I knew the landing was going to be bad.

But there was no way to know just how bad. Not until the rest of my weight came down, and then, I realized how screwed up everything was, how off-center the rest of my body was. Later on, I could look back on the footage and see that it was just a giant clusterfuck. My foot was in the wrong position, my weight went in the opposite direction, and my ankle tried its best, but couldn’t do the impossible.

I felt my foot give out under me. Felt my body try to compensate, but hit the ice because holyfuckingshit. Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit.

It didn’t hurt until I was already on my ass on the ice, clutching the area just above my ankle over the leather of the boot. There was so much adrenaline pumping through my body it was in shock. But I knew, I fucking knew something was wrong as the music for our set kept on playing in the background and I sat there, bad, bad pain shooting through my ankle.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see where Ivan had stopped right after his landing, probably having gone into the next foot sequence before noticing I wasn’t right beside him like I should have been. Like I was always supposed to be.

In my head, I could picture his face as he realized I wasn’t next to him like we had practiced a thousand times in the past. I could picture his face as he realized I’d fucked up. I could picture his face looking back at me in confusion as to why I wasn’t getting the fuck up to go after him, like I usually did when a jump went wrong and I didn’t stick the landing.

But I’d fallen.

I wasn’t in blinding pain, but I knew there was something wrong.

I knew there was something wrong, and I knew I needed to get up because we had a lot of work to do. We were supposed to work on nailing this shit. We were supposed to perfect all of this.

I needed to get up.

Get up, Jasmine. Get up. Get up, get up, get up, get up. Suck it up and get up. Finish this.

Still grabbing my ankle, that voice drove me to try and roll onto my opposite knee to get up. I had to get up. We had kinks to work out. Finger positions to perfect.

I could do this. I could get up. I had skated through bone bruises, hairline fractures, and minor sprains.

So I rolled to my knee, trying to listen to the music and figure out where we were so I could catch up. But just as I got to my knee and started to pull up the leg I’d landed badly on, pain like I had rarely in my life felt before slashed through me.

I opened my mouth… and nothing came out.

I didn’t realize my arms had given out until the ice was on my face and there were some horrifying shouts coming from around me, and the next thing I knew, something was touching my shoulder, rolling me over so I could lay on my back. And the next thing I saw was Ivan on his knees beside me, his face pale and somehow red at the same fucking time. His eyes were huge. I think I would always remember that.

I couldn’t get up. I can’t get up.

And my ankle—

“Jesus Christ, Jasmine, lay the fuck down!” Ivan yelled into my face, sliding something around my shoulders, his chest pressed to my shoulder as I belatedly recognized that our music was still on. We had gone with Van Helsing. I’d been so excited even though I had played it cool. I had been so relieved that was the music Ivan had chosen. I had given him some shit over it, but only because it’s what I did with him.

“Stop trying to get up!” the man beside me yelled again, his voice cracking, his face… frantic.

“Let me try,” I managed to murmur. It felt like my brain had some kind of thirty-second delay behind what it wanted to say and what it actually said. I tried to roll over, I tried to move my leg, but the pain….

“Stop it, fucking stop it,” he barked at me, his left hand coming down to cup my kneecap, stroking up my thigh.

His hand was shaking. Why was his hand shaking?

I can’t get up. I can’t get up.

“Jasmine, for the love of God, quit trying to get up,” Ivan shouted at me, his hands going everywhere and nowhere, but I couldn’t be sure because it felt like something was roaring in my ears, and the pain below my knee was getting worse, worse, worse.

“It’s fine. Give me a minute,” I blabbed, attempting to lift my bad leg only for him to hold it down, squeezing my thigh painfully.

“Stop it, Jasmine, fucking stop,” he demanded, his hand above my knee. “Nancy!” my partner yelled somewhere, but I wasn’t sure because I guess I had started staring at my leg….

I’d done something to my goddamn ankle.

I had done something to my fucking ankle.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

I didn’t even realize I’d opened my mouth until Ivan whispered hoarsely into my ear, “Don’t cry. Don’t you dare fucking cry right now. Do you hear me? You are not going to cry on the ice, in public. Hold it in. Hold it in. Not one tear, Jasmine. Not a single tear. Do you hear me?”

I sucked in a breath, my eyes going glassy and everything going blurry.

Was I shaking?

Why did I feel like I was about to throw up?

“Don’t you dare do it,” he hissed again, the arm around my shoulders tightening. “You don’t want anyone to see you do this. Hold it, baby, just hold it….”

I didn’t know what the hell he was saying or why he was saying it, but for some reason, I just held my breath. I held my breath as Coach Lee slid onto the ice on my other side, quickly flanked by a body shape I recognized as Galina’s and another coach. They crowded me, surrounded me.

They asked questions, I tried to answer, but heard Ivan answer for me.

Because I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t cry.

All I could do was stare in the general vicinity of where my white boot was, barely able to see shit, and think, think, think, think.

I fucked up.

I had fucked up.

I had fucking fucked up.

Chapter 19

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Stopping halfway into crunch number 108, I didn’t need to look to my side to know who was standing there. I’d recognize that annoying, condescending, bossy voice in a crowd of a thousand. Only one person could aggravate me so easily by asking a question.

“Minding my own business. The one thing you don’t know how to do,” I muttered, rolling up the little bit I had left to keep my ab workout going.

“Jasmine,” came Ivan’s sharp tone again.

I ignored him. Going back up into another crunch, I watched out of the corner of my eye as he closed the door behind him.

I did another crunch just as he came walking toward me, those big feet in bright blue running shoes landing centimeters from my side.

I didn’t look up at him, and I wasn’t going to. I knew what he was looking at. It wasn’t my body that was covered in sweat that he was eyeing, and it definitely wasn’t the fact that I wore a pair of loose basketball shorts that belonged to my brother that were riding high up my thighs. The fact I only had a sports bra on had nothing to do with what he wanted to focus on either.

He was looking at the cast boot I had on my left foot. The left foot I had propped up on a pillow right beside my right one, which was planted flat on the floor, knee bent. The black boot that was a reminder, every single minute of my day, that I had fucked up and fucked up big-time.

I did four more crunches, staring straight up at the ceiling.

I swallowed so hard my throat hurt.

I had done the same thing so many times over the last two weeks, I was surprised I could still talk. Not that I’d been doing much talking since I’d been let out of urgent care. I hadn’t been doing much of anything other than working out in my room, watching videotaped practices of Ivan and me before, and sleeping.

The tip of Ivan’s shoe nudged my rib, and I ignored it.

“Jasmine.”

“Ivan,” I said, making my voice sound as uncompromising as his.

He nudged me again. And again, I did nothing.

He sighed. “Are you going to stop so we can talk or what?”

“I’d rather not,” I answered, forcing myself to keep my gaze away from him.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when he quickly dropped into a deep squat, hovering just to my side, so close there was no way to ignore him. Unfortunately. Because when I went up to do another crunch, his palm went to my forehead and gently pushed my head back down so that I lay there, on my back.

Looking around and past him, I focused on my ceiling fan.

“Meatball, that’s enough,” he said, his hand still on my face.

I waited a second and tried to go up into another crunch, but he must have been expecting it, because I couldn’t even get an inch off the floor.

“Enough,” he repeated. “Stop. Talk to me.”