Empty Handed

Alternate (Chapter Twenty-Three)

Songs Of The Chapter:
Blood, Sweat and Tears by BTS
Anchor by Novo Amor

MATT
Being an alternate isn't great at all. When it was announced that I would be an alternate, I thought it would be daisies and sunshine; I was so wrong. It's almost like I'm non-existent here. I try my best to train very hard when I can. The coaches over here don't even look my way. They're always working with the other skaters.

Summer Olympics start next week and I wonder how Scott's doing all the time. He rarely has time for phone calls because he's always training. Last I heard from him, he's been working on a quad twist. A very smart move for a wow factor.

Lea pulled some strings and was able to come pick me up to go for Summer Olympics and be there for Scott. No one really had a problem letting me go. I even heard one of the skaters say something like "he wasn't even needed here in the first place". That would be Chris Riley. He completely hates my guts because he knows that if I keep getting better and better, he will be the one fixed as an alternate when we head to Beijing for Winter Olympics, since he performs the least out of the selected figure skaters.

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I was up on the stands and watching Scott come out to compete for finals. He looked so different. His arms were more pronounced, he was paler but without a doubt, breathtakingly handsome.

He had gone through qualifications and was part of the top ten highest qualifying scores which was great but Scott was fourth. The competitors from Russia, China and Japan really brought their A-plus game. The good part was that, Scott, the drama queen will be unveiling his quad twist at finals. He had been working really really hard on it and when he finally got it, he was ecstatic. I would know, because, he called me immediately it happened. Now, according to him, he lands the quad "solid". I was getting really queasy waiting for it.

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[SCOTT'S OLYMPIC FLOOR ROUTINE]

So, it turns out that Scott did absolutely great on floors. However, what we did not expect was Igor Voznesensky from Russia and Ren Komatsuzaki from Japan also pulling out quad twists. Scott put up a great fight but ended up with silver on floors, silver on vault, bronze on horizontal bars and an all-around bronze medal, missing the gold-medal spot. There was a slight disappointment on his face as he collected his medals but Lea and I couldn't be any more proud of him.

He spotted us in the crowd when the Japanese national anthem was playing and he couldn't help but smile so big at the two of us. I discreetly made a heart sign with my hands and put them on the left side of my chest.
When the anthem was over and while people were cheering, Scott mouthed me an "I love you so much".