Fire on Ice

Part 38

Nora POV

It's been 5 days since Nikolas and I broke up and today is going to be our first practice as a broken-up pair, which is ironic. We exchanged a few short messages yesterday about practicing and I'm glad that it seems we are still going to try and separate our feelings from the NIDC. Now that I have had a couple of days to myself, I know what I want to do and what I'm going to say to Nikolas, but that doesn't make me any less nervous about seeing him.

I get off the bus and walk into the gym. I see Coach coming out of his office and I pause for a second, realizing that I will have to explain our situation to him at some point. He sees me enter and smiles, "Hey kiddo, I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."

I let out a forced laugh, "Yeah, been busy." I can't seem to find the words to tell him, so I just keep quiet and hope that Nikolas will do it.

"Have fun at practice" He says before walking away. Walking into the locker room, I take a second to think about how this session will go. Will Nikolas be angry? Distant? Before I can think too much into it, I hear Coach call out to him when he walks in. Oh shit, I suddenly realize that I'm not ready for this. Taking a deep breath in, I put my stuff down and grab my skates. When I walk out, Nikolas is nowhere to be found, so I head straight to the ice.

As I finish tying up my skates, Nikolas walks out of the locker room and I turn to him. The sight of him makes me catch my breath. His eyes are sunken in, and his face is covered in stubble, as though he hasn't shaved in a while. The eye bags are more prominent and his hair looks like it hasn't seen a brush. But even given all of that, he still looks insanely attractive.

"Hi" I get out, even though my voice seems to be stuck in my throat.

"Hey" He grunts out. He barely makes eye contact with me and it feels like a punch to my gut. But what did I expect?

"Are you ready to get started? I have to be at Euphoria soon." He states.

"Uh yeah." Nikolas nods without looking at me and heads straight to the ice. I follow behind him.

Once we are on, he turns to me, "let's just run through the routine. And we can stop when we both feel satisfied with a run through." I look up at him, wanting to say more, wanting to say how sorry I am, but I hold back and just nod.

We each go to our starting positions at the each end of the rink, and weirdly enough, it feels even farther than usual. The music starts and we go straight into the routine. Our moves are polished and perfect, but now the steaming chemistry and tension we had before is no longer there. Our once fluid and emotional style has turned more mechanical than anything. But I can't complain, I just hope the judges will see it as an artistic choice if anything.

As we run through the routine, my mind races as I try to remember the speech I had planned out to deliver to him. After how I ended things with Nikolas, I feel like I owe him a better, calmly worded explanation. My olive branch to him. We run our routine about three times before we decide that we've had enough.

As we get off the ice I place my hand on Nikolas' arm to get his attention before he runs off, only for him to immediately retract it, almost as if he was flinching. Taken aback I quickly and awkwardly place my hand back on my side as he turns around to face me. His eyes are sharp and distant and I hate it so much. I take a deep breath, "Nikolas, I wanted to talk to you."

"I think you've said enough" He answers coldly.

"No, I was a mess the last time we talked. I feel like I owe it to you to set my words and feelings straight. So that there's less resentment."

He scoffs, "No, you owed me a chance. One chance, instead of just breaking up with me as soon as shit hit the fan."

I decide to continue despite his harsh words, "I'm sorry about how I... ended things. I was extremely upset and worried about my mom and I felt... I feel like I have a lot on my plate. I didn't want to put that pressure on you."