Ink and Ice

by Erin McRae

  “Does it matter?”

  “It might.”

  Huy shook his head. “Nah. It doesn’t. Good is good.”

  “Says the person who is always effortlessly great.”

  “No, says the person who comes here in his off hours to do misery-making exercises that people hate so much they removed them from competition decades ago. But sure. Think it’s effortless if you want.”

  Aaron shook his head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  Still, he was pretty sure that even if he gave up everything in his life besides the ice he still wouldn’t skate like Huy. But since that wasn’t possible—the restaurant and his family would always need him—the point was moot.

  “It’s cool.” Huy shrugged and changed the subject. “I like the new program. It suits you. In a way that I don’t think people are going to expect. Which is great.” He set down his water and reached for his box of tissues. On the cold rink, everyone’s nose ran constantly. “You needed something new.”

  “Zack broke up with me,” Aaron blurted.

  Huy stopped with his hands raised to his face, the tissue over his nose, his eyes wide. “Oh lord.”

  “You don’t need to sound like that!” Aaron protested.

  “Yes. I do.” Huy blew his nose, then balled up the tissue and chucked it into the bin on the other side of the boards. “I didn’t even know you guys were together,” he said, looking affronted. “How did I not know you guys were together?”

  “Because you spend your off hours busting your ass doing figures?” Huy, of course, also had his own life and relationships which kept him plenty busy outside of skating, but Aaron tried not to dwell on that.

  “Mm.” Huy leaned back against the boards. “Were you into Zack because Zack, or were you into Zack because you’re desperate to be monogamous with every pretty person who walks into a room?”

  “I’m not desperate,” Aaron protested, although he wasn’t sure Huy was wrong.

  “You do a pretty good imitation,” Huy said.

  “Ow!”

  “It’s not inherently a bad thing. None of us do what we do here because we’re quite all right.”

  “Even you?” Aaron kicked his toe pick into the ice. Huy was doing his best to cheer him up, but he did not at all want to be cheered up.

  “I’m doing figures in my free time. What do you think?” Huy sighed. “Look, we all want what we want. But if we make choices that definitely aren’t going to give us that... then that’s what’s messed up. I want to win, so I show up and do figures.”

  “I don’t want to win, I just want a chance to win,” Aaron clarified. He knew where he stood, and he knew how fragile and tenuous that position was.

  “There’s your first problem. You need to believe you can do what no one else thinks you can. Just trying to scrape into your dream by a hair’s breadth is not how you make that happen.”

  “Okay. But realism.”

  “Sure. But I’m telling you to aim higher. You’re going to have to podium at a lot of things just to be at the Olympics. Grand Prix events. And US Nationals.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Sometimes I wonder.”

  “Now you sound like Katie.”

  “I’m not saying you’re not focused. Or driven. Or anything like that,” Huy said. “Because you are. I just don’t know if I’d keep hammering at stuff as long as you have from where you are.”

  Aaron grimaced. Huy was saying that if his own skills were only at Aaron’s level he would have quit by now. It was not a flattering assessment. It also wasn’t necessarily wrong. He felt his mood sink further.

  “You’re certainly persistent,” Huy went on. “But you don’t give yourself enough credit for how far you’ve come just to be here.”

  That, admittedly, made Aaron feel a little better.

  Huy nodded around at the ice sheet, almost empty now except for them. “But I see the way you want so much to be somebody’s one-and-only and yet don’t direct that energy at people where that’s likely to happen. So it makes me wonder if you know how to win anything—on or off the ice. Most importantly, it makes me question your choices. About everything. A lot.”

  “Is this the polyamory-as-resource-management lecture again?” Aaron asked. Suddenly, more than anything, he felt tired. He wanted to go home and sleep for about a week.

  “Maybe. I don’t know,” Huy said. “That analogy never seems to work for you. But the sooner you figure out how to stop wasting time keeping various parts of your life as separate drains on your emotional and creative resources, the better. I know we all have to compartmentalize in this sport all the time, but you need to figure out how to use everything you have to get everything you want.”

  “My free skate is about my now-ex and I fucking. I don’t think I’m compartmentalizing here.”

  Huy, who was rarely phased by anything, and certainly not the romantic and sexual adventures of his fellow skaters, was clearly phased now. But he took a deep breath and continued on as if Aaron hadn’t been appalling.

  “No. But I know you. You’re going to want to either put your head down and focus on the work, or go out and find somebody else to fall for, for the rest of the season. When what you need to do is lean into the thing where you feel heartbroken and pissed off and lonely and put it all in the performance. And then when you make the team and get to the Olympics, you and me and my boyfriend will have a threesome, yeah?”

  “Why am I friends with you?” Aaron asked. Because good advice aside, Huy never ceased to be Huy—always generous, and never quite in the way Aaron wanted or needed.

  Part 2

  Chapter 20

  AUTUMN

  Minnesota and Florida

  BREAKUPS WERE MISERABLE, and Zack second-guessed himself about Aaron more than once. But Aaron did not need more inconsistency from him, and Zack really did need to focus on having a life that wasn’t about constantly running to and from distractions that ranged from inappropriate to dangerous. So he stayed in Saint Paul and kept playing hockey because it didn’t make sense to do or go anywhere else. He finally managed to play in an actual game for the rec league, and he was happy to be perfectly adequate. Maybe one day, he’d even manage to score a goal, but that seemed far away.

  He told Sammy about Aaron’s failed attempt to get Sauer to call him, and about the breakup which had been partially precipitated by Zack’s inability to handle that mess. Sammy had no sympathy to offer and no interest in absolving Zack of his journalistic sins, which was fair. After all, it didn’t matter that he had broken up with Aaron; it didn’t erase their past or the way it had compromised Zack’s objectivity. The only solace he was given was that Sauer would be yanked out of the article completely, allowing Zack to rework his initial swiss cheese draft into a truly compelling profile of Aaron and life at TCI.

  Zack knew as he worked on it that it was a love letter, but he was grateful that it was as much a love letter to a place and a sport, as it was to his first post-divorce ex.

  Who he did, of course, still see around the rink. They’d nod to each other—tight and miserable—when they passed at the front desk or by the vending machines. Matt, at least, remained a steadfast friend amongst that chaos, offering sympathy, conversation, and ongoing instruction in the art of hockey trash talk. All further bar fights were avoided, and Tasha drilled him ruthlessly in edge control.

  But while skating and friends and the legacy of his own mistakes continued to exist, so too did Florida. Unfortunately. As the calendar ticked towards Thanksgiving, Zack didn’t know what he wanted to deal with less—his ex and the condo that was now in contract to sell or his parents who now expected to see him for the occasion since he wasn’t in another country.

  Either way, he had to get on a plane. This time, when the adrenaline and the panic started, he felt entirely justified.

  THE CONDO, WHEN HE visited it for the last time, felt remarkably alien. His ex had finally taken his things, as well as all manner
of things that Zack hadn’t necessarily expected to go missing. Gone was all of their cookware, the chaise lounge that they had only bought for the living room because the realtor had thought it would make the place sell faster, and most of their art. The photo of his ex’s hands coiled with rope remained, as did boxes that Zack had never bothered to unpack when they had moved into this place originally.

  He couldn’t wait to purge all of it. Except the photo. Art was art, and he’d sell the damn thing on the internet to some collector who just wanted something vaguely sexy for their guest bedroom. Beyond that, he absolutely did not care. So much so, he was willing to spend the Thanksgiving holiday at his parents’ house, rather than sleep a single night in that apartment again.

  His parents lived in a gated community up in Jupiter, which was only the first of many reasons he didn’t usually visit them. His parents had never been his biggest fans, and there was no winning with them. Going into conflict zones hadn’t been heroic to them; just foolish. On that point, they’d quite possibly been right. But when he had stopped, they had then thought him a coward. They’d treated his book deal much the same: like it was a waste of time until it wasn’t enough. Their opinions on his marriage and divorce were equally as skeptical and unhelpful, but Zack had the sense to know that even a stopped clock was right twice a day. Which didn’t make it less infuriating; it just made it not matter.

  “How’s Wisconsin?” his father asked, pouring them both a cup of coffee.

  “Minnesota,” Zack corrected.

  “What? Oh yes. Of course,” his father said vaguely, as if anywhere not in Florida simply wasn’t worth distinguishing from anywhere else.

  “It’s fine,” Zack said. The same answer he’d given when asked about his day when he was in high school or his last trip to a combat zone. “I’m going to move there.”

  “For good?” his father asked. He seemed startled, which was at least a victory.

  “For now. I like it there.”

  “Ah,” his father said. “Well, good luck with all that.” Then he started talking about politics.

  Zack tuned him out. He was too unsurprised by his father’s indifference to be hurt by it.

  I’m done with all of it, he realized. Not just the condo, but Florida. His family’s bullshit. The feeling that his failures were innate, versus just ordinary messed up stuff he could deal with and fix, just like anyone else.

  The problem with him and Aaron had been bad choices, yes, but mostly, Zack realized now, it had been timing. Aaron had even said as much, and Zack hadn’t wanted to listen. Because then he would have had to have been patient and deal with his mistakes, and face the possibility that what he wanted wasn’t nearly as important as what Aaron was working towards.

  Oh well. Insight was great, but it couldn’t overcome circumstances anymore than it could overcome 24-hours and a turkey dinner with family that was just going through the motions all the way around. They even had to be difficult with him about hockey—of all things!—when he was just trying to do what all men were expected to do on national holidays, which was talk about sports.

  His choice to stick around the Twin Cities may not have made sense initially, and he may have just been thinking with his dick. But now he was all in. Permanently. Simply because it wasn’t this, which felt like not only a relic of a life he had never wanted, but also a relic of a life he had never had.

  Chapter 21

  THE GRAND PRIX SEASON

  Sapporo, Japan and Montreal, Canada

  AS THE DAYS IN THE Twin Cities grew shorter, the hours Aaron spent at the rink—and the gym—grew longer. There was constant strengthening, conditioning, and artistic polishing. His programs would never be perfect in the first half of the season, maybe not even until he got to the Olympics, assuming he did. But the work of improving it—and himself—was constant either way. That was the nature of competitive skating and what he loved about it: Every day was a challenge to get up and do better than he had the day before. And, in the process, become somehow even more himself.

  The work was, at its core, lonely. Sure, he trained alongside Charlotte and Huy and all the others. They shared ice for part of most days, did warm-up routines together, went to pilates classes together, played board games on Friday nights, and hung out at the farm when they needed a break—or the opportunity to do hard work that wasn’t about the Olympic dream.

  But still, when Aaron skated his programs, he was alone on the ice. And at night, falling asleep before nine because he was exhausted and sore, he was alone in his bed, too. No one could understand what those things felt like for him, even if they lived their own version of that too. He did his best to do what Huy had recommended, and he leaned into his own sadness and sense of isolation to let them be fodder for the program. It worked, at least as far as his skating went—in the last few weeks of the pre-season Katie had no complaints about the emotionality of his programs—but it wasn’t a fun mental place in which to live.

  Aaron missed Zack, sometimes so much it startled him. In another year he might have found someone else to have some fun and blow off some steam with. But he had no time, and even if he had...nobody was like Zack. And Aaron, who had loved variety in his happily-ever-after one-and-only fantasies, now only wanted him.

  The feelings of loneliness and missing Zack only fueled each other, and they grew more and more acute as Aaron’s first Grand Prix assignment—the NHK Trophy—drew closer. He couldn’t shake them even as he boarded the flight; his only relief was that some of the juniors had a competition the same weekend and, since Brendan was going with them, Katie was travelling with him.

  Maybe it was her presence, at turns soothing and prickly as his own mental state needed. Maybe Aaron was tired enough of feeling sad that he pushed away the rest of his own mental chatter while he skated and focused solely on being on the ice. Whatever it was, to his own delighted surprise, Aaron was in fourth at the end of the short program and managed to climb to second in the free skate.

  Aaron had never been so thrilled with a second-place finish as he was that night, taking a victory lap with Philippe Chastain and Yin Jae-Sun. Nothing was guaranteed until he was named to the team, and everything depended on how well Cayden did at his own Grand Prix events, but this was the best placement he’d ever had in an international event. He’d gotten off the ice at the end of the medal ceremony and fallen into a massive hug from Katie and about a thousand notifications on his phone, most of them texts from his family.

  Still, something didn’t feel right. Aaron tried to explain it to Katie on their way home, while they waited in Warsaw’s Chopin Airport on an unexpected stop due to a storm. In his luggage was the silver medal, which had turned out to be oddly challenging to airport security.

  Halfway through what was, he thought, a very eloquent discourse on skating and loneliness Katie interrupted him with a gentle nudge to his shin. “You want the guy who dumped you in order to, very reasonably, sort out his life and issues. I didn’t eat ice cream for three years so I could go to the Olympics. You just won a silver medal at an important event. I think you can deal.”

  Aaron slumped back against the uncomfortable airport seating. “I feel like it gets harder the closer I get. And you always had Brendan.”

  “Mmm.” Kate hummed thoughtfully. “‘Had’ is a word with a vast shade of meanings. He broke my heart all the time. I guess, more importantly, I broke his all the time too. We were a mess until way after we won.”

  “I know, I’ve seen videos.”

  Katie made a dismayed noise.

  Aaron continued. “I believe you when you say it was rough between you two. But you still had somebody, you know? I’m busting my ass and getting on a ridiculous number of planes and not seeing my family for months and it’s just me. I don’t think you get how hard it is to be a singles skater.”

  “If you want to try pairs, I can hook you up,” Katie said dryly.

  Aaron laughed despite his frustration. “I don’t want to try pairs!”<
br />
  “Didn’t think so.” Katie smiled. “And I’m afraid loneliness is the price you’re going to have to pay for a while.”

  “I miss home,” Aaron admitted. “I’m lonely, and I feel like I don’t belong here. On the ice it’s all good, but for everything else... I feel like I’m masquerading as an actual person.”

  “Because you’re a skater?” Katie asked.

  “No. Or, yes, but not just that.” Aaron fiddled with the strap of his carryon. “Because of the island. The rest of you are all mainlanders and you don’t know how different it is here. How...strange I find all of you.” Even saying it aloud made Aaron feel even more different than usual.

  “I had to pretend too, you know,” Katie said. “Brendan’s from the world and had money and was easygoing and fit in with the other skaters. I wasn’t and I didn’t. Still don’t, really. You’re from a place that’s hard.”

  “I’m from a place that’s weird,” Aaron corrected. “I don’t know how to explain what it’s like, that we’re all waiting to go back to the water. I know people are afraid of you when you skate, sometimes, but have you ever scared somebody because of where you were from?”

  “Oh, Aaron.” Katie’s voice was unusually tender. Which somehow made it all that much worse.

  Aaron slouched lower in his seat.

  “Well,” Katie said as she uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “I know I’ve scared Brendan a whole bunch of times.”

  “That’s different,” Aaron said.

  “Is it?” Katie asked. “I don’t think Zack was scared of you; he’s just doing something else. He just got divorced, and he’s selling a house in another state. He is also, may I remind you, a war reporter, and you, my sweet island child, are not the scariest thing he’s ever dealt with. If he’s into you, he has your best interests at heart and you’ll see him again when that’s right for both of you.”