Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm now apparently making them ice skate.

Kiss & Cry

Ghosted by her partner, champion ice dancer Isabella Swan has taken a hard fall. But figure skating isn't about falling. It's about what you do afterward. AH.

Rumors & Innuendo

"Did you hear? He completely ghosted her."

Something snaps.

Glancing down at the broken lace dangling in my hand, I curse under my breath.

Because here we go again.

Nonetheless, as a pair of teenage voices–hushed and bubbling with scandalized excitement–continue to gossip outside the changing room door, my stomach sinks. Slowly opening my palm, I watch my frayed lace drift to the floor and then mutely stare at the angry red welt it left behind.

"I heard she's utterly devastated."

"Ugh, that sucks, but can you blame her? I mean, if it were me, I'd bawl for like a month."

My fist clenches, along with my chest.

"It was all her fault, though. She totally deserved it. I don't know why he stayed with her anyway."

"Shut up, you don't know that."

"Come on, we all saw what happened. I just can't believe it took him so long to figure it out."

Shaking my head, at both them and myself, I yank off my boots. Fresh scuff marks litter the snow-white leather, evidence of my most recent fall.

"But they were so good together. What's she going to do now?"

"I think she's looking for another partner. I overheard Jess talking to Mike. Apparently, it's not going well at all, so who knows. Maybe she's done."

"That's so sad. Has anyone seen Jake?"

I shove my earbuds in to block out the rest. I don't need–or want–to know what she's saying. At least not anymore. Instead, humming along, I strip off my top and leggings, damp from both water and sweat. They're old favorites, plain, comfortable, and worn, and I curse again when my finger pokes through a long slice in the right calf.

And then a third time when I peek down at my leg and catch the smear of red.

"Damn it." I sigh, mentally adding this latest cut to my never-ending tally of bruises and broken things.

After a quick rinse and hastily applied bandage, I throw on a spare pair of leggings and a long, oversized Team USA hoodie and make my way out. As I round the corner into the corridor, I pick out two blonde, braided heads hunched over one of their phones. Music blares out of the tinny speaker, and I don't have to look to know what they're watching.

As I pass by, one of them–a fourteen-year-old with knobby knees and a perpetually sour expression–peeks up. The second she sees me, bright pink climbs her neck and cheeks, and she starts stuttering. "Oh, shit… Oh, oh, hey, Bella! I didn't know you were training today! How's it going?"

I smile even though it's the last thing I want to do and thumb toward the ice. "You girls better get to practice before Irina sends someone to find you."

They both blanch at that, and it's not like I can blame them. She's sixty, arthritic, and maybe a hundred pounds dripping wet but, holy smokes, Ira's a tyrant, especially when she feels you aren't properly invested. Which they're not.

As the girls scuttle off, I check my phone. Unsurprisingly, the screen's black, with nothing but the standard message from United informing me of the Wifi options for tomorrow's flight.

My lungs deflate. The deep, pervasive sense of melancholy and tiredness I've been fighting for months weighs down my limbs.

"B!"

I swing around at the familiar voice. This time, despite my less-than-stellar mood, the hint of a real smile curves my lips. "Hey, Ang."

Tall, willowy, and graceful, Angela Weber isn't the most technical or powerful skater, but she's beautiful to watch. More importantly, unlike most of the people around here, she's actually nice, and we've been friends for years.

The second she's in range, Angela throws a slender arm around my shoulders and leans in close. "Are you okay?" She glances down, giving my right leg a pointed look. "That was a nasty fall."

I shrug. "It happens."

"Duh, but still. It looked like it freakin' hurt."

It did hurt. Now that I think about it, it still hurts, just like the rest of my sore, aching muscles when I go too hard, when I push myself to fly because it's the only way I know how not to think.

"It's fine." I shrug again, wincing when my over-stuffed bag slides down to my elbow. "I have an ice bath at home calling my name."

Angela's features scrunch into an almost comically sour expression, and like the rest of her, even that's somehow still graceful. "God, I hate those. I can't last more than a minute."

"When's the last time you even needed to try? You never fall," I tease, motioning down the long, pale gray hall to the lean, dark-haired twenty-five-year-old standing at the end, waiting like always. "Eric would die before that happened."

"That's BS, and you know it!" Angela giggles, but her lovely almond-shaped eyes warm and stray to her partner of at least five years. "Anyway, look, I've got to run. Eric and I have to get to pilates." When she turns back, she hesitates, then hugs me again, clinging with a blend of affection and sympathy that, from almost anyone else, would make me itch to run away. "I just wanted to say good luck. I'm keeping my fingers crossed."

I stare over her shoulder at one of the bulletin boards, zeroing in on the empty square in the center of a dozen other photos. I wonder who finally took ours down. It certainly wasn't me, as much as I'd wanted to.

No, sometimes pride matters.

Either way, I can still see it as clearly as the day it was taken: Jake, dark, handsome, and powerful, holding me up with effortless ease in what had become our signature standing lift. That day, we'd been perfect, flawless even. We'd floated across the ice like it was ours, easily taking the podium at Nationals, just like the year before.

Shaking my head, I squeeze her back. "Thanks. I'll see you when I get back."

"How long will you be gone?"

I grimace. "We've scheduled a month, but… we'll see."

"Text me and let me know how it goes."

"I will." I give her another squeeze. "Hug your mom for me, okay?"

With a final goodbye and friendly wave to Eric, I shove through the exit into the cold Colorado night and load up the car to head home. Right as I slide into the driver's seat and tap the heater, my phone buzzes.

"Hey, Katya."

Ira's younger and somehow even smaller sister, not to mention former Olympic champion and my personal coach, doesn't waste time with pleasantries. "Where are you?"

"On my way home," I say as I pull out of the parking lot. In my rearview, the road behind me is empty, and the lights from the complex glow like a beacon. Above the dome-shaped building and mountain peaks beyond, the pink remnants of the sunset bleed into the dark, inky sky. "I need to pack."

"Of course, you are not packed." Katya harrumphs. "You will lose sleep, then you will skate like shit like Jessica."

I laugh for maybe the first time in days. "I'll sleep on the plane. It's ten hours to Munich and then another hour or so to Prague. I'll be fine. I'll meet you there at the hotel."

"Ira tell me you bust your ass again."

It's not a question.

"I'm okay, just the usual," I tell her. "I'm going to ice down before bed."

"I say don't be stupid, but here you are, being stupid." When I laugh again, she sighs, but there's a gruff sparkle of amusement in her voice, too. "Fine, don't listen to me and see what happens."

"Yeah, yeah." I roll my eyes. "I love you, too."

"Fu." Katya snorts. "What love has to do with anything?"

.

.

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Notes:

Trust me when I say I'm well aware that I have other fics in progress. I'm working on them and plan to update soon. But this story just wouldn't leave me alone, and my brain needed a break. It's not pre-written, but I do have a number of chapters banked.

For this fic: I do not figure skate, at least not without falling a lot. Unlike some of my other stories, I'm choosing not to dive into the nitty gritty details here. So, if you're a figure skater, I'm going to need you to ignore all the inevitable errors and suspend disbelief. I'm not even trying to be accurate. I might even change some rules, just because it's fiction, and I can.

Anyagal is graciously pre-reading for me.

Ice dancing is a figure skating discipline. It shares many of the same elements and general athleticism as pairs skating, but it differs primarily in that there are no big jumps in competition, and more focus is placed on dance, lifts and step intricacy, artistry, and storytelling aspects.

The "Kiss & Cry" is the area where skaters wait for their scores. It gets its name because skaters and coaches often kiss to celebrate good performances and cry after a poor one.