Page 81 of Ice Princesses
“Do you always avoid them like that?”
Isabella’s mouth twitches, something almost amused but not quite.
“That obvious?”
“Princess,” I say, and I can’t help the smile that forms on my face. “You literally dragged me down a corridor and up an emergency staircase just because they were walking down the hallway.”
She sighs.
“It’s a very efficient system,” she says. But the look on her face tells me she’s not sure of how this sounds when uttered out loud.
“For cardio?” I ask.
Her mouth curves, just barely.
“For survival.”
I tilt my head, watching her. “That dramatic?”
She shifts slightly where she’s curled into me, not pulling away but settling deeper.
“They don’t mean to be difficult,” she adds. “At least, I don’t think they do. It’s just—” She pauses, searching for her words. “Everything has a purpose with them, especially my mother. Conversations, appearances, relationships. If it doesn’t serve something, they don’t really know what to do with it.”
“Is that why they’re so averse to what you’re doing with the program?”
She huffs at my comment. Of course she knows I was eavesdropping in the hallway and that I heard everything her parents said to her. “I think they think I’m just rebelling. Like twenty years too late, because I never did anything out of line in my teens. And now that I have so much time and I’m basically free, they really can’t control me.”
Her voice is even, but there’s something steadier under it now. Not defiant.
I glance down at her. “That sounds like a problem for them.”
“Oh, it is,” she replies.
There’s a small pause. Her fingers tighten around mine, like she’s deciding whether to keep going or leave it there.
“They don’t understand this part,” she adds after a moment. She gestures in the air with her free hand, in a loose, circular way. “What I’m doing here.”
“The program?”
She nods.
“To them, it’s… inefficient, I guess,” she says. “Too broad and unfocused, and dependent on too many variables they can’t predict or manage.”
Her mouth curves faintly.
“They would rather I attach my name to something more… controlled?” It comes out like a question rather than a firm statement. “Something that could be attributed directly back to me, to them. To the last name.”
“Instead, you are doing the opposite.”
“Yes.”
She says it simply.
I study her face. “Why?”
“Ceci, there’s so much talent out there, and I’m tired of watching the same people win over and over again.”
“May I remind you, Princess, you have five Olympic golds.”
