Change of Heart - Yuri Plisetsky x Reader

Chapter Seventeen

"Thirteen... Fourteen... Fifteen."

I laid pensively on my bed, staring blankly at the ceiling as I counted. According to my simple calculations, there would be fifteen days between the upcoming tournament and the worldwide competition. I tried not to think about the fact that there was a mere three days between now and the actual tournament.

Frustrated with my feelings of anxiety, I turned on my side, gazing out the large window that faced the front of the house. Usually, a look at the beauty of the outdoors was enough to calm me. Sometimes my panic would rise up too close to the surface, and just when it began to feel like too much to bear, I would glance desperately out at the world outside and my nerves would begin to settle. It was calm on our street, quiet, serene. The tranquil atmosphere of the outdoors was ordinarily enough to distract me from the discord within my own head.

Unfortunately, however, it was also drizzling outside; For this reason, my thoughts were drawn to yet another anxiety inducing subject that I'd been trying to ignore.

I'd been grateful for Yuri's silence over the past few days; It seemed both of us were feeling too shy and confused to try to communicate. I found myself very torn when it came to the topic of Us; On the one hand, I was firmly convinced that thinking too much about it would be my downfall. I wanted so badly to be able to push him to the side in my mind for the moment. After all, there were other, much more important things for me to be worried about, and the last thing I wanted was to be distracted by something as trivial as puppy love.

Or... That's what I told myself. And it was true, to an extent. Thinking about Yuri was something so intense that even I found myself struggling with it. However, try as I might to not think about him (which is really just another sly way of thinking about him), I kept finding my thoughts wandering back to that night. I'd lay awake at night, clutching my pillow, wishing we'd had just a bit more time. Wishing that such a thing hadn't happened when there was no place for it. Why couldn't we have had our first kiss on one of the many nights we were all alone in the skating rink, when the lack of other people made our connection feel even deeper than that of love?

After pondering this depressing subject for a while, I would fall into a state of fear and confusion deeper than any I'd known before. Thoughts like these, so often plagued by my suppressed fears about my own inability to choose, my sneaking around, my lies, my emotional instability... They became exceedingly hard to deal with, to the point at which I honestly felt that running away from it all would be a much better choice than the ones currently at my fingertips.

Then, of course, my thoughts would be drawn back to the warmth of Yuri's trembling hand in mine, and the giggly, childish fit that followed was usually enough to dispel any feelings of doubt I'd previously harbored... For the time being, anyway.

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In such a frantic emotional state, it came as no surprise to myself that as I got ready for work on Monday, I was significantly dreading coming within fifty miles of the ice rink. (Unfortunate, considering the fact that I lived less than a mile away.) It took great effort for me to pull on my clothes, brush hair, brush teeth, and even eat breakfast. Each step I took was one that brought me closer to seeing Yuri again, and the divide it caused in my brain was sending me into whole new depths of inner turmoil. I get to see him again! My mind would sing, harmonizing perfectly with the hesitant chorus of, How on earth can I even look at him again?

Alas, my willpower was too strong for me. Furthermore, it had a single purpose, which was more than I could say for my desires. Willpower pushed me to go to work, as it had been for months, and the duality inside me wasn't enough to fight against it. So despite questioning myself every step of the way, I was able to get through the morning and leave the house, confidence be damned.