### CHAPTER 6 - 6 A.M.
My alarm goes off at 4:30 a.m. and I'm already awake because I never really fell asleep in the first place, I just stared at the ceiling while the numbers on my phone crawled from 2:13 to 2:14 to 2:15 and kept going, and the bed was too soft in a way that felt wrong, like my body didn't trust anything that didn't hurt, and every time a door closed somewhere down the hall my heart jumped into my throat because for half a second it sounded exactly like Papa coming home late.
He's not here, that's why I'm here, and I say it in my head three times like a prayer but it doesn't help at all so I get up anyway because lying still is worse than moving.
The room is cold in that dry Canadian way that gets right into your bones, so I pull on two pairs of socks and thermal pants and my black hoodie with the hole in the sleeve, and I leave the Korovka candy under my pillow because if I eat it then today starts for real and I'm not ready for that yet, and I take Lev's little red car from the nightstand and zip it into my pocket so I won't lose it.
My left ankle is the size of a grapefruit and it's gone from purple to green around the edges, and I wrap it in tape tight over my sock until it hurts on purpose because hurt means I can still feel it and feeling it means it's still mine.
At 5:15 a.m. I leave the room and the halls are empty and my key card beeps green on the elevator like magic, and outside it's still dark and the air burns my lungs and there's snow up to my ankles on the path no one has shoveled yet, so I walk slow and limping and I leave one single set of footprints in the white that look like they belong to someone braver than me.
The Athletic Centre is locked and the doors hiss open for my card and the heat hits my face smelling like chlorine and rubber, and I walk past the dark quiet hockey rink to the Oval at the end of the hall.
I push inside and the cold hits me and my whole body relaxes half an inch without permission because this I know, ice doesn't change from country to country, ice is always ice.
The lights are already on and the ice is fresh and white and untouched, and Coach Dubois is standing at center ice with her skates already on, maybe fifty or maybe sixty, short and wide with hair cut like she did it herself, just a U of T sweater and a whistle around her neck, and she doesn't smile or frown she just looks at me like she's taking inventory.
"You're early," she says, and her accent is French and sharp around the edges.
"Yes, Coach," I answer.
"You're limping."
"Yes, Coach."
She skates over without saying hello or welcome to Canada and kneels and taps my ankle right through my pants and says, "Let me see."
I sit on the bench and pull my pant leg up and the tape is already damp with sweat and the skin underneath is ugly and swollen, and she doesn't flinch at all when she asks, "Who cleared you?"
"Doctor in Saint Petersburg. Said six weeks. It's been two," I tell her.
"Doctor was being nice," she says, and she presses two fingers in until I bite the inside of my lip so hard I taste blood. "You jump on this, you'll tear it. Then you're done for the season. Maybe forever. Understand?"
"Yes, Coach."
"Good," she says as she stands. "No jumps. No runs. Edges, turns, spins. You feel it go, you come off. I don't care if the Prime Minister is watching. You come off."
It's the same thing my old coach said but this time she says it like she actually means it, and then she adds, "You're no good to me in a cast, Orlov. You're here because of your footwork. So give me footwork."
Footwork is the one thing I'm actually good at, the one thing Papa called fairy bullshit my whole life, so I just say, "Yes, Coach," and get on the ice.
I leave my guards on the bench left then right and step on and the cold bites through my pants and my ankle screams, and I push off anyway.
The first lap is slow and the ice is fast, faster than Yubileyny, faster than anything I've ever skated on, and it sings under my blades in a way that makes my chest hurt, and on the second lap I go faster and let my body remember without asking my brain, crossovers and three turn and mohawk and bracket and rocker and counter, my feet know the language even if I don't have all the English words for it yet.
Coach blows her whistle and calls, "Center. Now."
I stop in front of her with my arms at my sides and my chin down the way I've always waited, and she tells me, "Show me why they sent you here."
My music isn't loaded and there's no speaker and there's no audience, there's just her and the ice and it's 5:47 a.m. in a country where nobody knows my name yet, so I take my opening pose the same as Regionals, left arm low and right hand open and head down, and I breathe in and I skate.
No jumps and no throws, just edges and just turns and just me, and I do the footwork sequence from Regionals, the one that scored 8.44, the one that made the Federation lady smile, the one that made Papa rip the letter in half on our kitchen floor, and I let my arms finish every line and I let my back arch and I let my head go back, and I don't think about who's watching because for the first time in my life no one is watching and for the first time that feels like freedom instead of loneliness.
For forty-five seconds I'm not Orlov Viktor from Saint Petersburg and I'm not faggot and I'm not fairy and I'm not pretty boy, I'm just moving, and I finish with my chest heaving and sweat freezing on my neck and my ankle throbbing in time with my heart.
Coach Dubois doesn't say anything for a long time and then she just nods once and says, "Good. Again."
So I go again.
At 6:02 the doors bang open and I know who it is before I look because the whole building changes, the air gets loud and big, and it's hockey players in U of T tracksuits carrying sticks and laughing, ten or twelve of them, and Roman Callahan is right in the front.
He sees me and stops laughing and calls out, "Coach, we got the ice at six."
Dubois doesn't move from center ice when she answers, "You have it at seven."
"Schedule changed. Game this weekend. Need the extra hour," he says, and he skates on without asking while the others follow him like dogs.
I stop skating and go to the boards and make myself small the way I've been taught my whole life, and Dubois tells him flat, "No. The schedule didn't change. I have it right here. Figure skating, six to seven. Hockey, seven to nine. You want to argue, you call the Athletic Director."
Roman stops at the blue line still in his runners and the others stop behind him, and he says, "Come on, Coach. It's just a ice skater. He can finish later."
Just a ice skater, and he says it the exact same way Kirill says it and the exact same way Papa says it, like it means nothing, like I am nothing.
"He's on my ice until seven. You can wait, or you can leave," Dubois tells him.
Roman looks at me then, really looks at me, and yesterday I was just a problem and today I'm in his way, and he sees the tape on my ankle and he sees me holding the boards and he sees my two bags on the bench with the duct tape holding them together, and he smiles in a way that isn't nice at all.
"Fine," he says, and he turns to his team. "Warm-up in the hall. Stretches. Let the princess have his ice."
The word princess hits me right in the sternum like a fist, same word Papa used and same word Kirill used, and I don't flinch now, I don't give him that, I just stand there with my hands on the boards and my knuckles white while Coach tells me quietly, "Orlov, ignore them. Skate."
I push off and my ankle screams and I do a three turn and then a mohawk and then a bracket, and I try not to look at them and I try not to hear them, and then one of them yells, "Hey, twinkle toes! Do a spin! Do a pretty spin for us!" and the laughter echoes off the ice, and my edges wobble for a second before I catch it and keep going, and then another voice yells, "Come on, figure skater! Where's your costume? Forgot your tutu?" and there's more laughter, louder this time.
Coach blows her whistle hard enough to hurt my ears and shouts, "Out! All of you! Now!"
Roman puts his hands up like he's innocent and says, "Relax, Coach. We're just having fun. Right, Orlov? You're having fun?"
He's looking right at me, waiting and daring me to answer, and shoulders back and chin down and mouth shut is the rule, that's always been the rule, that's how you survive, but not today and not here, so I look right back at him and I say, "Fuck you."
My voice isn't loud and I don't yell because I don't have to, the Oval is a big empty space and sound carries perfectly, and everything stops, the laughing stops and the whispering stops and the scraping of sticks on rubber stops.
Roman blinks like he didn't think I could talk at all, like he didn't think I spoke English, and Coach Dubois makes a sound that might be a laugh or might be a cough.
I skate to the bench and pick up my guards left then right and I don't look at Roman or anyone else, I just step off the ice, and when Coach asks, "Where are you going?" I tell her, "Done. For today."
I walk past Roman and he doesn't move and he doesn't shoulder check me this time, he just watches me like he's seeing me for the very first time, and I keep walking out the door and down the hall and past the hockey rink and past the sign that says Varsity Blues Hockey Home of the Champions, and I don't stop until I'm back in my room with the door locked and the light beeping green.
I sit on the bed and put my face in my hands because I just said fuck you out loud to Roman Callahan in front of his whole team, and Papa would kill me for that and Kirill would kill me for that and old me would have killed me for that, but new me did it anyway.
My phone buzzes and it's a text from an unknown number that says, "Viktor. It's Alina Petrov from the U of T office. We need to talk about your housing. There was a mix-up. You have a roommate. He's moving in today. His name is Roman Callahan."
I read it once and then twice and then three times and I literally screamed no no no,
and then there's a knock on the door and I don't move because maybe if I don't move it's not real, and then the knock comes again and the door opens because he has a key card and it beeps green.
Roman Callahan stands in my doorway with his hockey bag over his shoulder and his stick in his hand, and he looks at me and I look at him, and after a second he just says, "Well, princess. Looks like we're roommates."