Tough Ice

Tough Ice: Chapter 48 - Katerina

1 month.

1 month is all that's left until I compete.

I rock back and forth on my blade while I wait for my private lesson to start, and Valery comes up behind me and sets his hands on my hips and lays a lazy kiss on my shoulder.

I don't look back.

I don't feel.

I don't live I don't breathe I don't hear.

"My love." My mouth goes to respond, but no words come out.

I touch a finger to my lips slowly, and Valery grabs onto my wrist. I try to pull back, but no sign of movement is seen.

The buzzer sounds for the young skaters to get off the ice, and Valery lets go of me ever so slowly, and I walk onto the ice numbly.

My coach gets me to run my routine that I have done all too many times over and over and over.

My legs are laced with exhaustion my eyelids fighting hard with my brain to shut my skate laces slowly untying.

I finish my routine again and my coach claps the same way she has the entire 3 hours I've been training.

"Go stretch in the gym Katerina, I'll see you tomorrow."

I give her a weak smile and skate to the edge and hook my skate guards around my blades and head into the change rooms.

I come out and my fiancé is waiting for me.

I don't say anything.

He grabs my waist, tells me he loves me, tells me I can get through this, only a little longer, tells me he believes in me, still, I say nothing.

"Baby I know you're exhausted." He lifts me up and carry's me to the gym and sets me down on a bench.

I stare up into his eyes and say croakily, "I can't- I can't I can't I can't I can't." He goes to say something but his voice cracks and his lip quivers, so he opts for kissing my knee a few times.

A tear falls from my eye and he wipes it away hastily.

My forehead drops to his shoulder and I don't fight it.

He wraps his arms around my waist and whispers sweet things I don't bother to actually take in into my ears.

The anxiety is haunting me.

I've tried seeing a therapist, but I just can't explain how I'm feeling.

I don't know whether it's exhaustion or stress or something else I just know it doesn't make sense and I want to hunt down whoever's making me feel like this, even though I know I only have myself to blame.

I sit down on the edge of the treadmill after stopping it because running for 30 minutes is tiring and I can't do it anymore. I move over to the rowing machine and do the insane amount of reps my coach has me do, feeling nothing but pain and exhaustion and a weird tightness in my chest which I can't quite pinpoint what it is.

I stretch my muscles in all sorts of ridiculous poses for an unending amount of time before lying down on the yoga mat and staring at the ceiling.

Valery walks over and stands over me with concern striking his beautiful beautiful beautiful face. "You're going home princess."

"No- I can't- I still have so much left to do." I say rubbing my eye and standing up, but he grips my hips and shakes his head.

"I don't care, you're going home." I try to protest but he lifts me up and grabs my skating bags and slings it over his shoulder, and I fight sleep while being carried.