"I hate you so fucking much." She seethes as she walks towards me.
"Oh really?" I respond, arms folded across my chest.
"Yes really." She shoots back.
By this point there was barely any space between us, I could see all her features from her big bro...
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Sometimes I regret deciding to skate, why can't I be good at singing and dancing like Beyoncé or Janet Jackson? Or good at acting like Angela Basset or Taraji P Henson? If I were good at those things, I wouldn't have to put up with the verbal abuse disguised as 'corrections'.
"Focus Delia." Coach Balek barks as she folds her arms across her chest.
Verbal abuse is a bit of a stretch but the point still stands, there is no logical reason why a middle-aged woman should be screaming at me to straighten my back at 9 in the morning. If I hear her voice rise above a normal octave again, I might just chuck my skates at her face.
Coach B was a cold, strict woman always draped in a black fur coat with a black turtle neck even though it was like fifty degrees. Her hair was always done up in a tight blonde bun on the top of her head which gave leeway to her sharp cheekbones and deep frown lines. Her ice-blue eyes pierced into your soul as you stared at them, adding to the chill of her demeanour.
She was also what you could consider a perfectionist, both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing because her extreme drive and dedication to her talent were admirable. I mean that's what turned her into a skating superstar back in her day. Her perfectionism led her to receive an astonishing array of trophies and medals and compete in some of the biggest skating competitions in the world.
Although she refused to admit it, her version of 'perfect' was quite unhinged. She wouldn't mind keeping us here until midnight till she deemed the choreo 'perfect'.
Coach B was practically at the top of the world till she made the grave mistake of falling in love with her skating partner. Instead of sliding on ice, he slid into her leading to her holding a baby instead of a trophy resulting in the end of her skating career. That's probably why she's been in a bad mood consistently.
Me and Fabien often joke about her being the real-life Natasha Romanoff. There was no evidence to this theory but there were times when she would yell at us and her Czech accent would slip out. She never hid the fact that she was Czech, sometimes she would even tell us stories about her home country, giving us a glimpse into the woman behind the ice wall before yelling at us to get back to work.
"Quit being lazy Delia, lazy girls don't win medals or trophies." She yells out again, fueling my annoyance with her stupid remarks. She was practically targeting me and it was driving me insane. I'm aware she wants the best for me and for me to do my best but she could go about it in a better way.
Fabien is one of the best male figure skaters Hudson University has to offer. He moves across the ice so smoothly with a great level of agility. He's also a fast learner and picks up a new skating trick in minutes.
