He couldn’t wait to purge all of it. Except the photo. Art was art, and he’d sell the damn thing on the internet to some collector who just wanted something vaguely sexy for their guest bedroom. Beyond that, he absolutely did not care. So much so, he was willing to spend the Thanksgiving holiday at his parents’ house, rather than sleep a single night in that apartment again.
His parents lived in a gated community up in Jupiter, which was only the first of many reasons he didn’t usually visit them. His parents had never been his biggest fans, and there was no winning with them. Going into conflict zones hadn’t been heroic to them; just foolish. On that point, they’d quite possibly been right. But when he had stopped, they had then thought him a coward. They’d treated his book deal much the same: like it was a waste of time until it wasn’t enough. Their opinions on his marriage and divorce were equally as skeptical and unhelpful, but Zack had the sense to know that even a stopped clock was right twice a day. Which didn’t make it less infuriating; it just made it not matter.
“How’s Wisconsin?” his father asked, pouring them both a cup of coffee.
“Minnesota,” Zack corrected.
“What? Oh yes. Of course,” his father said vaguely, as if anywhere not in Florida simply wasn’t worth distinguishing from anywhere else.
“It’s fine,” Zack said. The same answer he’d given when asked about his day when he was in high school or his last trip to a combat zone. “I’m going to move there.”
“For good?” his father asked. He seemed startled, which was at least a victory.
“For now. I like it there.”
“Ah,” his father said. “Well, good luck with all that.” Then he started talking about politics.
Zack tuned him out. He was too unsurprised by his father’s indifference to be hurt by it.
I’m done with all of it, he realized. Not just the condo, but Florida. His family’s bullshit. The feeling that his failures were innate, versus just ordinary messed up stuff he could deal with and fix, just like anyone else.
The problem with him and Aaron had been bad choices, yes, but mostly, Zack realized now, it had been timing. Aaron had even said as much, and Zack hadn’t wanted to listen. Because then he would have had to have been patient and deal with his mistakes, and face the possibility that what he wanted wasn’t nearly as important as what Aaron was working towards.
Oh well. Insight was great, but it couldn’t overcome circumstances anymore than it could overcome 24-hours and a turkey dinner with family that was just going through the motions all the way around. They even had to be difficult with him about hockey—of all things!—when he was just trying to do what all men were expected to do on national holidays, which was talk about sports.
His choice to stick around the Twin Cities may not have made sense initially, and he may have just been thinking with his dick. But now he was all in. Permanently. Simply because it wasn’t this, which felt like not only a relic of a life he had never wanted, but also a relic of a life he had never had.
Chapter 21
THE GRAND PRIX SEASON
Sapporo, Japan and Montreal, Canada
AS THE DAYS IN THE Twin Cities grew shorter, the hours Aaron spent at the rink—and the gym—grew longer. There was constant strengthening, conditioning, and artistic polishing. His programs would never be perfect in the first half of the season, maybe not even until he got to the Olympics, assuming he did. But the work of improving it—and himself—was constant either way. That was the nature of competitive skating and what he loved about it: Every day was a challenge to get up and do better than he had the day before. And, in the process, become somehow even more himself.
The work was, at its core, lonely. Sure, he trained alongside Charlotte and Huy and all the others. They shared ice for part of most days, did warm-up routines together, went to pilates classes together, played board games on Friday nights, and hung out at the farm when they needed a break—or the opportunity to do hard work that wasn’t about the Olympic dream.
But still, when Aaron skated his programs, he was alone on the ice. And at night, falling asleep before nine because he was exhausted and sore, he was alone in his bed, too. No one could understand what those things felt like for him, even if they lived their own version of that too. He did his best to do what Huy had recommended, and he leaned into his own sadness and sense of isolation to let them be fodder for the program. It worked, at least as far as his skating went—in the last few weeks of the pre-season Katie had no complaints about the emotionality of his programs—but it wasn’t a fun mental place in which to live.
Aaron missed Zack, sometimes so much it startled him. In another year he might have found someone else to have some fun and blow off some steam with. But he had no time, and even if he had...nobody was like Zack. And Aaron, who had loved variety in his happily-ever-after one-and-only fantasies, now only wanted him.
The feelings of loneliness and missing Zack only fueled each other, and they grew more and more acute as Aaron’s first Grand Prix assignment—the NHK Trophy—drew closer. He couldn’t shake them even as he boarded the flight; his only relief was that some of the juniors had a competition the same weekend and, since Brendan was going with them, Katie was travelling with him.
Maybe it was her presence, at turns soothing and prickly as his own mental state needed. Maybe Aaron was
