Page 61 of Off the Edge
I approached my apartment and found my father waiting outside my door. He wore dark, fine clothes with a heavy overcoat. The bright visitor lanyard hung around his neck.
“Where have you been? You’ve kept me waiting for hours. Why did you not answer your phone? We must discuss the day’s results.”
Had I truly thought he’d ever say, “I’m proud of you, Ren?” I unlocked my door wordlessly, and stepped back to let him inside ahead of me.
I pulled off my coat and hung it in the heated closet by the door. “I have an event to go to tonight.”
“There will be time for celebrations after you win gold. I’ve brought some suggestions for how to tighten—”
“I am going to the celebration.” I tossed my phone onto the table and turned to face him. “I’m not going through this with you tonight. I need some personal time.”
“You don’t get personal time. You’re at the Olympics.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “The debrief happens tomorrow. I need tonight for myse—”
“This celebration is a distraction you do not need.”
He wasn’t listening to me, he never listened to me.
“Your competition is fierce. Excellent skaters, all of them. And the free dance is your weakest program. You need to work on the step sequence, that is letting you down.” He pulled a chair from the table and began to remove his coat before sitting. “There is much room for improvement if you want gold. You are too loose in your—”
“Stop!” I snapped.
His head came up. “I’m doing so much for you, and this is how you treat me?”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry, I . . . I’m tired.”
He nodded once, then proceeded to remove his coat and drape it over the back of the chair. “The Canadian will be extremely challenging to beat.”
“Camden danced brilliantly.” I’d said it before thinking and tensed for the inevitable tirade, but instead of reacting as I’d expected, my father waved a hand.
“Not that pair.” He waved a hand. “The other pair.”
Casey and Jen? They weren’t anywhere near as brilliant as Cam and Zoe. Camden and Zoe’s performance was our main competition. How could he dismiss them so easily?
He opened his phone. “I filmed your performance today. Let’s go over—”
“I wouldn’t dismiss Camden and Zoe so easily.”
“They aren’t a concern. Sit. Let’s go over something I noticed about your timing this morning.”
I sat and leaned toward my father. The way he dismissed Camden left me feeling cold. Something wasn’t right. “Why are they not a concern?”
His dark eyes flicked to me, then back down to his phone. “They won’t be dancing in the free dance. I’ve seen to it.”
My heart stopped. A clean, dead stop. My blood ran cold. He’d seen to it. “What have you done?”
“The Olympics cannot have someone of his disrepute on the podium. It is not acceptable.”
My heart kicked back to life, and pounded in my throat, my head. This wasn’t about Cam and me anymore. My father had seen Camden skate and knew he was a risk to my achieving gold. My own father was going to manipulate an Olympic Games for me?
“What have you done?” I asked again, voice flat.
He rolled his eyes, and hit play on his phone, starting the footage of my dance today. “There were instances in his past that weren’t on record, because he was a juvenile at the time. That has been rectified. It shows that a lifetime of professional conduct is what’s necessary to win at the Olympics. Not a viral YouTube video with a few fans.”
I dropped back in the chair. Stunned. My father was still talking about reputation and conduct, still watching my performance on his phone, but I couldn’t hear him under the pounding of my heart. I’d done everything I could to keep Cam safe, and it hadn’t mattered. None of it had mattered.
“Undo it,” I said.
