Vas and Val

Chapter 2

Vasilisa's Pov:

We get back to the training room and Al is actually not upset. I wonder if Val said something to her. Who knows. She tells us to get into starting positions and to run the program again. It started off good and we did all the steps in sync. Finally. We then get to the big lift. I really hope we get it.

He lifts me onto his leg and I turn my foot the right way as his hand slides up again. Great. I can almost hear his smirk as we finish the rest of the program. As we finish I am just glowing. We did it with not many mistakes. We look at coach out of breath.

"Acceptable. Get some water and get your skates on."

I just smile finally getting it. I look at Val. He looks back at me.

"Don't let that fuel your ego you still have a lot to work on princess."

I just frowned at him."Valery can't you just give me a break! I'm trying my hardest right now!"

"Well your best isn't going to win us the gold in 2 weeks if you keep practicing like you are now you need to step it up!" I can't believe he just said that to me. 

"You just don't understand do you. I have been working so hard for the past month. I barely get any sleep and I don't eat as much as I should because coach keeps telling me I need to lose weight so I don't look fat at the competition. I'm constantly being yelled at when i'm at home because of my grades at school. I'm here all day with you who just hurts my feelings and puts me down so excuse me for not being one hundred percent right now!" I just fight back tears as I look at him

He doesn't say a word. I grab my skates and turn to glance in his direction. It looks as though millions of thoughts are running through his head right now. 

"Valery lets go before Al flips out."

He just looks at me for a split second and then goes and grabs his skates. I walk out to the rink first him trailing behind me.

"Finally you two showed up. Lace up now you have already wasted enough time bickering!"

I hurry and lace up my skates and step on the ice. I feel so at home on the ice. I just skate around a little bit then start doing my warm ups. I just close my eyes and feel the rink under my feet. I cant even describe how it feels.

I reach the part of my warm ups where I am supposed to do a couple little jumps. I don't do single skating so I don't do any big jumps. Any of the ones I do is where I just jump and Valery catches me. 

I go to do one of the jumps and I lose my footing and land on my ankle weird and fall down. It doesn't feel like anything major so i just skate it off like coach always tells us to do. 

I hear Valery laugh and skate up to me. "You should stay on your feet. If you fall during the competition then we have no chance at winning."

"Shut up Valery." I skate away towards coach where she tells us to start on out partner warm ups. It takes everything in me to not slap him in the face. It's like his life goal is to make my life a living hell. I might be being dramatic but I don't really care. 

My ankle still hurts really bad. And to make matters worse it is on the same leg that I have to put on Val's leg during the lift. Just my luck. Nobody seems to notice or care though.

"Vasilisa put more weight on your other leg!" Well I guess somebody did. 

I forced myself to put more pressure on that leg and I felt a pain go straight up my leg. I fell again. 

"VASILISA GET IT TOGETHER!!" Al yelled at me. I looked at her and just nodded. This is going just great. I reminded myself that I just need to get through this practice then I can go home and ice my ankle. I got up and looked at Val. 

"I told you princess. Just stop falling." He just smirks at me. Why is he like this oh my gosh. I roll my eyes and frown but restrain myself from crying again. I will not cry this practice. I just wont I need to be strong for the competition. I made a promise to myself to not give up on the ice today.

We start going through the motions very slowly on the ice considering we haven't done the whole routine on the ice yet. Coach told us no lifts yet which I was thankful for. We did our turn section. I had to hold one of my legs up. The hurt ankle stayed on the ice unfortunately. 

I made it though the one person in sync turn section and I was actually proud of myself. Coach gave us a couple critiques on our timing but it helped and now i'm even better at it. We got some water then moved on the the partner turns. 

We got to our starting positions. I grabbed Valery's hand. I felt this rush of something race up my arm and into my stomach. I have never felt that before. I had to shrug it off. We started off good with those turns then Val had to grab my waist. I got that feeling again and almost fell. Val's grip on my waist tightened making sure I didn't fall but his hand still felt so soft. I felt safer in his hands for some reason. What is going on with me today. 

I managed to calm myself and get into the zone with skating. I loved when that happened. It means I am having a good practice. All the pain from my ankle is gone. I am grateful. 

"Acceptable job today you two. Go home and get some rest be back at 6:00 in the morning" I groan. 6:00 am. So early. Probably to work on lifts since we didn't do that today.

I skate off the ice and untie my skates. I start walking away until I suddenly feel two hands around me and I get lifted off the ground.