Page 92 of Back Outside Edge

“You’re welcome?” He follows me, shaking his head. Humoring me.

“To answer your question.” I turn back to him again, still grinning. Still light as air. “If I have another bad day? Then I have another fucking bad day! And this time, I’ll be ready for it. I’ll recognize it. And it’ll be fine.”

Finally, I see understanding dawn in his gorgeous eyes. “Oh, Stefan,” he breathes, and his arms are wrapping around me again. I let him pull me in, swaying into him, hugging him back. “I love you so much.”

“Thank you,” I repeat, breathing in his scent. “Please move in with me. I promise, I won’t fall apart again. I’ll find that balance, and you’ll help me. Shit, I’ll hire a fucking therapist to help me. A sports psychologist or something. I’ll get it right this time, no matter what happens this week.”

“Ok.” His lips find mine, and they taste like salt. He’s crying, or I’m still crying. Or both of us are crying.

“Ok,” I answer, kissing him back. Drowning in him. Loving him more than anything. Maybe even more than skating. Maybe.

But he doesn’t need me to, and that realization in itself is enough to send me flying. That he understands, because he loves skating as much as I do. He just needs me to love it the way he’s been learning to since his fall. With an open-heart, without bitterness and regret clouding the joy, driving me to levels of perfection that are impossible to achieve. That have been slowly destroying me.

I doubt it will be easy. I won’t have this clarity every moment of every day. But I meant it. I’ll hire someone to help, because I don’t want this feeling to go away. I don’t want to go back to the darkness. The crushing weight of not being good enough when it matters.

“I love you.”

He laughs, tears choking the sound. I’ve never heard anything more beautiful. I kiss him, again and again, until both of us are melting. Until the rest of the world disappears and it's only the two of us, healing together.

The absolute roar that greets me as I skate onto the rink for the free program of my second Olympic Games is so loud that it’s a physical force. It pushes me back, and I have to fight through it to move into position.

I’ve refused interviews for the past two days, wanting to focus on this moment, but it doesn’t seem to have hurt my popularity. Going into the free skate with a five point lead over Max and a ten point lead over everyone else is more than I expected. I still want to expand on that lead. Crush it and every other free I’ve ever skated. Beat my record, the way Evan said I would.

Not because I need redemption. I’ve managed to retain my convictions there since Evan helped me see that I’ve been pushing for all the wrong reasons. No. I want to crush my own record because I can. Because I’m that good, and I want to show the world. Because I’ve been working on this program nonstop for a full season and it’s breathtaking if I skate it clean.

I want to show the audience, the world, not that I won’t fall apart again, but that I can work miracles. That I can make them feel things they never knew they could feel.

Maybe it’s an egotistical goal, but it’s the one that works for me. It’s not about the past. It’s about art. Making art and showing art. The kind Evan excels at. The kind he’s given to me. Let me make a part of myself.

They’re all going to see living, breathing, skating piece of art tonight. I think they know it, if the roar is any indication. If the response to my short was. I’ve always gotten good reviews from announcers, fans, even judges. But I’ve never seen anything like the outpouring of love and tears I got for my short program two days ago.

The one Evan helped me choreograph, then refine, through the season. The one that says everything about how I feel for him without saying a word.

This one, the free, has morphed in the last couple of days, from a cry of anguish to a poem of loss and rebirth. Of finding my way through the impossibilities of the last four years and coming out on the other side of them, all the richer for it.

Dad wasn’t convinced that changing so many elements at the last minute was a good idea, but I held firm. They aren’t big changes, not enough to risk the integrity of the program or my hard-won ability to skate the entire thing by muscle memory. And if I fall back to the old movements at any point, it won’t hurt anything.

But I don’t think I will.

Not when this new interpretation is so perfect. So precisely what it was always supposed to be.

Even my costume this year lets me express myself. For the most part. It's maybe not as simple as I’d like, but not as garish as my mother and costume designer want, either. It fits me like a second skin, hiding the light bruises Evan’s fingers and teeth left when I begged him to mark me last night, to make me feel him every minute of this skate. They aren't as prominent as I'd like, but they’re there.

And that, too, brings me peace. Connects me to the man I love whenever I focus on them.

I take one last loop around the rink to the screams and cheers of my fans. Some of the posters make me blush, others would make me laugh if I were less focused. The pride flags everywhere bring tears to my eyes. The fans have been so wonderful, have fought for me when media and sponsors tried to make my life difficult. It's still so strange to see the wash of rainbows during my skates, but it's getting easier to see myself in it.

At the center of the ring, I lie on the ice, taking position. I might have been flirting with a time penalty, but I think I'm all right. And I needed my moments with the crowd. I'm on my back, staring at the bright, bright lights, for a few seconds as I arrange myself and turn my mind inward. Back to my program. Back to the ice, the blades, and my body.

The music starts, and after my initial choreographic moves, I'm on my knees, then pushing myself forward into standing. The flow of the music takes over, and I push forward, faster, and faster. More moves, a few twirls, and then I'm into my first transition, a gorgeous Ina Bauer layback I hold longer than I ever would have before Evan started working with me. The one that leads me straight into my first jump, a quad loop. They're two of the elements I changed, putting them together into an unusual program start, but they both scream Evan.

And this program is for him.

I know he’s watching, that he’ll understand. I think I even hear his cheer when I land so smoothly, I might as well have been floating. And when I rise up into the air again, I know I’ve got it. Today is all mine.

Epilogue

Evan