COLD ICE, BLEEDING HEARTS | Ilia Malinin

They say that in figure skating, if you stare at your partner's blades, you'll eventually fall. You have to look at the horizon, they tell you. You have to trust that he is there without checking.

"Don't fall, Kate," he whispered.
"I won't if you don't," I replied.
That was our first promise. Our first lie.

I didn't know that thread would become a chain.
I didn't know that for the next ten years, my every breath would depend on his.