Hopelessly Devoted ☆ Pierre Gasly

XII

THE PAST

The blades of Juliette's ice skates were gliding over the ice. Juliette was pressing all the energy she had left away. She was tired, but she needed to keep pushing. Her throat hurt from breathing; there was a pressure on her back because of the position she was in, her ankles hurt; what didn't hurt at this point?

Juliette finished the session, and she leaned with her hands on her knees while she was flowing over the ice. Blood was pumping through her veins.

"2.12.89," Juliette's mother Claire said when she read the time of the stopwatch. "Not good enough! Merde, Juliette!"

Juliette breathed deeply in by her nose and breathed out by her mouth. She was shaking her head, showing she couldn't do better. This was all she had; this was her limit. I have to stop, I can't continue. What am I even doing? It was silence in the ice hall. Only Juliette and her mother were the only ones in the hall.

"You need to get under the 2 minutes, around 1.55! This is unacceptable. I'm not used to getting results like this. Start over again on the 1500 metres. You can do better," Claire said and rubbed with her hand over the frown on her forehead.

"No, I don't want it," Juliette mouthed when she was standing next to her mother. "I don't want it," she heavily breathed.

Claire's face was straightened. "There's a difference between 'I don't want it' and 'I can't do it'," she began. "You need to improve. You're making mistakes, you're not focused enough. Start all over again. We're not stopping until you-"

"I can't!" Juliette sneered. "I can't, maman... This is all I can do." Tears filled her eyes.

"You are not good enough!" Claire raised her voice. "Allez, go start again!" She turned away from Juliette and was shaking her head.

A sob left Juliette's mouth. "Maman..."

"Non, Juliette! Don't cry, you're not a baby. I don't have all day long," Claire shouted. It made Juliette flinch. "Allez! You piece of..."

Juliette didn't wait for a second longer. She skated away from her mother, back to the start. She sniffed and dried her cheeks from the tears. It didn't help, more tears rolled down her cheeks. I don't want to do it, I can't do it. She took a deep breath and snapped her knuckles; it hurt, because she was forcing herself to crack her knuckles.

"Ready..." Claire looked at Juliette, who was standing in the starting position. "Go!"

It wasn't a session to remember. Juliette had some difficulties staying in balance in the turns, and she made a few mistakes; it was messy. She could see the fire in her mother's eyes when she was finished. Juliette didn't think about it twice when she grabbed her bag on the out lap.

"Juliette Françoise Reynolds! You can't do anything right! You are fucking useless to this world!" Claire shouted.

Juliette removed the hood from her head and put the protectors on the blades of her ice skates. Because she was rushing, Juliette stepped off the ice and walked to the stairs with some struggles. She listened to the rant of her mother and how harder her voice got.

"Don't walk away from me!"

It became a challenge to escape from her mother on ice skates. There wasn't an option she could sit down and remove her ice skates and put on her shoes; that would take too much time. Juliette didn't care about the fact she was still on her ice skates, she didn't care she left in her spandex skin suit; she just needed to go before it was too late. Luckily for Juliette, her mother was wearing ice skates as well, so her mother couldn't be faster on the ice skates. It was difficult to run on ice skates, it was more like jogging now, and it hurt the ankles. Juliette needed to leave, no matter what the physical problems could be. It was her luck; the metro station was next to the sports hall. She rushed off the stairs, checked in and ran to the first random metro that was departing.