Page 76 of Ice Princesses
The noise settles over us immediately, the familiar scrape of blades and conversation folding back into place like I never left. It’s louder today, fuller, the last day of the exhibition carrying that strange mix of relief and urgency. People are already beginning to say their goodbyes in small pockets along the boards, but no one is quite ready to let the week end yet. There’s still something to extract from it—one more conversation and one more chance to make an impression.
I slow slightly without meaning to, letting my eyes adjust to the light off the ice.
Cecilia stands near the boards, shoulders relaxed but her attention fixed entirely on Rodrigo and Katia, who are laughing on the ice and running a pairs sequence I haven’t seen before. She says something as they glide past—quick, precise—and they nod immediately, pushing into the next set of elements without hesitation. There’s no excess in the exchange.
“She’s so good,” Nina says beside me, quiet enough that it doesn’t carry. “He’s definitely going to medal.”
“She is,” I reply, and there’s no effort in it. “He is.”
We watch in silence for a moment longer. Katia lands clean, the sound of her skates cutting through the rink in that familiar way—blade, impact, glide—and I see the way a few people shift closer to the boards, the way attention collects around them without being asked.
“Do you think…” I turn to Nina, but she’s already nodding along with my train of thought. That maybe we could bring her on, as a coach, and she could handle some of the summer clinics and a selection of the programs we are hoping to grow into in the next few years.
“I think it’s worth asking her,” she says as she takes out her phone and starts making a note somewhere, maybe drafting an email or a proposal.
Katia and Rodrigo laugh as they circle back, saying something to another skater before resetting, loose in that characteristic Cecilia way. Even Katia has absorbed her technical skill, and she’s only been adjacent to this coach most of the summer.
We drift closer to the boards, more out of habit than intention. I rest my hands lightly against the barrier, watching the pair reset again, and I’m suddenly very aware of how quiet my own mind feels when I’m standing here. Watching her.
There’s no script for this part.
No one waiting for me to say the right thing or move at the right time. No expectation attached to where I stand or who I’m speaking to or what it might mean later.
Even at my best, at the top of my career, there was always something else attached to it. A camera angle, a conversation waiting on the other side of the boards, a correction that needed to be done before the next run-through. Everything fed into something larger, something that needed to be shaped and maintained. A legacy with impossible standards.
There wasn’t space for anything that didn’t serve that. I never once snuck out or lied about where I was going or who I was with. I didn’t get to be careless in ways that didn’t matter.
I shift slightly against the boards, the cold seeping through the thin fabric of my sleeves, grounding me with an unfamiliar kind of steadiness. Because the version of me—standing here, watching skaters work through something without anyone watching me in return, without anyone measuring what it means—feels quieter than anything I remember.
Simpler.
And I realize, slowly and almost reluctantly, this is the closest I’ve come to understanding what people mean when they talk about normal.
Fuck.
“I’m going to go hide in my office before Mom finds me,” I mumble to Nina before she can hear me thinking.
My gaze drifts back to Cecilia without meaning to.
She’s talking to Rodrigo again, one hand resting lightly on the boards. He nods immediately, pushing off into another pass, and she watches him go without stepping in, without needing to.
She trusts what she built.
Nina snorts. “Good luck with that.”
There’s a knock on the door.
Three deliberate taps and a moment of pause after. I don’t need to check who it is, but I close my eyes regardless in case it’s one of my parents.
“Come in,” I say.
Cecilia steps inside, closing the door behind her withthe same quiet precision she brings to everything else. She crosses the room like she belongs in it, like this is a continuation of a conversation we left halfway sometime last week.
“I have a thought,” she says, sitting on the chair across from me. Her fingers start tapping lightly on her knee, an uncharacteristic display of energy. I lean back, watching her instead of interrupting.
“Katia,” she continues, splaying one hand on the table. “She’s wasting time in singles.”
I blink. “That’s a strong statement.”
