Page 115 of About to Fall

The opening was strong. A beautiful spread eagle into his first jumping pass, the quad toe loop landing clean. The crowd responded with a roar of approval and I felt something loosen in my chest.

Next up was the quad Salchow.

He went up and my heart skipped a beat. The rotation was there but something was off in his body—a hesitation, a fraction of a second where he seemed to be fighting himself mid-air. He landed it but two footed, arms out for balance, and the triple toe loop that was supposed to follow never came.

The rest of the program was technically sound but the energy had changed. He was skating like a man bracing for the next impact—shoulders tight, movements clipped, his body holding tension in places it usually didn't. He was hitting his marks but his movements were stiff when they were usually fluid. Every element landed but nothing flowed into the next the way it was supposed to.

He still looked beautiful out there. He always looked beautiful. But he was skating like a man going through motions he'd memorized rather than movements he felt.

It broke my fucking heart.

It was the first time I'd ever watched Nicky skate and wondered if he still wanted this.

His scores came up. 92.91. Fourth place, behind Caldwell, who had delivered the performance of his life—a clean, emotional program that had the crowd on their feet and the commentators talking about redemption arcs.

Nicky sat next to Renaud in the kiss and cry and absorbed the numbers with a carefully blank expression. Renaud was already talking—low, measured, the postmortem beginning before the scores had even settled on the screen.

I wanted to pull him close and tell him it was one skate, one score, that the free program was still ahead and everything was still possible.

Instead I watched him nod at whatever Renaud was saying and thought about the look on his face mid-jump. That hesitation. That fraction of a second where his body had fought itself.

Now that the cameras had panned away, tracking Oliver’s warm up lap, Nicky’s composure was crumbling in real time. The colour had drained from his face—that waxy pallor I knew too well. His hands were gripping his knees, knuckles white, and I could see the rapid, shallow breathing starting. Renaud was still talking, completely oblivious to the fact that his nephew was falling apart six inches away from him.

I started to move toward them but suddenly Nicky was on his feet. Hand pressed to his mouth, eyes wide, moving fast down the short tunnel toward the cooldown rooms.

Renaud’s eyes found me halfway down the tunnel. Looked at me like I had answers.

“I’ve got him,” I said and didn’t wait for permission.

I found him in the first open room—a small, windowless space with a physio table and a stack of towels. He was bent over a trash can, one hand braced against the wall, his body heaving. I closed the door behind us and locked it.

“Hey,” I said quietly. “I’m here.”

He couldn’t answer. Another wave hit him and I crossed the room and put my hand on his back. I could feel him shaking through the costume, the silver beading cold under my palm.

When it finally passed, he straightened slowly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were glassy and red rimmed and he wouldn’t look at me.

“Please don’t say everything is going to be okay,” he whispered.

So I didn’t. I just stood there with my hand on his back and let him breathe.

He turned towards me and crumpled against my chest, my arms winding automatically as his knees gave out.

He buried his face in the feathers of my costume and cried.

He still managed to be quiet and contained but his whole body shook with it. His fingers clutched the fabric of my shirt, his tears soaking through the sheer material against my skin.

I lowered us both to the floor. Held him in my lap with his face pressed into my neck and my arms locked around him and my mouth against his hair. Just holding him. Just being the thing between him and the ground.

The muffled roar of the arena filtered through the walls. Somewhere out there, Oliver was skating his program. The competition was continuing without us.

It could wait.

Everything could wait.

47. Nico

The only thing holding me together was Adrian.