From Lukov with Love

by Mariana Zapata

There were other names on there right alongside his—the other miserable souls he’d partnered up with over the years—but it was his that stood out. Not because his last name was the same last name as one of my favorite people in the world, but because his first name reminded me of Satan. I was pretty sure his parents had adopted him straight out of Hell.

All these banners… and none of them had my name on them. Not one single one. No matter how hard I had tried, how hard I had trained, nothing. Because no one ever remembers second place, unless you’re Ivan Lukov. And I was no Ivan.

It was easy to take things for granted when you thought you had everything.

But it was when you started taking the most basic things for granted that life decided to teach you that you’re an ungrateful idiot.

I needed to chill out. Or maybe masturbate. Something had to help.

Maybe if they wouldn’t have said the P-name again I could have been the bigger person, but fuck it, I was five foot three and I wasn’t built to be that person ever.

Some days I deserved a medal for being so patient with idiots. If only they had a competition for that, I could have won.

I’d already known from the moment one of them said Coach Lee’s name whom they were still talking about. There was only one man left at the LC—what most of us called the Lukov Ice and Sports Complex, or the Lukov Complex for short—that these girls would give a crap about. It was the same guy everyone gave a shit about. Everyone except me at least. And anyone else with a brain. Ivan Lukov.

Or as I liked to call him, to his face especially—the son of Satan.

“Maybe if he retires he’ll go into coaching,” one of the girls said. “I wouldn’t mind him yelling at me all day.”

My mom always said that if anyone gave me an inch, I’d take a mile. And the last thing Galina Petrov would ever do is give up a single centimeter.

Mom: Tell me if you need money.

I wouldn’t tell her even if I did. Not anymore. At least not if I could help it, and the truth was, I’d turn to stripping if it ever got to that point again. She’d done enough.

I’d overheard some people call her a hard-ass, but to me, she was just strong willed and didn’t take shit from people because she didn’t have to.

I hated messing up. Hated it. Screwing up in front of them made it even worse, damn it.

Because. Me and Ivan? Partnering? There was no way. No chance. They had to be full of shit. …right?

Unless he was a big-ass clown, chances were, I could kick his ass. I was strong for my size and had taken a few self-defense classes with my sister over the years. Heights did nothing for me.

The things that kept me up at night weren’t physical.

Worrying about being a failure and a disappointment weren’t things you could just fix. They were just there. All the time. And if there was a way to work on them, I hadn’t learned how to yet.

But I wasn’t sure because I was too busy staring at the smart-ass in the seat and telling myself, Don’t do it, Jasmine. Be better. Shut your mouth…

Her gaze flicked to mine before she shot the idiot in the chair a frustrated look. “He wasn’t supposed to run his mouth until I talked to you about everything.”

Dumbass, I mouthed before I could stop myself and remember to be better. Meatball, he mouthed back.

But this was a joke… right? Ivan and me? Me and Ivan? Just a month ago, he had asked me if I was ever going to go through puberty. And in reply, I had told him I’d go through it when his balls decided to drop.

Don’t flip him off. Don’t flip him off. Don’t do it, Jasmine. I wasn’t. I wouldn’t. Don’t do it.

Maybe things would have been different if I’d explained every single one of my actions every time they happened, but I hadn’t. 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 y...

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.

Instead, I stared at that clear face with its perfect bone structure… and imagined myself wrapping my hands around his neck and squeezed the shit out of it. I wouldn’t even be able to tell anyone about the amount of restraint I was showing, because they wouldn’t believe me. Maybe I was growing up.

Then I stared at him a second longer and thought, I’m going to spit in his mouth the first chance I get, and decided maybe the growing-up thing was a stretch.

Most new pairs teams took a season off to learn how one another skated, to work on technical elements—everything from jumps to lifts to throws—until they did them together seamlessly… and even then, things could be rough after twelve months. Pairs skating was about unity, about trust, timing, anticipation, and synchronization. It was about two people almost becoming one, but still somehow maintaining their individuality.

One year for the one thing I wanted more than anything. For a championship. For the thing my mom had nearly gone bankrupt for, for the thing my whole family had always dreamed of for me. What I had always expected of myself but had always failed at.

“You can take a picture if you’re going to stare,” Ivan said dryly, leaning back against his chair.

But… what if it didn’t work out? What if I got them excited for no reason? I’d let them down enough over the years. Yeah, that thought was a shard of glass right down the windpipe.

People liked to say love was blind, but there was no way love could be that blind.

It was one thing for me to be sad and heartbroken, but I didn’t want them to feel that way too. Never again. Not if I could prevent it.

There were only so many failures I could carry on my shoulders… and most days it felt like I’d hit my max a year ago.

“You know what I’m trying to say. You can do whatever you want in this life, Jasmine. But I want you to be happy. I want you to be appreciated.”

“What do I always tell you?” “If you’ve got it, flaunt it?”

We always do what we gotta do in this family. You’ve always tried harder at everything than any of the rest of your brothers and sisters combined, and I never wanted that for you, but it’s never stopped you from anything. I’d tell you, ‘no, don’t jump on the bed,’ and you’d wrap a sheet around your neck to jump off the roof instead. Maybe you make terrible decisions sometimes—”

“But you’ve always jumped right back up after a fall. You don’t know anything else. Things don’t always work out the way we want them to, but no girl of mine, especially not you, is a quitter,”

“And whatever else happens, you’re more than this sport. Understand me?”

When you want something bad enough, you can always make it happen.

But it was fine. Challenges were only hard if you went into them expecting not to succeed.

“Your triple Lutz is beautiful. Your height, your speed, the amount of ice you cover, and your technique… I forgot that was your signature move until you did it. It’s perfect, Jasmine, really. You should be proud of it.” Her smile turned into a grin. “It reminds me of Ivan’s.”

“If something is my fault, I’ll work at it until I fix it. I promise you that, but if it’s his fault….”

“I trust that you’ll bust your ass not to make the same mistake again either. If something is wrong, we’ll both work at it. We both agree to do whatever we have to do to make this work.”

Sometimes it’s easy to take something so essential to your existence for granted.

I was going to have to ask them to let me defer my payment until the season was over so I could sell a kidney. Fuck it, I could wear a wig and strip. I didn’t have any birthmarks to give me away.

I glanced at Ivan again, but he’d beat me to it. He was already looking at me…. And I didn’t like it. Stop looking at me, I mouthed. No, he mouthed back.