The Favorites

by Layne Fargo

He looked like some kind of unholy twink/swan hybrid, but I had to grudgingly admit he was pulling it off.

CACKLING

“I may have exaggerated. Slightly.” Ellis shrugged, the marabou trim on his jacket shivering. “But now that you’re both here, what a perfect opportunity to clear the air.”

Ellis is a D1 meddler and gossip fiend

When a woman smacks a man in the face? She usually has a damn good reason.

Perhaps it was better for everyone to assume Shaw and Rocha would take the gold. After all, when you are on top, you have nowhere to go but down.

“I’m not some pretty little ice princess or blushing bride.” Katarina leans forward—away from Heath, who still hasn’t said a word. “And I don’t want to be. I want to win.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It just seems like something we should have discussed privately before you announced it on live television.”

Girl maybe it's something you should have discussed before you PROPOSED

“Please, Katarina. You have to know it was all for you. I did it all for you, to—” He blinked back tears, but it was too late, his eye makeup was already blurring. “Please. I love you. I never stopped loving you, not for one second.”

Heath had been hurt. He’d been desperate. In his own twisted way, he’d done it all out of love. I could have forgiven him for that. What I couldn’t forgive was how he’d allowed his secrets to fester, so they could be used against him—against us—at the worst possible time. He kept begging me to let him in, to open up and be honest, and all the while he’d kept me locked in the dark for years. Heath had always kept me in the dark.

Garrett Lin: When expectations are that high? Anything but the best feels like failure.

“All you care about is winning.” Heath spoke calmly, evenly, like he was trying to gentle a wild animal. “So I turned myself into someone who could win. Someone worthy of you. But I guess that wasn’t enough either. Nothing’s ever enough for you.”

I was trying to decide between getting into my own bed or breaking the ice by sliding under the covers with him when I heard them. Heath was in bed all right. But he wasn’t alone.

Oh my god gagged again

Maybe I should have done something. But I was so tired of always being the peacemaker, the reasonable one. I figured they’d work it out themselves.

Valid we love an unproblematic king

Heath’s words echoed in my mind. All you care about is winning. He was right: that’s who I was. But it wasn’t who I’d always been. It was who I’d become, after a lifetime spent striving to be just like Sheila Lin. Like her, I’d discarded my past, my home, my family. I’d convinced myself if I became the best, it didn’t matter who I hurt, because in the end, it would be worth it. Even if I hurt myself most of all.

Nothing’s ever enough for you, Heath had said. He was wrong about that. I’d finally had enough, of the striving and the pain and the heartbreak. I didn’t want to be Sheila Lin anymore. I didn’t want to be Katarina Shaw either. I wanted to disappear.

Heath, though—he stayed so still, he could have been another monument in the cemetery. I felt his eyes on me, but I couldn’t bring myself to meet them. I was afraid of what I’d see—pure loathing, smug satisfaction. Or worst of all, total indifference.

Some days, I skated with headphones in and a playlist blasting, but most of the time my only accompaniment was the meditative scrape of my blades.

This actually sounds so fun

“So they think I’m a bitch?” “Mm-hmm. And they want to be exactly like you when they grow up.”

And yes, I’ll admit it: I missed Heath. I missed him the way a soldier misses a severed limb. Seeing him with Bella had hurt, but it was nothing compared to the phantom pain of his absence.

He gestured toward a small motorcycle parked alongside the curb. A black helmet with gold racing stripes hung from the handlebars.

Because of course Heath drives a motorcycle

By the time we flew to Boston,

HIII FUTURE HOME

We’d missed the introductions and the warm-up. The first skaters in the final group were already on the ice, the muffled melody of their One Direction program music providing a strangely cheerful counterpoint to the drama unfolding backstage.

Ice dancing to One Direction is iconic af if you ask me

“You’re pregnant.”

CALLED IT

Love like a steady, warming campfire that keeps you alive in the cold. Love like a raging blaze that burns down everything in its path until nothing but ash remains.

“You know, Ellis,” I said. “You’re a pretty good guy when you want to be.” “Yeah, yeah.” He slapped the keycard into my palm. “You better not tell anyone, bitch.”

His lips brushed my hand. “We’ve wasted so much time, haven’t we?” We had. Years and years we could never get back. If we won the gold medal, would it all be worth it? Not so long before, I would have said yes without hesitation. “We’re here now,” I told him. “Let’s not waste any more.”

I watched the warring desires skirmish on his face. A part of him longed to surrender to my curiosity; another part wanted to keep defending the barriers he’d built up to protect himself. I couldn’t force him. I couldn’t rush him. He had to be the one to tear down the walls, brick by brick—and whenever he was ready, I’d be waiting on the other side.

Francesca had grown up watching me, like I’d grown up watching Sheila. She said I was inspiring, but what had I inspired? There was no joy left in her, no light. Those smiles were a mask, concealing a molten core of grasping ambition. I wanted to shake her by the shoulders and tell her it wasn’t too late. She could wake up. She could realize there was more to life than winning.

Happiness couldn’t be won. It couldn’t be hung around our necks while a crowd of thousands cheered. It wasn’t a prize, something we had to suffer and toil to earn. If we wanted happiness, we had to create it ourselves. Not in one shining moment on a medal stand, but every single day, over and over again.

“I’m skating with Katarina Shaw, and there’s nothing she can’t do.” “We’re Shaw and Rocha,” I said. “And there’s nothing we can’t do. Together.”

That free dance was the story of us: Heath and me, spinning away from each other one second, only to clutch each other close the next. Never still, never simple, always pushing and pulling, shattering each other and putting the pieces back together again. We were adults, and we were children, and we were skating at the Olympics and also on the frozen lake back home, laughing and twirling and holding each other tight. It felt like flying and falling and being caught, all in the same instant.

There was so much I hadn’t told him. I hadn’t told him how much I loved him, even when I hated him. I hadn’t told him that no matter how many changes I made to that old stone house where we grew up, where we fell apart, where we fell in love—I could never bring myself to touch the headboard where we’d carved our names. We couldn’t end like this.

You’re my home, Heath had said to me once. Despite all the years we’d spent apart, all the time we’d wasted, he was my home too. He always had been.

So say what you want about me. Call me a bitch, a cheater, a loser, a whore. I may not have an Olympic gold medal, but I have something better: a life where I spend every day with my favorite people in the world, doing exactly what I love. If that’s not winning, I don’t know what is.