From Lukov with Love

by Mariana Zapata

And I didn’t regret it. I didn’t care what other people thought about me. At least until it had come back to bite me on the ass. But it was too late now. All I had left was to own it. And I did. I had shoved some speed skater dickwad once for grabbing my ass, and I was the bad guy. I had called one of my rink mate’s mom a whore once after she’d made a comment about my mom having to be great at blow jobs for having a husband twenty years younger than her, but I was the rude asshole. I was difficult because I gave a shit. But how the hell could I not give one when this sport was what I woke up every morning excited for?

You are who you are in life, and you either live that time trying to bend yourself to make other people happy, or… you don’t. And I sure as hell had better things to do with my time.

I’d tried being an ice princess once when I’d been too young to know any better. Prim, proper, angelic, and sweet. It had lasted about thirty minutes. Now, I was too old to pretend to be this perfect little beauty queen who didn’t cuss and shitted rainbows for breakfast, all for people to like me.

Where’s Ben at, Mom?” “He’s out with his friends,” the redheaded woman who had given birth to me, explained quickly

mom said... why this weird descriptor lol

His eyes met mine, and I knew what he was thinking because I was thinking the same thing. Once—just once—years ago, I’d fallen badly after a jump. He had been on the rink with me at the same time. I’d been lying there on the ice, blinking up at the rafters, trying to catch my breath because even my brain had hurt after hitting the ice so hard. This bitch had skated up to me for some reason. And he’d stretched his hand out toward me, looking down at me with a smirk on his face. I hadn’t been thinking. All I’d seen was a hand reaching out toward me, so I’d tried to take it. Like an idiot. My fingers had probably been inches away from Ivan’s when he’d snatched his hand back, smirked even wider, and left me there. On the ice. Just like that. Bitch.

He frowned at my explanation and then dropped his hand, making the band disappear for a moment before it was back and he was empty-handed. Closing my eyes once more, I felt his fingers go back to my hair and start stroking it away from my face and what had to be over his lap. It felt good, his thigh under my head, his fingers in my hair, and I couldn’t help the sigh I let out as he did it.

She gave Ivan a tender look that only a loving mom was capable of. “Vanya and his rescues. Always taking the things other people don’t want anymore, ever since he was a little boy.”

But Ivan kept going. “Mr. Santos, your daughter is the hardest working person I’ve ever met. She’s persistent to a fault. Someone will tell her not to do something, and she only does it more. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who has fallen more than her and gotten right back up, never complaining, never crying, never quitting. She’ll cuss herself out, but it’s at herself. She’s smart, and she’s relentless,” he said calmly, his hand squeezing my leg tighter than before.

“She gets to the facility at four in the morning Monday through Friday and trains with me until eight. Then she goes to work, on her feet right after that until noon. She eats her two breakfasts and her lunch in her car, then comes inside and trains with me until four. Three days a week, she has three ballet lessons by herself and one with me for two hours each time. One day a week, she takes Pilates from six until seven. Four days out of the week, she goes for runs and works out after we train. She goes home, eats, spends some time with the rest of her family, and goes to bed by nine. Then she’s up at three o’clock in the morning and does it all over again.

“And for months, she was going back to the facility to practice by herself from ten at night until midnight. Because she was too proud to tell me that she needed help. Then she would go home, sleep for three hours and do it all over again. Six days a week.” The hand on my leg gripped the fuck out of it, not hard but… desperate. And Ivan kept talking. “If Jasmine wanted to go to school, she would graduate with honors. If she wanted to become a doctor, she would be a doctor. But she wanted to become a figure skater, and she is the best I have ever had as a partner. I think that if you’re going to do something, you should be the best at it. And that’s what Jasmine is...

Ivan paused and then said three words that slayed ...

“Why do you do this to yourself? Huh?” he asked me. My chest stuttered, a hiccup, a compressed choke that hurt me more than I already was. “You know how good you are. You know how rare that is. You know how much work you put in to everything. You know how strong you are,” he whispered, his arms crossed over my shoulder blades. “Your dad doesn’t know anything about figure skating, Jasmine. From the sound of it, he doesn’t know you at all. You know better than to let what he thinks get to you. You know better.”

You warned me, but I didn’t believe you,” he went on, some part of his face still pressed against the top of my head. “I told you,” I said, the miserable feeling inside of me growing by the second. “I told you. I didn’t even want to come. I knew it was going to happen, but I’m stupid, and I hoped maybe this time would be different. Maybe I could shut up and he could pretend I wasn’t there, like he always used to. Maybe this time he wouldn’t criticize me and tell me all the different things I could be doing with my life, but no. It’s my fault. I’m a fucking idiot. I don’t even know why I still bother. I’m not going to be an engineer like Sebastian. I’m not going to use my GI bill to work in marketing. I’m not going to be a project manager like Tali, or even just be Ruby. I’m never going to live up to my brothers or my sisters. I never have—”

Instead, I said, “I’m not in a bad mood. I haven’t taken anything out on anybody. You can’t call it being in a bad mood if I’m not being mean to other people.” “All right, then what do you call it when you’re only being mean to yourself?” I hated it when he asked me things I didn’t know how to answer.

His mouth went over my cheeks, warm and everything wonderful in the world. “You tried to get up,” he said to me in a voice so low I barely understood his words. “You tried to get up and keep skating, and I swear I almost started crying right then.” He kissed one cheek and then the other, soft, his mouth brushing over the bridge of my nose as he moved around. “Only you would sprain the shit out of your ankle and try to get up to keep going,” he said to me, his voice hitching. “You kept saying, I’m sorry, Ivan. I’m sorry, Ivan. I’m so sorry, and I told you to shut up because if you kept saying it any more, I would have been the one….” His breath came out stuttered and choppy over my face, and his hands moved from my cheeks to cup my ears.

“I want to know because you never told me, but what do you have against Mary McDonald?” he asked. “I want to know why we hate her.” Why we hate her. Ivan. Fucking Ivan.

But it was the NEVER GIVE UP, JASMINE that had me squinting. Because it was my dad holding it. He wasn’t jumping up and down like the rest of them, but he was smiling. He wasn’t embarrassed. He wasn’t bored. But he was there. And that was more than I could have wanted or expected. And it was what I needed. Another little piece of glue to my mind and my heart.