Emily’s POV
The conference room overlooks the arena through a long panel of windows. I spend the first thirty seconds staring down at the empty ice, because it is considerably more calming than the faces at the table.
Two neutral officials sit on the panel — I recognize one from the oversight committee. Coach is to my left with a folder of session logs.
Victoria sits directly across from me, hands folded, looking like she invented impartiality and has been refining the performance for years.
The senior official speaks first. "This review was requested in response to concerns about injury risk in high-difficulty combination sequences during training. It's not a disciplinary proceeding. We're here to assess protocol."
"I appreciate the clarification," I say. "I've brought documentation." I open the folder and slide the first sheet across the table — six weeks of training logs, landing percentages, and comparative injury-risk data from federation benchmarks.
"Every combination I'm running falls within the difficulty range of the top fifteen active competitors in my division," I say. "The landing data shows a 94% clean-execution rate over the last month. That's above average for the sequence type."
The second official leans forward and takes his time with the sheet. Across the table, Victoria waits with her hands still folded, letting the silence do work for her. That, too, is its own kind of move.
"The concern raised," Victoria says, in the careful tone she uses when something is designed to sound like care, "is not strictly about technical execution rates."
She tilts her head. "It's about the emotional register driving the training choices. Aggressive repetition schedules can sometimes reflect an athlete's psychological state as much as their preparation strategy."
I look at her directly. "I'd be interested in which metric captures emotional register," I say. "The documentation in front of the panel captures execution, consistency, and comparative risk."
I keep my voice level. "If there's a separate data source being referenced, I'd like to see it."
Victoria holds my gaze. "Years of coaching and judging experience," she says, pleasantly. "Certain patterns are recognizable."
"Patterns that aren't in the documentation," I say. "I'll note that for the record." I keep my voice entirely neutral, which costs something.
Coach sets both hands flat on the table. "Emily's training schedule was designed collaboratively with me," she says.
"It was reviewed against her physical assessment two weeks ago. The combinations she's running are ambitious."
She pauses. "They are also appropriate. I stand behind every session on that log."
The senior official nods. "Is there anything in the documentation suggesting a formal modification to training protocol is warranted?" he asks.
The second official shakes her head. "Not on the basis of what I'm seeing here," she says.
Victoria says nothing. The silence runs for about three seconds. The two officials exchange a glance, which tells me everything about what they've made of this meeting.
"Then we'll note the review as completed without formal restriction," the senior official says. "Thank you all for your time."
I walk out with Coach and we don't speak until we've cleared the corridor and reached the stairwell.
"She's going to keep finding angles," I say, and I hear how flat the sentence is — not panicked, just factual, the way you say something you've already accepted.
"Yes," Coach says, without softening it. "So you keep skating clean, you keep documenting, and you don't give her a single thing she can use."
She pauses at the stairwell door. "You did well in there," she adds. From Coach, that's the equivalent of a standing ovation.
Evening rehearsal is for the exhibition — a paired routine choreographed back when Maddie and I were still something, which nobody restructured since.
We move through the first pass in silence. The routine requires proximity — transitions built for two people who were supposed to trust each other completely. The choreography doesn't care that the situation has changed.
"Left entry on the sequence," Maddie says, taking her position. "You've been coming in a half-beat early."
"I know," I tell her, resetting my entry angle. "I'll adjust on the next run." I push off before she can respond, which is entirely intentional.
We run it again. The step sequence brings us close — shoulder to shoulder, matching speed.
I push into the lift entry and her hands find my waist, the muscle memory of something practiced hundreds of times.
She lifts cleanly. I extend overhead. For three seconds the routine works exactly the way it was designed to.
When she sets me down, we're facing each other at close range. Neither of us moves immediately the way we should.
"You adjusted," she says, and there is something in how she says it that is not quite a question.
"I said I would," I reply, and my voice comes out steadier than I actually feel standing this close to her.
We run the routine three more times. By the final pass, the choreography has stopped feeling like a technical problem. It has started feeling like what it actually is — something we built together when building things together still felt possible.
After the third run, Maddie skates to the boards for water. I stay at center ice.
"The lift in the third segment," she says, from the boards. "You pulled back on the extension. You used to hold it longer."
"I know," I say. "I'll fix it for the exhibition."
"I'm not criticizing," she says, carefully. "I'm just — I remember how it looked when you held it."
I don't answer that. I turn away and run the segment alone — just the approach and the entry angle. I hold the extension until my arms ache and my shoulder says things I choose not to hear.
After rehearsal, I stay on the ice after she leaves. The arena lights drop to maintenance setting — flat, even, no warmth. I run the routine from the beginning, filling Maddie's parts with space and timing.
It doesn't work without her. Not technically — the lifts are absent, the paired transitions become solo passes. But something else is wrong too. The routine was written for two specific people and it knows it.
I stop in the middle of the step sequence and stand still on the ice, in the silence, in the dim flat light.
I've been so careful, for so long, to stay angry or at least stay cold. The meeting today, the scores, Victoria's campaign — I've moved through all of it with my jaw set and my edges sharp.
But standing in the part of the routine where she's supposed to be beside me, I run out of room for the performance.
I still want her. Not as co-captain, not as evidence the complaint is worth filing. I want her — the specific person she is — and I have not stopped wanting her for a single day since she left.