He squeezed Katie’s hand tighter, his own concerns momentarily forgotten, while he got swept up in Rasmus’s skating along with everyone else. Figure skating had these moments, sometimes, where someone would break out of the pack and blow everyone’s expectations away. They were magic to watch.
When he finished Aaron was on his feet with the rest of the audience. He cheered wildly while Rasmus took his bows, tears streaming down his cheeks and his grin stretching from ear to ear.
Rasmus staggered off the ice and into the waiting arms of his coach. He said something that Aaron couldn’t make out from this distance but that made everyone around him laugh. Aaron was sure that, whatever it was, by tomorrow it would be a meme on figure skating social media.
The reality of the situation only crashed into him when the scores were announced.
He, Aaron, was in fourth. Rasmus had beat him out to come in third.
Aaron felt like the walls of the venue were closing around him, the cavernous space shrinking and the excited noise of the crowd fading into the distance. He shrank down into his seat, not even aware of Brendan’s worried face or Katie’s calculatedly calm one.
He’d come in fourth. The federation wasn't going to send the fourth-place finisher at Nationals to the Olympics. Jack and Cayden would go. Aaron would get named an alternate and left at home. He felt like the ground was sliding out from under him, and he did not want to do this in public.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of public left to get through. Katie managed to urge him to his feet and shepherd him through the backstage hallways. At least fourth place didn’t have to go to the press conference, which was the very smallest of silver linings.
He did, however, have to talk to journalists in the mixed zone and pretend he wasn’t crushed and that his dreams hadn’t just been shattered. He would also have to put on a smile and congratulate Cayden because that was what good sportsmanship demanded.
At least there was Rasmus. The man was tucked into a quiet corner, looking overwhelmed but ecstatic; the tracks of happy tears marked his face.
“Aaron!” Rasmus’s face lit up even brighter when he saw him, and he pulled him into a hug. “You did well.”
“You did better,” Aaron said, without any bitterness, hugging him back. “You just made history. That skate was incredible. I’m so glad I got to see it.” He meant that, too; as upset as he was, he couldn’t be anything but happy about Rasmus’s placement and that he’d gotten to see such an iconic performance live. That was a thing to cherish.
But it was perhaps the only thing today he could say that about. Soon Katie was herding him through the crowd again, and Aaron realized with relief that they were heading for the doors.
Brendan joined them outside and together they made it all the way out of the arena, down half a block to the hotel and into the lobby.
When suddenly, Aaron pulled up short.
Katie bumped into him from behind. “What is it?” she asked. Then, “Oh,” as she saw why Aaron had stopped.
Zack was striding toward them across the lobby, concern etched into his face.
“Aaron!” he called, his hands already spread, as if ready to pull Aaron into a hug.
And Aaron wanted to be hugged, wanted to collapse against Zack’s warm, muscled chest and let himself be comforted. But that was a fantasy that belonged to a world where Zack hadn’t written about the island.
So he glared at Zack, and felt a small flare of satisfaction when Zack stopped in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Do you want me to punch him for you?” Brendan muttered, quietly enough for just Aaron and Katie to hear—Aaron hoped.
“You’d miss,” Katie said flatly.
Aaron looked at Zack and realized the other man had almost no idea what was going on. He surely knew the article had come out yesterday, but he didn’t know Aaron had read it. He’d seen Aaron underperform today, but then, everyone in that final group had underperformed. He didn’t know how Aaron had struggled to pull off even the sub-par performance he had. If he was worried about Aaron’s placement regarding the Olympic team decision, he likely didn’t understand quite how dire a situation it was. And certainly, he had no idea how to comfort an athlete whose one dream was about to slip away.
Aaron was furious with him for all of it, but most of all the part where he’d have to explain it, in very small words, when he was dizzy with grief and somehow even more terrified than he’d been by the Neva in St. Petersburg.
“I am so angry at you.” It was easier than explaining why.
“Okay,” Zack said, his tone neutral, his eyes darting between Aaron, Katie, and Brendan. “If there’s something we need to talk about, we could—”
“We already talked! You and me! Lots and lots of times!” It was so much simpler to yell, to be upset at Zack about this. If he was angry at Zack, he didn’t have to think about his inadequate skate and the fact that he wasn’t going to the Olympics and that everything, this whole year, had been for nothing.
“Okay,” Zack said again, still that studied neutral, which just infuriated Aaron more. Why couldn’t he react?
“Your article came out! The one you wrote about me!”
“All right,” Katie said, cutting in verbally and partially stepping in front of Aaron. He was mad at her too now. He wanted a fight. His season was over, but she wasn’t letting him have it.
“We’re not doing this here.”
“I’m still not one hundred percent sure what we’re doing,” Zack said, slowly putting his hands up in front of his chest.
Aaron ducked around Katie. He kept his voice low; after all, they were in
