Work Text:
SASHA'S ENTRY:
Dear diary,
I heard Anna got married. All I can truly think of is "really?" After everything? After that night? Maybe I'm too bitter about, sure, it's been 4 years but still! At least marry a girl! Was that night nothing to her? To marry some boy who could never compare! He could never even do quads! He never went to the Olympics with her and I did! Why is he prioritized? I would be the copacetic one, we'd be perfect! I'm so pathetic. God. Why is she pretty? Why am I not enough? When have I ever been enough? I wasn't enough at Nationals, at Europeans, at Worlds... even at the Olympics! I have never been enough. Oh... The Olympics... How resplendent Anna looked while I looked stupid! I can barely even stand around her! Still! It's so bad... I still think about when Eteri caught me thinking about Anna while I... helped myself. I still think about how pretty Anna is in every rendition of Ave Maria. Maybe just in general, but all of this is normal! After all, all girls like other girls then get sad when they marry! It's normal! I only touched her once!!
Sasha went to an ice show and skated to the music with Evgenia Medvedeva and... Anna... Sasha did a double Salchow then when she attempted the quad toeloop.. and fell! But she fell right below Anna...
"Are you alright?" Anna said sweetly.
"Uhh... uhmm..."
"Oh no! Did you hurt yourself?"
"No!" Sasha answered too quickly.
"Alright! Get up, Sashenka!"
Sasha froze at the nickname before immediately getting up to continue the show.
ANNA'S ENTRY:
Dear diary,
Sasha has been acting weird. She was all over me. It was just like what happened before the Olympics. That night. Oh that night... Maybe I still like her, but that's illegal! So illegal! Besides, I am... tolerant of my husband. I don't love him per se, but just... Whatever. I have to be calm and nice! I know this was a short entry but nonetheless I must write it. A ton of skaters are going to Zürich next week, maybe Sashenka will be there!
SASHA’S ENTRY:
Dear diary,
Anna’s husband came to the show today. I wish I hadn’t seen him. His smile looks like the kind you give to cameras, not people. He stood by the boards like he belonged in our world, like he had any idea what the ice feels like when it cuts under you, shallow and ruthless. I wanted to tell him to step back—he doesn’t belong near her. He doesn’t see the way her toe pick bites into the ice right before a triple toeloop. He doesn’t know that she hums quietly before skating, like she’s telling the rink a secret.
I still remember that night before the Olympics like I’m stuck between goosebumps and frostbite. We were kids pretending to be women, pretending to understand love or maybe just adrenaline. When she touched me, my whole body thought it was landing a jump I’d been missing for months. Maybe that’s why I can’t stop chasing it—the feeling of landing something perfect, even if it’s doomed to crack the moment the music ends.
Evgenia says I have to “move on.” What does that even mean? Move past her? Past Anna? That’s like telling me to skip the step sequence before the free skate—it doesn’t make sense.
Maybe I’ll write her. A letter. She won’t read it, but maybe it’ll stop echoing inside me.
NEXT WEEK:
The rink in Zürich was dim before sunrise, the ice faintly glowing under overhead fluorescents. Sasha laced her skates tighter than usual; the leather bit into her ankle, a small sting she welcomed. Across the rink, Anna was already gliding—warmup jacket half-zipped, hair pinned loosely. There was something maddening about her ease, the casual sway of her edges. Sasha always looked constructed—every gesture precise, rehearsed. Anna looked like freedom.
Their reunion was accidental. Or maybe that’s what their managers said.
After Anna’s marriage, their schedules diverged: Anna was always around her husband but did show skating; Sasha remained skating with Eteri, trying to proof herself worthy of... something. Yet here they were again, skating for the same gala—sharing the same locker room, the same mirror light reflecting traces of earlier years.
Sasha tied her laces and forced a smile when Anna turned.
“You look well,” Anna said, a simple phrase, but yet again it was Anna saying it.
“You too,” Sasha replied. “Congratulations, by the way.”
“On what?”
Sasha didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Anna’s eyes softened, almost apologetic.
SASHA’S ENTRY:
Dear diary,
I tried to be normal today. I told her “congratulations” like a human being and not a storm cloud. I smiled. I said thank you when she complimented my Flip. And yet, when she skated to Master and Margarita, I couldn’t watch. I told myself to focus on the technicals—the glide, the control—but all I saw was her neck, pale and soft in the blue lights.
I fell during my warm-up, of course. I keep doing that when she’s near. I don’t even know if it’s nerves or something worse. Something like grief. She came to help me up again. And I think she whispered "careful". I haven’t heard her sound gentle with me since… since before the Olympics.
Is it messed up that I wish she still looked at me like that night was a secret worth keeping?
Zhenya told me to stop writing about Anna, that it’s feeding the obsession. But I think writing is the only thing keeping me from calling her in the middle of the night.