Ice Queen

Chapter 10 ~ "I'm here to listen"

Nate

I've never seen her look like this, she looks beaten down, small and afraid. I walk over and shut her door before sitting down next to her. She keeps her eyes on the floor and presses her lips together.

"What happened?" I ask quietly. "I didn't stick around to the end but you looked great out there. Did you get second again?"

"No." She says wiping her tears away with her palms. "I just got the best score I've ever received in my entire life." I furrow my eyebrows and smile.

"Then what's wrong?" I ask and she sighs.

"He won't let me skate like that again." She says shaking her head. "He says I don't know anything about this and I need to listen to him."

"Well that clearly can't be true." I say. "You just did fantastic."

"I know it's not true." She says quietly. "I know I'm right, but he almost fired my coaches and now he's coming to all of my practices......I don't know what to do anymore."

"It's alright-"

"No it's not." She says bringing a hand up and wiping away another tear. "My whole life is figure skating, I've given up everything to make this happen. And given the way things are going right now, if I let him run me over I won't place in sectionals." 

"Why didn't you call me?" I ask quietly and she sighs. "I'm here for you Sash, but you need to tell me when things are wrong."

"I-I was going to....but I just couldn't." She whispers. "I wanted to try and calm down first and then I figured you'd be with Sabrina."

"Well right now I'm doing a 'family thing' with mom. I thought you'd be happy, we could talk about it." I say shrugging my shoulders.

"I was happy, dad burst my bubble." She huffs and I reach over for her hand. She moves closer and wraps her arms around me instead. "You don't have to worry though, I heard the door slam. He's gone somewhere for the evening."

"Just breathe." I whisper and she nods. "I'm right here."

She always holds onto me like if I let go I'll disappear. I can understand why, I did it once before. Sasha doesn't have the emotional support she needs to go through what she does in figure skating. She's lonely, isolated. 

I stand up with her and she follows me. She brings me to her bed and pulls me to lay down next to her. She puts her face on my chest and sniffles. I just let her take some deep breaths for a while and I wrap my arms around her until she seems to relax.

"I know there's so much wrong for you right now." I say quietly. "I don't know if I can fix any of it but if you want to talk about anything, I'm here to listen." She takes a shaky breath in and then closes her eyes.

"The first time I ever skated was when I was four years old. Most people start at five but dad wanted to train me earlier. My brothers were already skating and got to spend so much one-on-one time with dad so I figured it would be so much fun. For a while it was, we were all skating together and then I met you." She says quietly.

"There was a time in my life when dad would clap and smile when I got a trick right. When we'd go to the rink together and bond. I started competing around age eight and that's when I noticed Nik and Alex just didn't seem to like it anymore. They were getting made fun of at school for doing something 'girly'. Dad started getting more heavy handed about our practicing, forced them to continue until they couldn't take it anymore.

"Nik quit that year, when he was ten. This was back when mom still had a backbone, she put him in hockey. 'At least it was skating' was her argument, Alex quit the year after that at eleven. Nik was having fun and dad just pushed Alex until one day, he broke. Dad wanted them to skate, to be like him. But they couldn't deal with all the pressure dad was putting on them, so they quit." She says and starts crying.