Chapter 9: The Broken Praise
The arena swallowed him whole.
The ice stretched beneath Leonid's skates, an endless white plane scoured by the light of a single overhead beam. He had been on this rink a thousand times, in a thousand variations of this moment—cold air burning his lungs, the hum of the compressor vibrating through the soles of his boots, the ache in his muscles settling like a familiar ache. The previous hour had been a war of attrition on his body: double loops into combinations he had done blind, step sequences that blurred into muscle memory, and then the triple axel, over and over, until the pain in his left ankle began to radiate up his shin like a warning.
He could feel the bruise blossoming on the inside of his thigh where he'd caught his blade on a landing that hadn't been quite clean.
But he'd landed it.
Finally—finally—he'd landed it.
The takeoff was clean, his knee driving through the ice, the rotation tight and fast, his arms snapping to his chest like a slammed door. For a heartbeat, he was flying, the world spinning into a smudge of white and silver, and then the landing. Three revolutions, the blade catching in a deep arc, his body absorbing the shock. The skate carved a crescent into the ice, and he rode it out like a surfer on a dying wave.
He stayed in the landing position for a moment too long, his chest heaving, his breath fogging in the cold air. Then he straightened, slowly, and turned to face the boards.
Jennie stood at the rail, arms crossed, expression carved from stone.
Leonid swallowed. The sweat cooling on his skin made him shiver, but he held her gaze. The words were forming in his throat—Did you see it? I did it. I finally did it.—but she spoke first.
"Again."
The word landed like a slap.
He blinked, his chest tightening. "What?"
"You heard me." Her voice was flat, toneless, the voice she used with every skater she didn't care about. "That was sloppy. Your arms opened too early on the back end, and your landing ankle was at the wrong angle. Again."
"I—" He stopped. Fought the urge to argue. His lungs were burning, his body trembling with fatigue. He had been skating for three hours, the first two spent drilling the same four revolutions until his mind went blank and his legs turned to lead. The triple axel had been perfect. He'd felt it. "I don't understand. The jump was—"
The sound of her blades cutting ice interrupted him.
He snapped his head to the side. A young girl—maybe fourteen, he guessed—was gliding in wide, graceful circles near the far boards. Her name was something rehearsed over the past few days, something he'd heard Jennie say in passing, though he couldn't recall it now. She was a slight thing, all long limbs and delicate features, and she was executing a simple layback spin, her hands held elegantly above her head.
"Beautiful, Yuna." Jennie's voice had changed. It was warmer now, softer, the edges rounded off. "That's exactly right. Perfect arm extension. Perfect posture."
Leonid stood frozen at center ice, watching.
Yuna slowed, spinning to a stop on the tips of her blades. Her face was flushed with pride, a small smile tugging at her lips. "Really?"
"Really." Jennie nodded, and there it was—the ghost of an actual smile. Small, but unmistakable. "You're picking it up faster than I expected. That's the kind of focus I like to see."
The words hit Leonid like a blade between the ribs.
Beautiful. Perfect. The kind of focus I like to see.
She had never said those words to him.
He'd trained for her for months. He had bled for her, broken himself for her, sold his soul to get back on the ice for her—and she'd never once looked at him like that. Not once.
Yuna glided away, and Jennie turned back to him, her face snapping into its familiar mask. "You're still standing there."
Leonid said nothing. He pushed off, skating back to the center, his muscle memory taking over. The routine began again—crossover, trun around, arms up, the takeoff.
His ankle screamed on the landing.
He pushed through it.
"Again."
He was trembling now, his thighs burning, the shin of his left leg aching in sharp, stabbing pulses. He'd landed the jump five times in a row—had done it perfectly for the first time in his life—and if he'd been alone, he might have let out a cry of triumph. But instead, she watched him with those dark, inscrutable eyes, and all the joy in his chest curdled into something hollow and desperate.
He wanted her to praise him.
He wanted her to say that was beautiful and mean it. He wanted her to look at him the way she'd looked at Yuna, with pride and quiet affection. He'd do anything for that. Anything.
"Again."
He landed the triple axel four more times. Each one was a little sloppier, a little more reckless. He could feel his body failing, the tears burning at his eyes—muscles screaming, his ankle shrieking with every landing. But he couldn't stop. If she watched him, if she saw how hard he was working, maybe she would relent.
Maybe, just once, she would say something kind.
"Again."
He took off.
The takeoff was too deep, too aggressive. His blade caught, his weight shifted, and he planted wrong. The twist went off, he lost his center, and the world cartwheeled around him until he slammed into the ice.
The impact knocked the air from his lungs. His shoulder took the brunt, and his head snapped back, cracking against the hard surface. Pain exploded behind his eyes, white-hot and blinding. The skates on his boots scraped against the ice.
He lay there, gasping.
The rink rang with silence.
"I asked for the jump, not a fall," Jennie said.
Her voice was calm. Detached. The same tone she used when ordering a coffee.
Leonid forced himself up onto his elbows, his vision swimming. A thin trickle of water ran down his temple—melted ice from his hair. His shoulder throbbed, his ankle was burning, and his chest was a tight knot of everything he couldn't bring himself to say.
He looked at her.
She was standing by the boards, one hand resting on the rail, her chin tilted at an angle he'd come to know. Unimpressed. Waiting for him to get up and try again.
"Jennie—" His voice cracked. He swallowed, tried again. "What do I have to do?"
Her expression flickered. For a heartbeat, something real slipped through—something dark, something that might have been pain. But it was gone as fast as it came.
"You have to stop asking questions and get up," she said. "You're wasting time."
She turned and skated away.
He didn't get up.
The ice was cold against his back, the pain in his body a dull roar. He lay there, blinking at the ceiling, trying to remember why this mattered. Trying to remember the life he'd had before this—the waiting tables, the business lectures, the slow, grinding death of watching someone else's dream from the sidelines.
Then Jennie appeared above him.
He hadn't heard her approach. She was standing over him, backlit by the harsh overhead lights, and for a moment, she looked like a silhouette from a photograph—sharp-edged, untouchable, eternal.
"You're not there yet," she said.
The words were softer now, quieter. He thought he saw her jaw flex, a muscle jumping beneath her skin. She knelt down beside him, and he saw her hand reach out before he felt it—her palm warm against his cheek, her thumb brushing across his skin, catching something wet.
It took him a moment to realize he was crying.
"You're not there yet," she repeated, softer still. "But you will be."
He hated her for that.
He hated her, and he loved her, and he wanted to be good enough to make her proud—so badly that it was cutting him open from the inside keeping it all in. And all he could think, lying there, staring up at the woman who owned his heart, his body, and every waking thought, was why can't you just tell me I'm enough?
"Why aren't I enough?" The words left his mouth before he could stop them.
She went still.
For a long moment, she didn't move. Her hand was still against his cheek, her thumb still pressed to his skin. Her dark eyes searched his face, reading him like a poem written in a language she had invented.
"Because you're pretending," she said at last. "You're giving me what you think I want. But you're not showing me you."
"I don't know who that is anymore."
"I do." She leaned closer, her breath warm against his face. "I'm waiting for you to find him."
She pulled her hand away and stood, her skates scraping against the ice. She looked down at him one last time, and there was something in her expression he couldn't quite decode—something raw, almost fragile, hidden beneath the layers of steel and discipline.
"Get up," she said. "We're done for the day."
He watched her skate away, her back straight, her movements effortless. The image of her was seared into his mind: the perfect coach, the perfect woman, the only person who had ever seen him as more than just a body to be pushed and prodded.
But she'd never seen him as enough.
He lay on the ice for a long time after she was gone, staring at the light. His shoulder was throbbing, his ankle was swollen, and his chest was a hollow, echoing space.
The girl—Yuna—was still practicing in the corner.
He watched her spin, watched her smile at her own reflection in the glass, and felt a sudden surge of envy so sharp it made his eyes sting.
It took him three tries to push himself to his feet.
The sky outside the windows had turned the pale gray of early evening. Leonid sat in the locker room on a wooden bench, his skates untied, his shirt damp with sweat. A towel hung around his neck, and his knee was bouncing with restless, unspent energy.
The door opened.
Leonid looked up. Jennie stood in the doorway, backlit, holding a small white tube in her hand.
"Your ankle," she said by way of explanation.
She walked in and sat down beside him on the bench, close enough that their thighs almost touched. She uncapped the tube and squeezed a line of gel onto her fingertips.
"Lift your leg."
His leg moved before he made the conscious decision. She took his ankle in her hands, her fingers pressing gently into the swollen joint. The gel was cool and tingled faintly as it sank into his skin.
"Tomorrow," she said, "you take a rest day."
"What?"
"Don't argue." She pressed harder, and he flinched. "Your body is telling you it's reached its limit. If you don't listen now, you'll be out for weeks instead of days."
Leonid watched her hands work, her movements methodical, almost hypnotic. She'd tended to him like this before—a dozen minor injuries, a sprained wrist, an ice burn, a pulled hamstring—and every time, it was the closest he ever got to feeling cared for.
"Jennie," and he couldn't keep the ache from his voice.
She didn't answer.
Her hands were steady. Gentle.
For one brief, fragile moment, Leonid let himself believe that this was enough.