Four Minutes, Together
Part 3 of An Original Story
After I lose Olympic gold, after Zander Starnova falls three times and can't buy a quad in one of the worst free skates of his life, after I take Hannah out the next day for Valentine's Day lunch on the town, and she makes me laugh till I cry, again... After she and Brandon ambush me and drag me to the practice rink that night, making me skate just over 24 hours after the disaster... After I lie in bed in my little apartment in the athlete's village, and stare at the ceiling until I hear Brandon snoring faintly through the wall... After all that... things are different.
I find him in the cafeteria Sunday morning, sitting with a couple ladies from the Finnish hockey team of all things. I snatch some fruit, pocketing an apple while I stuff a handful of grapes in my mouth, and barely restrain myself from walking over and telling the Finnish girls to leave. I need Brandon, I need to talk to him, just the two of us. We need to skate.
I slide in beside him, and it feels like high-school again, the little taste of it we had between competitions. We both graduated mostly via correspondence, thanks to my mother never letting us slack off. But I remember trying to sit with other kids, and never knowing what to talk about, never knowing what any of them did with their weekends. Their conversations would wash around me, and I would catch myself wishing... wishing for Brandon. Wishing for stupid, goofy Brandon who talked to all kinds of people he didn't know and made everyone like him.
I bite my tongue, but I look daggers over at the woman sitting across from me, and she goes red as a tomato. When they leave, Brandon turns to me, exasperated. "It's a good thing you're handsome, cause I can't see why else Hannah sticks with you."
"Well, you can't take home a Finnish girlfriend, idiot," I retort. "Women aren't like stray puppies in the street."
"But he was so cute." He sighs, takes a spoonful of gelato, savours it before he swallows. "I hope someone nice adopted him." He waits another beat, and I don't look at him. "So, what's up? Everything okay? Look if you don't want to do the CBC sit-down–"
"What are you skating for the gala?" I interrupt.
He shrugs. "Star Wars, probably. "Force Theme". That's always a crowd-pleaser."
I've seen him skate that one half a dozen times at least, and he always loves it, everyone always loves it, loves him, steady and dependable Brandon.
And I am afraid, afraid to ask him, because what if he says no, what if he doesn't understand, what if no one understands? I've already thought about what the rest of the world might think, but still, I want to do it, to tell him what he means to me the only way I know how.
I swallow something that isn't there, sitting on my hands to keep them still. "What if you skated with me instead?"
He pauses, spoon halfway to his mouth, forehead creasing in confusion. "What, you mean like a duo routine?"
I nod.
"Huh." He drops the spoon in his bowl, fiddling with it. "I mean, we haven't skated a gala together since..."
"Since my mother coached us, I know." My voice is not as flat as I'd like, but I ignore it.
Brandon exhales, nods. "I liked it," he admits, smiling a little. "That "Boys Are Back" routine was so much fun."
"Even though you almost kicked me in the head that one time at Nationals." But a smile is fighting it's way onto my face too.
"You're the one who stepped on my hand and sent me to the hospital," he retorts. Then he laughs. "Good times. So what are you thinking now?"
Okay, well, that isn't a no, but it ain't a yes either... "Taylor Swift," I say, quietly. "Long Live".
"Wait, you mean a new rountine?" He stares at me. "Dude, it's Sunday. The gala's on Saturday. Do you have time–" Brandon stops, shakes his head, and then he's laughing softly, rolling his eyes. "What am I saying? You can choreograph a new routine in ten minutes."
I give him a flat look. "And you are an Olympic champion, and I'm a three-time World Champion; I think we can learn something new in less than a week."
Brandon grins, blushing a little, like he does literally every time someone mentions his Olympic gold medal. Seriously, it's starting to be a problem. Man needs to start acting like a conquerer, not some star-struck kid. But then I think... I don't want him to. I don't want him to get cocky and stuck up, I don't want him to act like me, like I would. I want him to stay him. Just Brandon. My best friend.
"You know the song?" I ask.
"I have sisters."
I roll my eyes, pull out my phone. "Okay okay. Here, let me sketch it out for you."
His hand on my arm stills me. "But, Zan..." I look up into his suddenly worried face, his eyes strangely scared. "That's a goodbye song."
I shrug. "I mean, yeah, we are saying bye to Italy. To the Olympics. What's wrong with that?"
An exhale, the furrow in his forehead starting to smooth out. "But it's not... goodbye?" There's something odd about his voice. "I mean, you're not... retiring?"
I blink at him, then throw my head back with a shout of laughter. "No! Oh, B, no. Hell no!" I wrap an arm around his neck, shaking him as I giggle. "You idiot!"
He throws his arms around my middle, even as he pretends to struggle, and his voice is muffled in my side when he says, "Oh, thank God. You're too young to die."
Warm affection beats up in my chest, and I scruff my knuckles over his head, messing up his perfect spike job. "It's a celebration, you doofus."
He sits up straight, flushed and damp-eyed, before retuning to the last globs of green gelato in his bowl. "Celebration of..." He raises an eyebrow, waiting for me to finish.
"This." I wave my hand around. "Us. Everything it took to get here, everyone who helped us. It's been twelve years. I think we should say 'long live us'."
He regards me thoughtfully, until I finally break the stare. I can't explain to him what's changed, I don't know how to say things like this. I don't know how to tell him that I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner, I'm sorry I didn't see him sooner. I'm sorry I treated him as second best for all these years, when he's only ever wanted me to win. I'm sorry I wasn't the friend to him that he has always been to me.
"So what's the story?" he askes, and I take a deep breath, weight instantly lifted. This I can explain.
"So we start back-to-back, a couple metres apart. And then for the guitar intro, we drift out, around the outside, looking out, but we don't see each other until the first line, and then you see me..."
I talk for half an hour, and we almost miss the sit-down interview with CBC. I can see it all so clearly in my head, feel it in my legs, in my hands. "Oh, and for costumes," I'm saying, even as we get shepherded to set, "we need the ripped jeans, and the plaid shirts over t-shirts, and you have to have the baseball cap."
Brandon listens and nods and smiles, asking few questions, and it's so classic of him, it makes me happy, gives me confidence. I think, He understands, he hears what I'm saying, and what I'm trying to say.
Re-focusing for the interview is hard; I let Brandon do most of the talking. He makes everyone laugh, and he makes everyone tear up, and he talks about his favourite movies and what courses he's taking this year for university. He's so good at guiding the conversation, keeping me from having to say much about my mother, and skipping over what happened before Bejing. I talk about my cats, and how Hannah loves lizards and wants a big snake some day.
When they ask me if I can explain what happened in my free skate, I struggle for words, I try to tell them about the way dread had pooled in my stomach, the way I knew before I even stepped out on the ice that it was going to go wrong.
I've never really had a problem with interviews before. With my mother's coaching, I knew how to keep things simple and to the point, and I had never been allowed to brag. She must have been horrified to hear me talk after last year's Worlds, even though I had said nothing but the truth. If she watched. Brandon is talking about the experience of being in Italy, and I shake off the uncomfortable thoughts to chime in.
We go to the gym that night, rather than the rink. Coach Kim puts his foot down, demanding we rest for at least one day. So in our socks and shorts we dance, blocking out the moves, our positioning, where to put our hands. We talk about what we're doing, but not about what it means. How he circles me through that first verse, follows me, trying to catch up, mirroring me until we explode into the chorus, in step at last.
I know the story, of how Brandon saw me skating one day in Woodstock and was so amazed he begged his mom to let him share my coach. I watched him chase me, watched him leap and reach and glide, and then went out and demanded of myself that I be better. He pushed me, though I knew now he had never meant to. Not the way I had always thought.
When we flop on the floor with our water bottles and towels, because it is freaking warm in here, we are laughing as we remember our first ever duo exhibition performance, to "Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?" from Frozen. We had worked so hard to tell the story right, except I still mostly hated him at that point, and he was still figuring out what my limits were. Social limits, at least. I didn't have many in the skating skills department.
"You had a black eye for a week," I say.
"Your mom was funny, how she didn't even get mad at you for that one." Brandon lazily juggles his water from one hand to the other. "She just sat down and laughed until I think she cried."
"Yeah, that was scary."
A beat.
"Has she tried to call you?"
I don't look up from where i am twisting my towel around my fingers, tight enough that it hurts. "Nope."
Something heavy hangs between us, the things we don't talk about, and I can only hope the treadmills and the clanging of weights and the murmurs of conversation are enough to cover up our words.
"You?" I try to sound casual.
"No." Brandon hesitates. "I... saw she tagged us in a Facebook post that said congratulations, but it wasn't particularly... personal."
I... don't know what to think of that. I have been holding myself on a rigid ban from all social media outside DMs, and rewatching Brandon's free skate on YouTube.
"I'm sure she's very proud of you." The words come out rough and uncertain, and I hate myself for it.
But Brandon smiles quietly. "Of you too. You keep forgetting that you have a gold medal too."
I dismiss him with a wave of my hand. "The team thing doesn't count."
"Rude!" He cuffs me over the head.
When we do one last run through of the song, instead of putting the crown on him after taking the baseball cap, I put him in a headlock, and escort him from the room.
It's good to have something more, something left to do here at the Olympics, rather than sit around and mope. Because otherwise I would be sorely tempted. But as I work with Brandon, as we skate together, for the first time in four years as a duo, well... it's funny. Because every time the hurt and the sting comes back, I look over at him, and it's not so bad.
I see the clip of him hugging me after I got my score, when I broke down and cried and he held me tight and strong and safe, and the memory of that warmth, the way I felt completely understood and, well, loved in the absolute worst moment of my life... that beats out the shame.
I try to hold onto that, and let the pain go.
It isn't easy. We're running through the second verse one day, and it hits me, hard, how I had longed for this one shining chance, and now it's over and gone, and I can't go back, and I can't undo it, and I–
I flub the next pivot, almost smacking into Brandon, who catches me when I stumble.
"Zan?" he says, with that stupid gentle voice he's so good at.
I shove him off and call to Coach Kim, "Restart, please!"
Instead he glides to join us, hands behind his back in that demure attitude of his. "Starnova," he says without preamble. "Scream."
Instinctively I look up into the stands, the little knots of other skaters and coaches who are waiting their turns, talking and laughing. There are cameras up there, I know.
"You must not hold it in," Coach says, insistent, demanding. "If you hold it in, it will break you from the inside. You know this. A star that collapses in on itself becomes a black hole. You want to scream. So scream!" He flings the last word at me in a shout.
The raised voice shatters something inside, and a wordless yell busts out of me. I've done this before with Coach Kim; every time I flub something or get frustrated, he makes me scream for awhile. He says the bit about the black hole every time. And he's always right.
I scream until my throat hurts, Brandon egging me on. I scream until I come back into my body, blinking into Brandon's red face, and we both stop at the same moment, panting, staring at each other.
The world is quiet.
"Um," says a timid voice nearby. "Are you okay?"
We look over, and all the other skaters are there, leaning on the barriers, some on the ice, as if ready to intervene somehow. All of them are wide-eyed, scared looking.
Brandon and I look at each other, and at the same moment we collapse into laughter, doubled over wheezing and gasping, before we tumble to the ice, caught up in the ridiculousness of it all. Everyone else starts laughing too, and when I catch my breath at last, and look up at the others, in a weird way I feel like I belong.
Most people keep their distance from me; after all, I have a reputation. I don't do friends, I don't do small-talk, I don't do trust. My circle is small for a reason. But in this moment, I feel the people around me—Japanese, American, French, Chinese, men and women, most of whom I have skated against many times—and I don't think I need to run.
Someone suggests we run through the final group number, if that's okay with me, and I nod, accept the hand someone offers to pull me up.
The gala is a whirlwind of lights and music and laughter, blurring for me, until we're pulling off our guards, and then we glide out under the spotlights, just us, the crowd in shadow.
I start when Brandon slips his hand into mine, but his touch is warm, and something cold and tense in my chest and shoulders melts. I squeeze back, certain he can feel my heart beat through my fingers.
"From Canada," the announcer calls, "Zander Starnova and Brandon Hobbes!"
The feathers and rhinestones of our free skate costumes are gone, it's long-sleeved plaids unbuttoned and jeans with the knees ripped out, casual, comfortable. Us. I'm wearing the Hockey Canada t-shirt he bought me on our first day here, and he's in one of his dad's CAF shirts. He's got his ballcap turned backwards.
The rest of the world fades out, even the cheering crowd relegated to set dressing for the drama that plays in my head. But not Brandon. Brandon is solid and real, maybe the realest thing in the world right now. I look over at him, the way he's smiling up at the crowd, waving to his mom and dad, and I would say something, but I have no words.
We reach centre ice, and now he's the one looking at me. "Long live us," he says with a grin and a wink, before his warm hand slips out of mine, and he glides away to take up his position.
I close my eyes as I turn my back, and when I open them again, the stands are dark, and the ice in front of me is brilliant white. In that heartbeat of silence, I swear I can hear Brandon breathing.
Stay with us, Starnova, Coach Kim always says. Do not skate away your soul; here with us is not such a bad place to be.
Tonight, tonight he is right. Tonight I want to stay right here, with Brandon. I want four minutes to last forever.
