Page 98 of Hate You Most
Viktoriya swallowed once, her voice catching slightly as she said, “There’s something else I haven’t told you.”
“Alright,” she said softly. “Tell me.”
And that was the problem. The way her mother craved her answer. Like saying it aloud wouldn’t change everything about her life.
Viktoriya’s breath wavered slightly. “I don’t think I can be what everyone wants me to be.”
“You don’t have to be everything that everyone wants.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Viktoriya said, her voice a little tighter now. “It’s not just about Lev. It’s… all of it.”
Her mother’s brow furrowed slightly. “Then what is it?”
The words were there again, on the very tip of her tongue. Too real to ignore for much longer. Viktoriya hesitated, her throat tightening as she shaped the words in her mind before they could escape her mouth.
“I think—” she started, then stopped, shaking her head slightly like she could physically dislodge the truth.
Her mother leaned a little closer, her voice still calm. “You think what?”
And for a moment, Viktoriya almost said it. Almost let it exist outside of her own thoughts.
She was in love with a woman.
She was in love with her rival. Dakota Sanchez.
Viktoriya knew she was, and it nearly killed her.
The thought drenched itself in fear and in guilt. It was sharp, layered with everything she'd ever learned about image, reputation, and the way nothing in her life ever truly stayed private. If she truly wanted nobody to find out, then there shouldn't have been anything to find. She shouldn't have looked at Dakota in the ways that she had, shouldn't have done what she had. She shouldn't have loved Dakota with every party of her body and mind. She had fallen madly for Dakota and no amount of pretending with the boyfriend her father had picked for her was going to change the way her heart only beat for one singular person. The one person that made her feel alive was the woman she could never have.
Her voice broke the wrong way as she spoke again. “I don’t think I want this life, mama.”
Her mother studied her carefully now. “This life?” she asked. “Or a life with him?”
Viktoriya shook her head once, too fast. “Everything. I just… I need time. I need some time and I need to figure some stuff out.”
Her mother exhaled slowly, then reached over and gently rested her hand over Viktoriya’s. “Then take it,” she said. “Don’t let anyone rush you into something you’re not ready for.”
Viktoriya nodded. It was easier than explaining why time didn’t feel like something she had.
She had almost told her mother the thing that she couldn't tell a single soul. She had almost come clean, and she knew she couldn't risk saying it aloud.
It wouldn't happen again.
She would forever keep her love for Dakota deep in the furthest part of her mind, where the darkness crept in from the corners and where all her self-doubt and anxiety laid. It made her just the smallest bit braver and one day she prayed it would be enough. Dakota fought the darkness in her mind so she had the energy to keep living a life of dishonesty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
March 16th, 2023.
— Bloomfield Hills training center, Detroit, Michigan.
Viktoriya stood at the boards for a moment longer than necessary, her fingers curled loosely over the surface as she watched Dakota move across the ice. They were the only two people at the rink. The sound of her blades cut clean and familiar lines into the surface. It felt private and almost like she wasn’t meant to witness it without experiencing the consequences.
There was something different about it.
Not in the technique—Dakota was still a loose skater, with too much emotion, even in simple steps—but in the way her body moved without the invisible weight of being evaluated at every second.
She stepped onto the ice, the shift immediate as her blades met the smooth ice. Her body adjusted automatically and muscle memory took over. This was the only place she didn’t have to think about who she was supposed to be.
