Swan Song

Eighteen

My God, this reminds me
Of when we were young.
———————

As much as I wanted Jake to be at my competition, I couldn't get myself to invite him. Since Owen died, I hadn't put much thought or effort into skating and the last thing I wanted was to put on a poor performance for my friends and family so I refrained from inviting every single one of them, my parents included.

After making the hour and a half drive with Matt and his family to Anaheim, Matt was getting dressed and stretched but I just sat frozen as I looked around the Honda Center that, within hours, would have hundreds, if not thousands, of people in attendance.

"Hey, Swan Princess. Are you good?"

I turned my head slightly and saw Matt taking a seat beside me.

"Just taking it all in," I admitted. "Feeling kind of nervous, if you want me to be completely honest."

"We're going to do great," Matt encouraged me.

"I also feel guilty about uninviting everyone, especially after my mom stayed up all night with me to finish my dress."

Matt knew how important it was to me to always have my family in attendance but he also understood that this performance wasn't as well prepared for as any of our other competitions and we both, deep down, thought that we weren't going to do well.

"I still need to get dressed," I finally muttered as I stood up. "I'll meet you back out here in fifteen minutes to warm up."

I harshly blew air past my lips, making a raspberry sound as I began the walk to the locker room. It was so hard to believe that Matt and I had been competing together for almost twenty-five years and over that time, he truly had become one of my closest friends and I was immensely grateful for him and his family.

As I arrived in the locker room, I put my bag down and pulled out the beige dress that my mother had made for me. It was very plain and very far from the sparkly dresses I normally wore when skating but for our chosen song, this one worked perfectly.

Once it was on, I smoothed the dress out before putting my skates on and meeting Matt back out on the ice where we warmed up together before doing a quick run through of our performance.

Within hours, people began to file into the arena and all of the contestants all fell behind the scenes as each ice dance couple went through their performances.

Since Matt and I were last on the list, we found a room and used it to stretch, do dry runs of our performance, and just talk. As much as I always loved my job, it was always nice to have someone to talk to that didn't involve any aspect of work and Matt knew that.

"Did you ever think that six year old us would ever be here in their thirties with the same partner?" I asked as I stretched, preparing for our turn.

"Not in a million years but I'm so glad that we are here."

I looked to Matt with a grateful smile and thought back to all of our performances over the years. We went from wobbly little six year olds to confident, accomplished thirty-something's and I realized that I didn't want that performance to be my last performance. At least not yet.

"You're on deck."

Matt and I looked to the doorway and nodded before he pulled me to my feet.

"Now I wish I had invited everyone," I muttered as we began our walk to the ice.

The couple before us was already beginning their performance and I squeezed Matt's hand.

"We can do this," he encouraged me.

"So the only thing is that right before you toss me, I need you to give this a little tug," I instructed Matt, showing him a short string on the side of my dress.

"Maybe we should've practiced that."

"Probably but this is us we're talking about," I laughed.

My eyes followed the team before us as they did their dance and gasped as one of their stunts went wrong, sending the female dancer to the ice. Though they recovered, it left a bad mark on their scorecards and I hoped Matt and I's performance wasn't ill-fated as well.

"Let's do this," Matt said softly as the ice was smoothed out for us.

"Next on the ice we have Odette Kazansky and Matthew Rojas," we heard overheard from the announcer.

I gave Matt a tight hug before we went onto the ice, the arena lights already dimmed as the distinct bells of Once Upon a December began to chime and our dance started.

As we performed, I was so grateful for mine and Matt's chemistry. I still remembered when people always thought we had been dating just because of the kind of chemistry we had when were together on the ice but he came out our sophomore year of high school and even had a crush on Oliver so our chemistry only went so far.

"Now" I whispered loud enough for Matt to hear and he pulled the cord on the back of my dress, dropping a gold, sparkly veil from around my upper torso to cover the plain beige fabric of my dress.

Far away, long ago
Glowing dim as an ember

I heard various ooh's and aah's from the crowd as my dress seemed to magically transform in front of their eyes. I'd have to give my mom a special thank you when I saw her next for making this moment that much more special.

Once upon a December

Once our dance came to a close and the lights came back on, I looked out to the huge crowd and saw my parents, brother, and my entire squadron sitting front and center, not far from the glass. Above that, the first person I saw was Jake and he had a bouquet of roses and sunflowers sitting next to him. Of all of the people that were cheering in the building, he seemed to cheer the loudest.

"I didn't know they were coming," I whispered as I caught my breath, my eyes on our cheering section with a growing smile.

"I must've forgotten to tell you that I invited them," Matt laughed.

Our scores were tallied as we skated off of the ice and we stumbled into the locker room, laughing at how well we did despite thinking we wouldn't.

"What a freaking rush," I said as I sat on a bench and pulled my skates off.

"There's no way that you're letting this be your swan song," Matt encouraged me.

"Not yet," I laughed as we returned to the ice and were awarded second place for our performance, which was good enough to place but not enough to move on to nationals.

"We couldn't have done this if it weren't for you," I squealed as Matt picked me up and spun me around.

"Let's get out of here! I'm starving," Matt chuckled as we accepted our medals. "You thrive in chaos, you know that?"

"How do you think I got my call sign?" I laughed, pulling Matt along. "Let's go!"

Even with all of the drama and the delays, second place was better than either of us had hoped for and I was beyond happy my support system was there to experience it with us.

I was beyond happy that Jake was there to experience it with us.