They were, but by that point it didn’t matter: The ice-cold world of figure skating was beginning to consume my life. I’d taken my first lesson a few years earlier—maybe third grade or so—after my mother spotted a newspaper article about skating classes at the local ice rink. She clipped it out and showed it to me: Was I interested? I said sure. The rink itself was an utter dump, a former iron works factory with no heat or bathrooms and a rust-lined roof that would drip bronzy spots onto the ice, as if warning us of its slow plans to collapse. Despite the utterly unwelcoming arena and my
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