Aaron had never been so thrilled with a second-place finish as he was that night, taking a victory lap with Philippe Chastain and Yin Jae-Sun. Nothing was guaranteed until he was named to the team, and everything depended on how well Cayden did at his own Grand Prix events, but this was the best placement he’d ever had in an international event. He’d gotten off the ice at the end of the medal ceremony and fallen into a massive hug from Katie and about a thousand notifications on his phone, most of them texts from his family.
Still, something didn’t feel right. Aaron tried to explain it to Katie on their way home, while they waited in Warsaw’s Chopin Airport on an unexpected stop due to a storm. In his luggage was the silver medal, which had turned out to be oddly challenging to airport security.
Halfway through what was, he thought, a very eloquent discourse on skating and loneliness Katie interrupted him with a gentle nudge to his shin. “You want the guy who dumped you in order to, very reasonably, sort out his life and issues. I didn’t eat ice cream for three years so I could go to the Olympics. You just won a silver medal at an important event. I think you can deal.”
Aaron slumped back against the uncomfortable airport seating. “I feel like it gets harder the closer I get. And you always had Brendan.”
“Mmm.” Kate hummed thoughtfully. “‘Had’ is a word with a vast shade of meanings. He broke my heart all the time. I guess, more importantly, I broke his all the time too. We were a mess until way after we won.”
“I know, I’ve seen videos.”
Katie made a dismayed noise.
Aaron continued. “I believe you when you say it was rough between you two. But you still had somebody, you know? I’m busting my ass and getting on a ridiculous number of planes and not seeing my family for months and it’s just me. I don’t think you get how hard it is to be a singles skater.”
“If you want to try pairs, I can hook you up,” Katie said dryly.
Aaron laughed despite his frustration. “I don’t want to try pairs!”
“Didn’t think so.” Katie smiled. “And I’m afraid loneliness is the price you’re going to have to pay for a while.”
“I miss home,” Aaron admitted. “I’m lonely, and I feel like I don’t belong here. On the ice it’s all good, but for everything else... I feel like I’m masquerading as an actual person.”
“Because you’re a skater?” Katie asked.
“No. Or, yes, but not just that.” Aaron fiddled with the strap of his carryon. “Because of the island. The rest of you are all mainlanders and you don’t know how different it is here. How...strange I find all of you.” Even saying it aloud made Aaron feel even more different than usual.
“I had to pretend too, you know,” Katie said. “Brendan’s from the world and had money and was easygoing and fit in with the other skaters. I wasn’t and I didn’t. Still don’t, really. You’re from a place that’s hard.”
“I’m from a place that’s weird,” Aaron corrected. “I don’t know how to explain what it’s like, that we’re all waiting to go back to the water. I know people are afraid of you when you skate, sometimes, but have you ever scared somebody because of where you were from?”
“Oh, Aaron.” Katie’s voice was unusually tender. Which somehow made it all that much worse.
Aaron slouched lower in his seat.
“Well,” Katie said as she uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “I know I’ve scared Brendan a whole bunch of times.”
“That’s different,” Aaron said.
“Is it?” Katie asked. “I don’t think Zack was scared of you; he’s just doing something else. He just got divorced, and he’s selling a house in another state. He is also, may I remind you, a war reporter, and you, my sweet island child, are not the scariest thing he’s ever dealt with. If he’s into you, he has your best interests at heart and you’ll see him again when that’s right for both of you.”
“I know.” Aaron sighed plaintively. “But I just got silver at the NHK. That’s a really big deal. And I want someone to celebrate with.”
Katie leaned her chin on her hand. “You mean other than on the phone to your family? And sitting here with me?”
Aaron felt guilty just for thinking it, after all the support they had all given him, but it was true. “Yeah. More or less,” he said.
Katie seemed unbothered. “Fair. But there’s a bar on the other side of the terminal called Business Shark. If you want to have one brief terrible toast to your victory...”
Aaron appreciated the offer more than he knew how to express. But it wasn’t what he wanted. Even with Katie, with whom he cherished such a kinship.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “But I think I’ll hold out for the ice cream.”
THE GRAND PRIX SEASON was a marathon not just of skating, but of travel. A few short weeks after the NHK, was Aaron’s second Grand Prix event, Skate Canada in Montreal. With his strong performance at his first event Aaron had high hopes for his second, even if that didn’t seem truly reasonable to him. He still couldn’t quite believe he’d gotten a silver at NHK, but now corners of sports media were humming quietly about him.
That said, this was not an event where he had a chance of pulling off an unexpected, but not totally shocking, silver. For one thing, Huy was competing for Canada. For another, so was Aizat Beysenov for Kazakhstan. That they’d take gold and silver in one order or
