He Switched Partners. I Switched Countries.

Chapter 1

Partnership forms locked at midnight. At seven, I heard my fiancé tell his friends he'd switched partners. Not for me. For her. "Nora has my login," Cole laughed. "She'll sign on as my alternate. She always waits." I stood outside that door with a bottle of champagne and didn't make a sound. And at 11:59, I signed something he would never, in a thousand years, see coming. We were supposed to be celebrating. Eighteen years ago, my mother laced two pairs of rental skates at the rink she coached in Seattle and pushed a six-year-old boy toward me. "Hold her hand," she told him. "Don't let go." Cole Whitaker never let go. Not through juniors. Not through two national titles. Not through the night he slid a promise ring onto my finger and said, After the Olympics. Gold first, then forever. This was Olympic season. Tonight, every pairs team in the country had to register their partnership with the federation for the Games cycle. We'd planned to sign together at midnight, side by side, after dinner with the team. I was carrying the champagne down the hallway of the restaurant when I heard my name through the private room door. "So what about Nora?" one of the guys asked. "You two are the favorites. Everyone's saying you'll medal." The clink of a glass. Then Cole, easy as breathing: "Relax. I already filed. I'm skating with Brielle this season." The room went silent. Then exploded. "You're joking." "She has my login," Cole said. "She'll see it, cry for twenty minutes, and sign on as my alternate so she can still travel with the team. She'll wait four years. She can't skate without me. Try having someone holding your hand since you were six." Laughter. Someone whistled. "Why Brielle, man? She fell twice at Nationals." "Her dad's fraud case is all over the news. Her partner dumped her in June. She told me if she doesn't make it to the Games this year, she's done. Forever." He paused. "She asked me to get her there. One season. That's it." "That's not it," someone sang. "It's not like that," Cole said, in the voice he used when it was exactly like that. "Just don't tell Nora I did it for Brielle. She'll throw a fit and I'll spend three days talking her down. I don't have three days." "Brielle's gorgeous, though," another voice sighed. "So fragile. You just want to catch her." "Not like Nora," a girl laughed. I knew that voice. Kayla, the ice dancer who borrowed my tape every single morning. "No offense, but she's been wearing the same black warm-up jacket since juniors. Next to Brielle? Not even a contest." Ice rattled in glasses. A chair scraped back. I looked down. My nails had cut four half-moons into my palm. Here is what nobody in that room knew. I never skated for Cole. I skated for a woman who once stood on Canadian ice in 1997, three months from the Olympics, when her partner told her he'd found someone younger. Someone lighter. Someone easier to throw. My mother never competed again. She moved to Seattle, married my father, taught little kids to skate, and died of cancer when I was twelve. The last week, in the hospital, she pressed a business card into my hand. A coach in Montreal. Marc Delaunay. The man who trained her. "Whenever you're ready," she whispered. "He'll be waiting." I never told Cole. He knew my mother died. He never once asked why I trained until my feet bled. For eighteen years, everyone assumed I followed him. Nobody ever considered that I'd been on that ice for my own reason. And three days ago, Marc Delaunay had called me for the first time in twelve years. "Luca Moreau's partner just retired. Injury," he'd said. "He needs a partner. You need a reason. Canadian registration closes at midnight." I'd laughed. I'd said I was happy. I'd said I already had a partner. I set the champagne down on the floor outside that door, very gently, so it wouldn't make a sound. Then I walked out to the parking garage and sat in my car with the engine off for twenty-three minutes. I did not cry. I took out my phone, scrolled to a number I had never called back, and stared at it.

Chapter 2

I made it home before I fell apart. I locked my bedroom door, slid down against it, and cried the way you cry when your father is asleep down the hall and he's already lost enough. Twelve years he's raised me alone. Twelve years of driving me to the rink at four a.m. and falling asleep in the bleachers. So I cried quietly, which is somehow so much worse. Cole's voice kept looping. She can't skate without me. Like I was a pair of training wheels he'd politely outgrown. I thought about the first time he lifted me overhead at fourteen, both of us shaking, and how he laughed and said, I've got you, I've always got you. I thought about the ring on my finger. Not an engagement ring, exactly. A promise. After the Olympics. I looked at it in the dark and felt like a girl holding a receipt for something she'd never actually bought. He hadn't just switched partners. He'd erased eighteen years in a fifteen-minute conversation with a girl who cried prettily about her father. And he hadn't told me. That was the part I kept circling like a bad tooth. Not the switch. The silence. He could have called. Nora, I'm doing something selfish, and here's why. I would have screamed. I would have thrown things. But I would have known. Instead, he decided I wasn't worth three days. He decided my entire career was a setting he could change from his side of the account. Somewhere around midnight, I stopped crying and started thinking. Brielle Hart moved to our rink two years ago. Beautiful, breathless, always one wobble away from tears. Her father's Ponzi scheme had blown her whole life apart. I genuinely felt for her. Then Cole started staying late to help with her jumps. Then driving her home. Then knowing things about her that I didn't. Every time I said something, he'd pull me close. Stop spiraling. She's a teammate. Her life's a disaster and I'm being a decent person. You know I've never lied to you. And he hadn't. Not once in eighteen years. So I believed him, over and over, until believing him became its own kind of stupidity. I opened my laptop. The federation portal glowed at me. His login sat saved in my browser. Autofilled. A little gray gift from a man who thought access meant ownership. I moved the cursor over it. Then I closed the tab. I didn't need to see Brielle's name next to his. I already knew. Instead, I opened an old email. Twelve years old. Sent the week of my mother's funeral. Nora. Your mother was the finest skater I ever coached. The offer stands. Always. — M. Delaunay Below it, a newer one. Three days old. A single attachment. Skate Canada — Pairs Partnership Registration. Partner: Luca Moreau. Luca Moreau. Canadian silver medalist. The skater with the softest landings in the world. I'd watched his videos a hundred times on my phone and never told a soul. Two forms would close at midnight. One said Team USA — Alternate. One said Canada. I sat there and felt something strange and clean and cold settle in my chest. Then my phone lit up on the desk. Cole — FaceTime. I answered. And the first thing I heard wasn't his voice. It was a girl's. Close to the microphone. So close I could hear her breathing. "Is that her? Cole... tell her I'm sorry."

Chapter 3

"Nora, where are you?" Cole's face filled the screen, flushed under the restaurant's stupid orange bulbs. "Everyone's waiting to toast. You get slower every year, I swear—" Brielle leaned into frame. Sitting close. Her shoulder pressed against his. "If Nora doesn't want to come... is it because of me?" Her eyes went glassy, right on cue. "Maybe I should just leave." Three male voices fell over each other. "No way! You're the best thing to happen to this team." "Nora gets weird whenever girls get near Cole. We're used to it." Cole's whole face changed. He caught Brielle's wrist. "Sit down. You're not going anywhere." Then back to me, cold as rink ice: "I don't know what your problem is today. Don't come, then. We're not waiting." He hung up before I could say a word. I sat there looking at my reflection in the black screen. Then I blocked him. First time in eighteen years. Ten minutes later, a text from an unknown number: [Blocking me? Bold. Wait till I'm at your door.] I blocked that one too. The next morning was the mandatory federation meeting at the rink. Last signatures. Last checks. Registration closed at midnight. I got there late. Brielle was sitting in my spot. My spot. The end of the bench beside Cole, where I'd laced my skates every morning for eighteen years. She saw me and didn't move an inch. She just tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled with her eyes. Cole stared straight ahead, jaw tight. Waiting for me to come apologize. I walked to the top row of the bleachers and sat beside Mia, my best friend and the only figure skater on earth who swears like a sailor. She took one look at my face and whispered, "Who do I have to kill." "Nobody. Yet." The federation official talked for nine minutes. Register by midnight. This decision shapes your entire Olympic cycle. Then a hand knocked twice on the top of my head. "Nora. Outside. Now." I didn't look up. Cole grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. "What are we doing? Seriously. The silent treatment? It's Olympic season. Isn't this embarrassing for you?" "It is," I said. "So stop trying to make up with me." His eye twitched, the way it always does. "Fine. Sulk. Just don't call me crying tonight." I turned back to Mia. And then he did the thing that almost broke me. He crouched in front of me, took my face in both his hands, and made me look at him. His voice dropped. Gentle. Urgent. The voice from a thousand early mornings on empty ice. "Nora. Listen. Tonight's the deadline. Log in and check everything. Really check. Don't make a mistake with something this big." His thumb brushed my cheekbone. He was so sure. So tenderly, completely sure that I'd see Brielle's name next to his, cry, and quietly sign myself into the shadows. His alternate. His backup. His girl in the bleachers. He would rather steer me than tell me. "Cole?" Brielle appeared at his elbow, phone in hand. "My registration page is acting weird. Can you look?" He stood instantly. But first he pinched my cheek. That old gesture that used to mean we're fine. "Check your account, Nora. Promise me." "Sure," I said. He walked away with her. I took out my phone and texted a number with a Montreal area code. [Is the offer still open?] Three dots. Instantly. Like he'd been holding the phone for twelve years. [Midnight, Quinn's daughter. Not one minute later.]