Call immediately if anything feels off."

On a wooden bench, between the empty lockers, Daya opened Mike's email. Email! It was like a shout-out to the nineteen-nineties. She always choked up on the first sentence. 

It said, I love you, and I can't think of the time I felt sorrier in my life.

This time she read on. 

I don't understand all of it, but after playing a few phone games with my mother, here is the story of why I'm so stubborn about food. There once was a painter who fell in love with an actress...

And so forth, and so on. His mother, driven by failure. His father, driven by success. Mike, hiding away in the comfort the food provided, walking the tightrope between success and failure. Afraid to take away hers with his selfishness.

Her fingers trembled so much, it took two tries to get the number in. Remembering the coach's instruction, Daya pushed up from the bench, and blindly walked to the wall, slouching over the phone, shielding it and her face with her hand. 

It must have buzzed twice in Calgary, maybe three times, before the click of the picked up call. 

"Daya? A moment..." 

She  imagined Mike get up and turn around to someone... a fresh veil of tears fell over her real sight. Mike... I need you to...

"Alyssa, would you mind holding the fort for a few minutes? A family emergency."

She heard wordless muttering, so Mike was moving away without waiting for a response. The tone of his voice was just right, alarmed yet cultured, urgent yet polite. Gods, he has the makings of a good liar.

A door clicked, shutting off the background noises of his library. Her locker room was as silent as a tomb. "Daya, is everything well?"

"No. But yes. Yes... I need you..." Her fingers splayed on the locker room's wall gathered back into the fist. No way he didn't know she was crying.

"What's wrong?"

"I need you to promise to come to the Challenge... don't ask what it is. Just say, if you qualify, I'll come to the Challenge.

"Daya, forget the Challenge. I'll catch the first flight out, just tell me where—"

"No, no. You don't understand. I had a fall—"

"Daya!"

Too much to explain, no time. She cleared her throat, finding a firm voice that always worked. 

"I'm shaken, not hurt. I need your promise to lace the skates back on and focus on the Challenge. Mike, please. Without you there, it doesn't feel important enough."

There was a rustling and scraping, as if he fell into a chair. A sigh later, he said, articulating every word: "If you qualify today, I'll come to the Challenge... is that all you want?"

"No." She lifted her face up, so the tears would stay in their ducts. "You wanted to know why I love you, here is one reason. Your voice, Mike. It's like the clouds. Not the real ones, but how I had imagined them as a kid. Like if you could take a ladder and dive in, and they would coat you in welcoming fluff. Take away all the hurts. It's like that..."

"I want to see you."

"And I need to fight to see you. It's convenient for you, Mike. The Challenge is in Edmonton, at Terwillegar Centre."

There was silence on the other end, and she could imagine him searching the net. Seeing that it was scheduled for the end of November. Suppressing a frustrated sigh.

"Daya, it had never been about what's convenient. From the first moment it wasn't."

"I understand." She no longer had to fight back the tears. They'd all dried up as if by magic. "Cinderella, it's not a tale about getting rich quick and wearing magic slippers. It's not about scoring points versus the bitch-sisters. It's about seeing through all the disguises to find someone you love underneath, be they prince or pauper."

There was another silence on the other end of the line, but she could hear him breathe.

Into that pause, Mike had finally said, "I'll be there. At your Challenge in Edmonton. Go back on the ice, go get it."

"Thank you." She did not want to hang up the phone. "How... how have you been?"

"Variably. I had adopted a dog, but I resisted the urge to send you the pictures of Toby holding a ball in his mouth. I was afraid you'd pick him over me."

The eternal chill of the arenas gave way to warmth welling up inside her. Talk about the urges. "He's a lucky dog," she said softly. 

Mike chuckled. "I'm not so sure about that. After you left, something came over me, so I... well, I dug up my old files. The poor pooch had to listen to some dry stuff."

"I want you to go for it," she said despite a cold hollow feeling in her chest. He wants to go back to BC, to his life before we had met... No. He would not have come to the Challenge then, wouldn't have offered to fly East...

 She closed her eyes and kissed him a distant goodbye.

Challenge, Challenge, Challenge... I'm back in the saddle and let's ride!

The door opened up. 

This was nearby, not in Calgary. The door to the locker room opened up.

That's Belousova...

Daya got up and grabbed her skates. "I am ready to rock-n-roll. But we must drop a difficulty level on the star lift tomorrow."

Her voice had a bit of a nasal sound to it from the earlier tears, but it was strong.

"Agreed. If you skate clean, you'll comfortably clear the minimal score and there's no need to overtax Sorokin's already tenuous grip on reality." 

Daya's teeth snapped shut. It wasn't Pavel's fault, it just didn't click, it happened, and if it wasn't for him she'd be in the hospital... but Belousova knew all that. She couldn't have missed it. It was bloody unfair, and she still put him down. Why?

Daya shuddered to think what Pavel must have been listening to in the twenty minutes she was luxuriating in the rainbow bubbles of Mike's love.

"Irina Andrevna?" She lowered her head like a charging ram. "Irina Andrevna, if we beat the minimum score by ten points, I want you to tell Pavel he's the new Protopopov."

The older woman scanned Daya's face in with a long, dry gaze. Did she think Daya didn't know her figure skating history from the dawn of time? But no, it wasn't that...

The coach's gaze peeled off every defense shield she put up around her soul like a laser, but Daya didn't back down. Yes, she knew they were in a pickle without their star coach. And that Pavel would be the first one to grin and wave it away as some Russian advanced method, but she was having a problem with him being knocked down like that.

"Twenty-five points." Belousova smiled thinly. "For ten I can pat him on the back for you."

Daya felt a stirring of excitement. Fair enough, let's up the stakes. "Twenty-five it is. And you say it like you mean it."

That earned her an even thinner smile: little girls should keep their fingers out of the bear traps, Belousova seemed to say. Aloud though she said, "Oh, I will, I will. I might even cry a little."

Daya tried to be happy with getting what she wanted. And failed miserably. If we get twenty-five points over, I'll ask him what the deal is. It's getting stupid.