Page 5 of Hate You Most

Viktoriya expected Dakota to walk away then, their conversation was finished, but instead she stood awkwardly for a moment. Dakota smiled at her. “I skate better when there's competition, you know. I’ll beat you next time.”

Viktoriya let out a tight smile at the familiar words.

Dakota lingered a second longer, her eyes searching Viktoriya’s face like she was looking for something she hadn’t earned the right to ask for yet. Then she nodded once and walked away.

Viktoriya watched her go.

She told herself that this moment too, meant nothing to her. It was just competition, just another skater she would have to beat again next year.

Which, she was beginning to suspect, was another lie.

April 30th, 2011.

— Radisson Royal Hotel, late evening. Moscow, Russia.

Viktoriya answered the phone on the third ring. She moved to a chair by the large windows and looked down at the city below. The hotel room was as impersonal as it was glamorous, all high ceilings and gold-embossed lamps that certainly didn't need the embellishment.

“You won,” her mother said on the other end of the phone, in Russian.

“Yes,” Viktoriya replied.

There was a pause, filled only by the faint static coming out of her phone's speaker.

“And the American?” Her father’s voice drifted in from the background.

“Second,” Viktoriya said.

“Good.”

Her mother sighed softly. “You looked thin on TV.”

“I am fine.”

“You always say this,” her mother said. “Are you eating?”

“Yes.”

Outside, the sky was dimming into a heavy blue, the last light of day bleeding out over the city. Streetlights flickered below, reflected faintly in the glass. Across the room, her skating bag was half-unzipped on the floor, skates still inside.

“You always say this,” her mother repeated with a softer tone. “Are you eating properly?”

“Yes,” Viktoriya said again, eyes still on the darkening sky.

Another pause and then her mother changed the subject completely. “You are seventeen, you should be out celebrating.”

She was still seventeen and not yet legally an adult, but her parents hadn't bothered to attend her competitions over the last year. She was in Russia, winning gold for her country, and her parents hadn't shown up. In their eyes she was old enough to go by herself, she was mature enough. Clubs wouldn't let her in because she was still a minor, but she didn't bother explaining it to her parents. She knew they wouldn't care.

She said goodbye, ended the call, and the silence in the hotel room afterward closed in on her. This was a victorious day for her, and her parents were right, she should be out celebrating.

She set her phone down carefully on the desk and stood there for a moment, staring at the open curtains and street below. Moscow was outside, waiting for her, but she wasn’t ready to face it yet. She needed to go somewhere her parents’ voices were not echoing in her head.

Viktoriya was sure that winning gold in her home country was supposed to feel like a lot of different things—but it was never supposed to feel this lonely.

Her posture softened as she let out a weary sigh.

Figure skating was her entire life, there wasn't time for much else. She was aware that being on top came with certain sacrifices, but in that impersonal hotel room, with a polished gold medal hanging around her neck, loneliness crept from the dark corners and infested her bones.

She left the hotel room and followed the hallway toward the elevators, took it as far as it could go, then up two sets of stairs until she'd made it to the top floor. The stairwell door wasn’t locked.