Chapter 4

The last eyelet. You pull the lace snug, tie it off, and sit for just a moment with your hands in your lap.

Done.

Beside you, Alysa finishes her own laces with a small decisive tug and straightens up, rolling her ankles once each in that automatic way skaters do — checking the fit, confirming everything feels right. You do the same without thinking and she catches you mirroring her and smiles.

“Ready?” she asks.

The word is easy. Casual. Like she’s been asking you that for years.

“Ready,” you say.

The cold hits properly the moment you step through the barrier gate and onto the ice, that first glide always feeling like something unlocking in your chest. You love this part — the way the rink opens up in front of you, the way your body just knows what to do the moment the blades catch.

You push off gently into your first lap, finding your edges, letting your muscles remember themselves.

Alysa falls into stride beside you.

Not intentionally — or maybe intentionally, you genuinely can’t tell — but there she is, matching your pace as you curve around the first bend, her hands loosely clasped behind her back in that easy way that means she’s been skating since before she can remember.

“So what do you usually work on?” she asks, like continuing a conversation mid-stride over ice is the most natural thing in the world. For her it probably is.

“Mostly program run-throughs lately,” you say, focusing very hard on not wobbling, which you never do, except apparently now you might. “Competition prep. You?”

“Same kind of thing.” She does a tiny effortless twizzle mid-stride — just one, barely even a thing, clearly unconscious — and you watch it happen and decide not to acknowledge it because you will simply perish. “Phillip keeps telling me to slow down and actually feel the music instead of just hitting the beats. Which he’s right about. I hate when he’s right.”

“Phillip’s your coach?”

“One of them. Him and Massimo.” Something in her voice goes soft and fond in a way that’s really lovely to hear. “They’re — honestly they’re the best. They’re so annoying about it though, like they care so much and they’re always—” she makes a vague gesture with one hand that somehow communicates everything, “—you know. A lot. In the best way.”

You do know, actually. Or you can imagine it. Something about the way she says it makes you think of warmth and gentle pressure and being believed in.

“That sounds really nice,” you say quietly.

She glances at you sideways. “Yeah,” she agrees, just as quietly. “It really is.”

You round the second bend together, the rink small enough that the far end is already coming up, and for a few strokes you’re both just skating, just breathing cold air, just existing in the same easy silence that somehow feels completely different from all the silent months before it.

Same silence, you think. Completely different.

“[y/n]!”

You turn your head. On the boards near the far end, your coach Sandra is leaning over the barrier with her clipboard, already waving you over with the particular energy that means she has a plan for today and it is extensive.

Beside her, two men have appeared near the opposite end of the rink — one with his arms already crossed in theatrical disapproval at something, the other laughing at him. Even from here you can hear the laughing one say something in an exaggerated tone and the other swat his arm.

Alysa makes a noise that is very much a fond and exhausted sigh. “That’s my cue.”

You both slow, drifting toward the centre of the ice where your paths will split.

She turns to face you as she peels off, skating backwards for a few easy strides in a way that should be annoying but is instead just incredibly her.

“It was really nice to actually talk to you,” she says, and she means it. You can tell she means it.

“You too,” you say.

She points at you — that same gesture from the bench, like you’ve confirmed something — and then she’s turning, pushing off toward the far end where Massimo has spotted her and is already opening his arms in greeting and Phillip is saying something that makes her groan loudly before she’s even reached him.

You watch for just one second longer than you need to.

Then Sandra calls your name again and you turn toward your end of the rink, pushing off into a proper stroke, and you are smiling at the ice in a way you are very glad nobody can currently see.