I've never seen her look like this, she looks beaten down, small and afraid. I walk over and shut her door before sitting down next to her. She keeps her eyes on the floor and presses her lips together.

"What happened?" I ask quietly. "I didn't stick around to the end but you looked great out there. Did you get second again?"

"No." She says wiping her tears away with her palms. "I just got the best score I've ever received in my entire life." I furrow my eyebrows and smile.

"Then what's wrong?" I ask and she sighs.

"He won't let me skate like that again." She says shaking her head. "He says I don't know anything about this and I need to listen to him."

"Well that clearly can't be true." I say. "You just did fantastic."

"I know it's not true." She says quietly. "I know I'm right, but he almost fired my coaches and now he's coming to all of my practices......I don't know what to do anymore."

"It's alright-"

"No it's not." She says bringing a hand up and wiping away another tear. "My whole life is figure skating, I've given up everything to make this happen. And given the way things are going right now, if I let him run me over I won't place in sectionals." 

"Why didn't you call me?" I ask quietly and she sighs. "I'm here for you Sash, but you need to tell me when things are wrong."

"I-I was going to....but I just couldn't." She whispers. "I wanted to try and calm down first and then I figured you'd be with Sabrina."

"Well right now I'm doing a 'family thing' with mom. I thought you'd be happy, we could talk about it." I say shrugging my shoulders.

"I was happy, dad burst my bubble." She huffs and I reach over for her hand. She moves closer and wraps her arms around me instead. "You don't have to worry though, I heard the door slam. He's gone somewhere for the evening."

"Just breathe." I whisper and she nods. "I'm right here."

She always holds onto me like if I let go I'll disappear. I can understand why, I did it once before. Sasha doesn't have the emotional support she needs to go through what she does in figure skating. She's lonely, isolated. 

I stand up with her and she follows me. She brings me to her bed and pulls me to lay down next to her. She puts her face on my chest and sniffles. I just let her take some deep breaths for a while and I wrap my arms around her until she seems to relax.

"I know there's so much wrong for you right now." I say quietly. "I don't know if I can fix any of it but if you want to talk about anything, I'm here to listen." She takes a shaky breath in and then closes her eyes.

"The first time I ever skated was when I was four years old. Most people start at five but dad wanted to train me earlier. My brothers were already skating and got to spend so much one-on-one time with dad so I figured it would be so much fun. For a while it was, we were all skating together and then I met you." She says quietly.

"There was a time in my life when dad would clap and smile when I got a trick right. When we'd go to the rink together and bond. I started competing around age eight and that's when I noticed Nik and Alex just didn't seem to like it anymore. They were getting made fun of at school for doing something 'girly'. Dad started getting more heavy handed about our practicing, forced them to continue until they couldn't take it anymore.

"Nik quit that year, when he was ten. This was back when mom still had a backbone, she put him in hockey. 'At least it was skating' was her argument, Alex quit the year after that at eleven. Nik was having fun and dad just pushed Alex until one day, he broke. Dad wanted them to skate, to be like him. But they couldn't deal with all the pressure dad was putting on them, so they quit." She says and starts crying.

"Then it was all me." She says quietly. "At first it was nice, I had all of dad's attention and that's what I wanted. But dad had become a monster, after Nik and Alex quit....he wasn't the same. He was harder on me, stricter. 'Jump higher Sasha', 'you're not flexible enough Sasha'. I was on a strict food diet at the age of nine. I weighed in all the time, dad would take note of it. 'Heavy girls don't fly', that's what he'd say to me." I feel momentarily disgusted by that. How could a parent treat a young girl like that?

"He was awful to me. I didn't get hugs from him, or smiles anymore. I got yelled at, I was all that was left. He figured he wasn't involved enough in Nik and Alex's skating. I also saw the way dad was with my brothers now, it was like he didn't respect them anymore. They'd try and tell him things about school or their friends and he'd pretend he couldn't hear them. I knew that if I talked back or quit I'd be in that circle too.

"It divided our house. It was like I was supposed to hate my brothers because dad did. Finally when I was twelve they told me why they'd quit and we started to fix our relationship. Mom has become a bystander, she doesn't say anything anymore. She just puts her head down and tucks her tail between her legs. I feel like I don't know her, we've never had a real conversation about anything. Dad feels like a coach these days, our relationship is completely impersonal." She sighs.

"Then there's you." She says running her hand over my arm. "I lost you, partially because dad scared you away. Because he was too intense."

"That wasn't all of it." I remind her and she nods.

"Sometimes I wish it all would stop. But when I feel like giving up or telling dad I quit I can hear his voice in the back of my head saying: 'we did not come to this country for nothing'. He expects so much from me and part of me will always love skating. I love it but how am I supposed to keep up with something that's making me miserable?"

It was hard to listen to, skating was Sasha's entire life. I knew what she was afraid of, she was thinking 'if I quit now, then who am I?'. 

"You have to do what you want though." I say quietly. "If you want the Olympics and you want to do the work to get there that's wonderful. But if you don't, you shouldn't force yourself to do it." I say and she nods. "But I know it's not that easy."

"No, but few things are." She says and I nod. "You know that Nik is getting recruited to play in a minor hockey league? That Alex is getting scouted as a D-1 athlete? Dad doesn't even care." She says shaking her head. "We only talk about figure skating, I get things because dad thinks I'm more important." She gives me a guilty look and sighs. "I'm honestly surprised they're as normal as they are with everything that's happened."

"Your brothers are good guys. Before this year we used to practice when Micheal and Irene were on the ice. The entire team always made fun of Micheal, but they always stuck up for him. They told everyone to knock it off." She smiles at that and nods.

"Yeah, they're pretty much the only people I get to talk to anymore." She says solemnly. "You don't know how lonely it is. I feel like an outsider, I know I'm not normal or as well adjusted as other kids are because I didn't have a childhood."

"I think you're normal." I say and she laughs a bit. 

"I don't even feel the need to fill you in on the last four years because honestly, I haven't done anything. I've skated." She says and I nod. "Skating is really one of the only times I feel like I'm myself. I don't know who I am without it. It's one of the only times I feel girly or emotional...or pretty."

"You don't think you're pretty?" I ask feeling like that had to be the biggest lie of the century. Sasha was gorgeous, put together.

"Not really." She says shaking her head. "I feel unapproachable."

"That's only because nobody knows you." I tell her. "Not the way I know you anyway."

"I saw the way you looked at me three weeks ago." She says and I suddenly worry she may have caught me staring at her. "Like you were disgusted with me."

"What?" I ask and she nods. "No it's just....you're so different than when we were little. You just come off as polished and grown-up. I wasn't disgusted I just thought maybe too much had changed. And then I thought you were right about me not knowing you anymore."

"Well people change." She says. "It's clear that we've both grown in our own different ways."

"But it doesn't feel any different now than when we were little." I remind her. "I once read that the best friends you have are the ones that the second you see each other, it doesn't feel like any time has passed."

"I guess." She says. "This doesn't feel any different than when we were little." She nudges me referring to our position in bed. "It's still comfortable."

"Always will be." I tell her and she nods with a smile. I look over her shoulder and see a framed picture of two young kids skating. "Is that us?" I ask and she looks over and I can see her cheeks turning pink.

"Yeah, it's me and you." She says and picks it up showing it to me. 

"I remember this." I say and remember the last time I held this picture. "The first time I held this picture was on my eleventh birthday."

"Oh right." She says with a small nod. "Yeah that was a good day."

"The first time I'd ever kissed someone was that day." I say even more quietly and she looks up to me with this deer-in-the-headlights look.

"The only time I've ever kissed someone was that day." She whispers. It didn't surprise me, given the fact that Sasha wasn't allowed to go out or date anyone. I'm sure if that wasn't the case, she'd have a line down the block. I was still the only person she'd ever kissed.

"Yep, the day we put our hypothesis to the test." I say and she laughs uncomfortably. I'd lied to her that day, I said it was weird. It was the start of my feelings for Sasha, years of this slow burning ache had become a wildfire since she came back into my life.

"Do you still think it's gross?" She teases and I laugh.

"I've warmed up to the idea." I joke and she rolls her eyes. "Look Sash I-"

"Sasha! How did your competition go, dad's not-" We both turn in horror and see her brother poking his head into the room. Instant anger comes across his face and I shuffle away with her in bed.

I'm so dead.