### CHAPTER 3 - THE LETTER
I don't sleep. I can't sleep.
I lie on the couch because my room shares a wall with Papa's bedroom and I don't want to hear him breathing through the thin plaster, and I keep my left ankle propped up on a pillow because it's swollen to twice its normal size inside my sock, purple and hot to the touch, but it isn't broken. I keep checking it, wiggling my toes just to make sure, and it hurts so much I have to bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, and the pain is sharp and clean and it means I'm still alive, which somehow feels important.
On the coffee table next to the plate of cold potatoes I couldn't finish, there's the Korovka candy Mama pressed into my hand yesterday. I don't unwrap it. If I unwrap it, then yesterday is really over. If I unwrap it, I have to admit that I won Regionals and it still wasn't enough to change anything.
Anya must have snuck out of bed around midnight because when I look again there's the cookie Lev made for me sitting right next to the candy. It says FIRST PLACE in wobbly blue icing, and the icing is cracked right down the middle where Papa set it down too hard, and Anya tried to fix it with her finger. I pick the cookie up and I just hold it in my palm because I can't bring myself to eat it and ruin the only nice thing anyone's said to me all day.
My phone lights up the dark room at 1:14 a.m. and it's Dima.
Dima: you alive or did your dad kill you
Dima: coach said blue folder is official. national camp. moscow. two weeks.
Dima: kirill's dad is already bitching about it in the parents group chat
Dima: you better not throw this away because your dad is an asshole
I stare at those words until they blur. National camp. Moscow. Two weeks. And before I can even feel hopeful, Papa's voice is already there in my head, loud and automatic, saying we don't have money for Moscow, we don't have money for your dreams, no fairy bullshit in front of cameras, and the hope curdles into something sour in my stomach.
I turn my phone face down and I don't answer him.
At 5:03 a.m. my alarm goes off and I slap it silent before it can finish the first buzz, and I force myself up off the couch even though my ankle screams so loud I have to bite the inside of my cheek again until it goes quiet. Left, right, guards on, skate bag over my shoulder, and the duct tape on the strap gives a little more and I think one day it's just going to snap in the middle of the street and my skates will go flying into the Neva, and honestly part of me thinks that might be easier.
Mama is already in the kitchen. She doesn't really sleep, not when Papa's been drinking. She has a plastic bag waiting on the counter with ice wrapped in a dish towel and a banana and two crumpled rubles for the bus, and she doesn't look at me when she pushes it across the counter because if she looks at me she might cry, and if she cries Papa will wake up.
"Eat the banana," she whispers. "For your leg."
I nod and I take the bag and I don't say thank you out loud because saying thank you makes it real, and if it's real Papa can take it away.
The door to their bedroom is closed and I can hear him snoring through it, so I leave before the snoring stops.
It's still dark outside because February in Saint Petersburg is dark until eight and dark again by four, and the scooter starts on the second try and the engine sounds worse than it did yesterday, which is exactly how I feel too.
Yubileyny at 5:40 a.m. smells like nothing but clean ice, and it's the best smell in the entire world.
Coach is already by the boards, which he never is unless something actually matters.
"Orlov," he says when he sees me limping in. "Sit. Let me see."
I sit on the bench and he actually kneels down in front of me, which he never does, and his knees crack loud in the quiet rink. He peels my sock down gently and my ankle is ugly, purple and green around the edges and swollen over the bone.
"You shouldn't be on this," he says.
"I can skate."
"I didn't ask if you can. I asked if you should." He presses two fingers around the joint and I don't flinch because I learned how to not flinch when I was nine years old. "You'll be slower. Jumps are out for now. Footwork only. Doctor would say six weeks, I'm giving you two before I bench you completely. Understand?"
"Yes, Coach."
He sits back on his heels and studies my face. "You saw her. Federation. Second row."
I nod.
"She asked for you by name after the skate." He reaches into his coat and pulls out a single sheet of paper folded in thirds with the Federation logo at the top. "Official. National team camp. Moscow. Two weeks from Monday."
My hands go cold but I take the paper anyway, and the words swim in front of my eyes.
Viktor Orlov, Saint Petersburg Skate Club, is hereby invited to attend the Russian National Team Development Camp...
There's more underneath, dates and times and a list of what to bring, and at the bottom in bold letters it says all travel, accommodation, and training expenses are the responsibility of the athlete.
Responsibility of the athlete. Which really means responsibility of Papa.
I fold the paper back up and my fingers don't shake because they're too numb to shake.
"How much?" I ask, and my voice comes out flat and empty.
Coach names a number and it's more than Papa makes in two months, more than we spent on food last year, more than I could ever dream of having.
I put the paper in my coat pocket and zip it shut.
"Say something, Vitya."
"I can work," I say, the same lie I told Papa, the same stupid lie. "After practice. Nights. I'll pay it."
Coach looks at me like he knows exactly how many hours are in a day and exactly how many of them I already spend on the ice. "You'll kill yourself."
I almost laugh because that would be easier too.
"I'll figure it out," I say.
He stares at me for another second then stands up, his knees cracking again. "No jumps. No running. Footwork and spins only. You feel that ankle go, you come off the ice. I don't care if Jesus Christ himself is watching. You hear me?"
"Yes, Coach."
"Good. Now get on the ice before I change my mind."
I skate for two hours with no jumps, just edges and turns and the part I'm actually good at, the part that makes Kirill's father put his phone down in the stands and actually watch.
Kirill shows up at seven and he takes one look at my ankle wrapped in tape under my pants and his mouth does that thing that's not really a smile. During the ice cut when Coach is in the office, he skates up next to me.
"Heard about your invitation," he says, gliding in a slow circle around me while I'm trying to do brackets on the blue line. "National camp. Big deal."
I don't answer. I just keep doing left outside, right inside, again and again.
"Funny thing," Kirill says, stopping right in front of me so I have to stop too. "My dad said the Federation only pays for kids who medal at Nationals. Not Regionals. Not lucky little regional winners who cry into their cornflakes." He leans in a little. "So how's your dad paying for Moscow, Orlov? Extra shifts at the warehouse? Or are you going to sell those pretty little fingers on the street?"
Pretty. He says it the exact same way Papa says fairy.
I stop skating and I look at him and I don't say anything because saying something always makes it worse.
"Say something," Kirill says, softer now, daring me. "Go on. Say something, faggot."
The word just hangs there on the ice between us, and I've spent my whole life training for this exact moment, shoulders back, chin down, mouth shut, make yourself small until it's your turn to be big.
I step around him and I keep skating. Left outside, right inside. Again.
"Thought so," he calls after me. "See you at camp, if you can afford the train ticket."
I stay until eight thirty, until my ankle is screaming and my vision is going white around the edges, until Coach blows his whistle and points at the door.
"Home. Now. Ice on that. I mean it."
I nod and I don't argue.
The scooter ride home takes thirty minutes because I have to stop twice just to breathe through the pain, and by the time I get to the fourth floor I'm sweating through my hoodie and I can't feel my toes.
The apartment is empty, Mama's at work and Anya and Lev are at school and Papa is God knows where, warehouse or bar or wherever he goes when he doesn't want to look at me, and I'm grateful for the empty because I need it.
I go to my room and shut the door and I pull the Federation letter out of my coat and I read it again and again, but the number at the bottom doesn't change.
I open my desk drawer and under my math homework and under the unpaid electric bill I stole from the counter so Mama wouldn't see it, there's another paper folded so many times the creases are about to tear.
University of Toronto. Men's Figure Skating. International Student-Athlete Award. Full tuition, housing, training at the Olympic Oval.
I applied four months ago on the library computer after practice, telling Mama I was doing homework. I used Dima's email because we don't have a computer and Papa checks Mama's phone. The application wanted video so I filmed myself at five in the morning on my phone propped up on a water bottle, no music because of copyright, just me in plain black doing footwork in silence. I sent it and I never thought they'd answer.
The portal still says Under Review.
It was stupid. It was a dream I let myself have for three minutes in a library with free internet. Canada. Full scholarship. Away from Papa. Away from Kirill. Away from everyone who has ever called me names in two different languages.
I put the Federation letter on top of the Toronto letter. National camp, two weeks, Moscow, no money. University, four years, Toronto, full ride, no answer yet.
I fold them both up and put them back under the math homework.
I'm icing my ankle on the couch when the front door opens and it's Papa.
He sees the ice pack and the skate bag and then he sees me, and he doesn't say anything for a long time, then he walks straight to my room.
I hear my drawer open and I'm on my feet before I even think about it, my ankle screaming. "Don't—"
He comes out holding both letters, the Federation one and the Toronto one, and of course he read them.
"National camp," he says, holding up the first one, and he rips it in half, then in half again, then again, and the pieces fall to the floor like snow. "You went behind my back," he says, holding up the Toronto one. "University. In Canada. You think you're leaving? You think you're better than us now?"
"I didn't—"
"You didn't what? You didn't apply to run away to the West and be a fairy in front of the whole world?" He's on me fast and he grabs the front of my hoodie and his breath smells like beer. "I told you. No. You hear me? No camps. No Canada. No more skating. You're done."
He shoves me and my bad ankle just gives out completely and I hit the floor hard, hip first, and my head cracks against the leg of the table.
"Stop showing off," he says, standing over me. "Stop making us look like fools. You're nothing. You're just expensive."
He drops the Toronto letter on my chest. He doesn't rip it, which is worse, because he's leaving it whole just so I know he could rip it, just so I know he's letting me keep it only to watch me not use it.
Then he goes into his bedroom and slams the door.
I lie on the floor for a long time with the ice pack fallen off and my ankle throbbing and my head throbbing and the Toronto letter sitting on my chest, creased from his hand.
The front door opens again, quiet this time, and it's Mama.
She sees me on the floor and she doesn't gasp and she doesn't cry, she just kneels down and puts her hands on either side of my face and looks at me.
"Can you stand, Vitya?"
I nod and she helps me up and helps me to the couch and gets the ice pack and wraps it fresh, and she doesn't say anything about the ripped paper all over the floor and she doesn't say anything about Papa.
When Anya and Lev get home she sends them to do homework in the bedroom, and she waits until their door is closed before she goes to the kitchen and opens the jar on the top shelf where she keeps the emergency money. She counts out the old crumpled bills and puts them in an envelope and comes back and presses it into my hand. It's not enough for Moscow, not even close, but it's something.
"For the train," she whispers. "If you go."
I stare at her. "Mama—"
"Shh." She puts a finger to my lips. "Don't tell him. Don't tell your father. If you go, you go. If you stay, you stay. But you decide. Not him. Not anymore."
She kisses my forehead like I'm seven years old again. "You skated like you yesterday, Vitya. I saw the video Dima sent me. You were beautiful. Don't let him take that from you."
Beautiful. She says it like it isn't an insult, like it isn't a diagnosis, like it's just a true thing about me.
She goes to make dinner and I sit on the couch with the envelope in one hand and the Toronto letter in the other, and my ankle throbs and my head throbs and the ripped pieces of the Federation letter are still scattered on the floor like snow.
I open my phone and log out of Dima's email and type in the library username and password I made four months ago, and my hands are shaking so bad I can barely hit the keys.
Inbox: 1 unread.
University of Toronto. Sent 6 hours ago.
Subject: International Student-Athlete Award – Decision
I click it and I don't breathe.
Dear Mr. Orlov,
Congratulations. We are pleased to offer you...
I stop reading because the words blur and the floor tilts and I can't see straight.
Full scholarship. Tuition. Housing. Training at the Olympic Oval. Start date: January 4.
Canada.
I look at the ripped Federation letter on the floor. Moscow. No money. Papa.
I look at the Toronto letter on my phone. Toronto. Full ride. Away.
I look at the envelope in my hand. For the train, Mama said.
I close my eyes and I can still hear Papa's voice saying no fairy bullshit in front of cameras, you're nothing, and I can still hear Coach saying you skated like you, and I can still hear Mama saying you were beautiful.
I open my eyes.
I click Accept.