### CHAPTER 2 - BLUE FOLDER
The scoreboard doesn't flash so much as it hesitates, like the old computer behind it can't quite believe what it's about to show, and for a second the numbers stutter and blur before they lock into place and become real.
Technical: 42.18
Components: 36.04
Total: 78.22
It's one point and twenty-two hundredths higher than Kirill Antonov, and my brain reads it three times before my body understands what it means.
The whole arena goes quiet in that strange way crowds do when they're surprised, that half second of held breath before someone decides what to do with it, and then the clapping starts, polite at first because this is only Regionals and nobody really cares, but then it gets louder, actually louder than it was for Kirill, and the sound hits my ears and doesn't make sense because I've spent my whole life being the kid people clap for out of pity.
I don't move. I can't. I'm still sitting on the kiss and cry bench with my hands shoved hard under my thighs because if I take them out everyone will see how bad they're shaking, and I'm trying so hard to look like this is normal, like I expected this, when inside my chest my heart is beating so fast it feels like it's trying to break out of my ribs and run away without me.
Next to me Coach lets out this long breath he must have been holding the whole program. "About damn time," he mutters, so quiet only I can hear it, and there's something rough and proud in his voice that makes my throat close up.
Across the rink Kirill's head snaps up toward the board. He reads my score once, then again, slower, and his whole face goes completely blank, which is how I know he's furious because Kirill only goes still like that when he's already planning what cruel thing he's going to say later to make sure it leaves a bruise.
He stands up and skates past me without even glancing down. "Beginner's luck," he breathes, just loud enough for me to hear, and I feel the words more than hear them because he's lying and we both know he's lying, because my footwork score alone was eight points higher than his even with my hand slapping the ice on that toe loop.
I look back up through the glass to the second row where the woman in the Federation jacket is sitting, and she's not writing in her notebook anymore, she's just watching me with this small, thoughtful look on her face, and the blue folder is open on her lap now with the gold Federation crest catching the light, and when our eyes meet she doesn't look away, she just smiles a little and nods once, like she's confirming something to herself, like she's just decided something about me.
My phone starts buzzing in my bag and it doesn't stop, it just keeps going and going until I have to dig it out with fingers that still feel numb from the cold, and the screen is full of Dima.
Dima [6:42 PM]: VIKTOR?????
Dima [6:42 PM]: 78.22?????
Dima [6:42 PM]: YOU BEAT KIRILL???
Dima [6:42 PM]: TELL ME YOU'RE NOT DEAD
Dima [6:42 PM]: PICK UP YOUR PHONE YOU IDIOT
Dima [6:43 PM]: I'M LEAVING WORK EARLY. WE'RE GETTING CHEAP VODKA AND BAD PIZZA.
Dima [6:43 PM]: COACH JUST TEXTED ME. HE SAID QUOTE "THE KID FINALLY DID IT" END QUOTE.
Dima [6:43 PM]: I'M CRYING AT THE CASH REGISTER. MY BOSS IS CONCERNED.
I try to type back but my thumb is shaking so bad I keep hitting the wrong letters, and all I can manage is *I'm alive. Footwork score 8.44,* and I stare at those words on the screen and they don't feel like mine, they feel like something someone else did.
He answers instantly. YOU FUCKING SHOWOFF. I KNEW IT. I TOLD YOU. Then: ARE YOU COMING TO THE RINK TONIGHT? WE HAVE TO CELEBRATE.
I look down at my left boot where the black tape is already peeling up at the edge from where I landed that jump, and I can feel my ankle starting to swell inside the boot from lacing it too tight, and I know if I skate tonight I won't be able to walk tomorrow, but more than that I know I can't because I have to go home and I have to face Papa.
*Can't,* I type back. *Papa.* That's all I need to say and Dima will understand everything I'm not saying.
The three dots hang there for a long time before he answers. *ok. tomorrow then. bring your medal or whatever they give you.*
*They don't give you a medal at regionals, idiot.*
*then bring your smug face. i'll buy the pizza.*
I shove the phone back in my bag before I do something stupid like smile where the cameras can see me, because smiling feels dangerous, like if I let myself feel this good for one second someone will come along and take it away just to teach me a lesson.
The next hour is all a blur of cold and pain and trying to act normal. I sit on the bench to cool down and my sweat turns to ice under my shirt. I have to peel my left boot off piece by piece because the tape has melted to my sock and stuck to my skin, and it hurts but I don't care because the hurt is real and simple and easier to handle than the weird, floaty feeling in my chest. In the hallway Kirill walks past with his mother and his father, both of them in expensive coats, and his father claps him on the shoulder and says "Next time, son," in this voice that makes it sound like second place is a personal insult, and Kirill doesn't even look at me, which is the second time tonight, and that feels better than the applause.
I change in the bathroom stall like I always do, because I learned at thirteen that the locker room is just another place where people find reasons to call you names, and I pull my hoodie on over my damp thermals even though the hole in the sleeve is getting bigger, and I stick my thumb through it just to have something to do with my hands that isn't shaking.
When I come out the woman in the Federation jacket is gone, but her seat is empty and the blue folder is gone with her, and my stomach does this weird flip because I know what that folder means.
Coach is waiting by the doors holding my skate bag, and I see he's wrapped fresh duct tape around the fraying strap while I was on the ice. He holds it out without looking at me. "Here. You forgot this. Again."
"Thanks," I mumble, and my voice sounds wrecked even to me.
He looks at me for a long second, really looks, and then he does something he hasn't done since I was fourteen and crying in his office after Papa hit me for the first time in front of the team. He puts his big rough hand on the back of my neck and squeezes once, quick and hard. "You skated like you," he says, and his voice is gruff like he's embarrassed to say it. "Don't stop doing that."
My throat closes up so tight I can't answer, so I just nod, and I'm terrified he's going to see how much I needed to hear exactly those words.
"Go home," he says, letting go. "Eat something real. Not that garbage from the vending machine. Sleep. You're on ice at six tomorrow."
"Yes, Coach."
"Vitya." He stops me at the door. "The Federation lady. She took your name down. Blue folder list. You know what that means."
I do. It means national camp. It means Moscow. It means scouts and money and maybe a real costume that isn't taped together and maybe, just maybe, a way out. It means everything I've ever wanted and everything Papa has told me I'm not allowed to want.
I don't say anything because if I say it out loud it will disappear, it will turn out to be a joke or a mistake.
"Don't tell anyone yet," Coach says quietly. "Not until it's official. But you should know. You earned it."
He walks away before I can say thank you, before I can say anything at all, and I'm left standing there holding my taped-up bag with this huge, terrifying hope blooming in my chest that feels exactly like fear.
Outside, Saint Petersburg is dark and freezing and the snow on the sidewalks is grey and dirty and I've never loved this ugly city more. I unlock my scooter, the old red one with the peeling paint, and pull on Dima's old helmet that's too big for me and smells like his cheap shampoo, and the engine coughs and sputters before it catches, same as always, and I take the long way home along the Neva even though it's colder, because I need the freezing air to knock some sense back into my head and I need to practice breathing like a normal person again.
I won Regionals. I beat Kirill. I got a 78.22. The Federation lady smiled at me. Blue folder. I say it over and over in my head the whole ride, trying to make it feel real, but it doesn't, it feels like I'm telling myself a story about someone else, someone braver and luckier than me.
Our building is the same as always, grey concrete and cracked steps and the elevator that's been broken since October. I chain up the scooter and climb the four flights, and my legs are burning on the last one from lactic acid and adrenaline and dread all mixed together, and I'm standing at our door with my key in my hand when I hear laughter from inside.
Anya and Lev and Mama.
I open the door and the smell of fried potatoes in real oil hits me first, and something sweet baking, and Mama only cooks like this when it's a good day or when she's trying to make a bad day feel less bad.
Anya is at the kitchen table in her school uniform with flour all over her face, trying to roll out dough with a drinking glass because we don't have a rolling pin. She's fourteen, two whole years older than Lev, and she already acts like she's the second mother in this house. Lev is standing on a chair next to her, he's only eight, and he's "helping" by eating all the dough scraps, and he's got flour in his hair and he's missing a front tooth so there's a little gap full of sugar.
Mama is at the stove humming, her hair pulled back, and she turns when she hears the door and her whole face changes when she sees me. "Vitya," she says softly, and then she just knows, mothers always know, "You did it."
I nod because if I open my mouth I'll cry, and if I cry in front of Papa he'll use it against me for weeks.
Anya drops the glass and launches herself at me so hard she almost knocks me over. "You won! Dima texted me! He said you beat Kirill and your footwork was 'disgusting' which means good! Are you going to nationals? Is that what the blue folder is?"
"How do you know about the blue folder," I ask, and my voice cracks right down the middle.
"Dima has spies everywhere," she says, completely serious, and she's fourteen going on forty sometimes. "He said the Federation lady was smiling. Was it a good smile or a mean smile?"
"It was a good smile," I whisper, and I can't help it, I smile back at her, just a tiny bit, and it feels strange on my face like a muscle I haven't used in years.
Lev tugs on my sleeve and holds up a lopsided star-shaped cookie. "Did you bring a medal?"
"They don't give medals at Regionals, malysh."
He thinks about this very seriously, then pushes the cookie into my hand. "I made this. It's your medal. For first place."
My throat hurts so bad I have to swallow twice. "Thanks, Lev."
Mama presses a soft Korovka candy into my palm, warm from her pocket. "For after," she whispers, like she did this morning. "See? I told you."
I close my fingers around it and that's when the bathroom door opens and Papa walks out.
He's in his work shirt half unbuttoned with a towel around his neck, and he looks at me, then at Anya with flour on her face, then at Lev on the chair, then at Mama at the stove, then at my skate bag on the floor with the duct tape holding it together, and his face goes flat.
"Home late," he says.
"Regionals ran long," I answer, staring at the floor like I've trained myself to do. Shoulders back, chin down, mouth shut. Make yourself small.
He walks over and picks up Lev's cookie, looks at the wobbly icing that spells "first place," and snorts. "You told them you won?"
My stomach drops straight through the floor. "I—"
"You didn't win," he says, setting the cookie down too hard so it cracks. "You got a score. At Regionals. Where ten kids show up because everyone actually good already qualified last year." He looks right at me. "Don't start getting ideas. Don't start thinking you're special now."
Under the table Anya's hand finds mine. She's older than Lev but her fingers are still small and they're ice cold and she squeezes so hard her nails dig in.
Mama doesn't say anything. She just turns back to the stove very carefully.
Papa picks up my bag by the taped strap and holds it up like it's evidence. "You're still skating in these garbage boots. You're still coming home in second-hand clothes. One good skate doesn't change that." He drops it and it hits the floor with a thud. "Nationals camp costs money. Federation doesn't pay for travel. You think I have that kind of cash lying around?"
"I can work," I say before I can stop myself, the words just falling out because that hope from earlier is still stupidly alive in my chest. "I'll work after practice. I'll pay—"
"You'll work?" He laughs and it's an ugly sound. "With what time? You're at the rink six hours a day playing fairy on ice. When are you going to work, huh? Between midnight and four am?"
Fairy. He says it the same way Kirill says pretty boy, like it's not just an insult but the truth about me he's been waiting to say out loud, and I feel it hit me right in the sternum and knock all the air out of my lungs because it's the word I've been terrified of since I was small, since I was the kid who liked to dress up, since I was fourteen and got caught kissing a boy and ruined everything for my family.
Lev is holding his breath next to me. Anya is shaking.
I stare at the scuffed toes of my sneakers and at the tape peeling off my boot and I don't answer because answering is how you get hit and I've learned that lesson with my whole body.
"You listen to me," Papa says, quieter now which is always worse. "You get that blue folder, you throw it out. You understand me? We don't have money for Moscow. We don't have money for your dreams. You want to skate, you do it here, for free, until you're old enough to be useful. No camps. No Federation. No fairy bullshit in front of cameras."
The word hangs in the air between us and I think about the Federation lady's smile and I think about 78.22 and I think about Coach's hand on my neck and I think about how much I love skating and how much I hate myself for loving something that makes me this, and all of it gets tangled up together until I can't tell which feeling is which anymore.
Papa stares at me for three long seconds then slams the bedroom door behind him.
The kitchen is silent except for the potatoes hissing in the pan. Lev finally breathes out. Anya's hand is still shaking in mine.
Mama turns around with wet eyes but a steady voice. "Eat," she says softly. "You're too thin. Both of you. Eat before it gets cold."
She puts a plate in front of me, fried potatoes and a real piece of chicken, not just broth and bone, and I look at it and then at my bag on the floor and then at my own hands, and they've finally stopped shaking.
Blue folder. Moscow. Fairy. Pretty boy. 78.22.
I pick up my fork with a hand that feels like it belongs to someone else, and I eat, because right now it's the only thing I know how to do that won't get me hit.