Chapter 18
Elena
By the time we moved into the actual ribbon training, my navy leotard was already dark with sweat across the back. Michel pulled up the video of my March qualifying failure on his tablet, and I forced myself to watch—the throw, the turn, the desperate reach for a ribbon that was already too far away, the humiliating tangle.
The comments section was still active below the video. "Elena Petrova, have you practiced your ribbon routine yet?" someone had written, dripping with sarcasm. "Maybe stick to events where you don't have to throw things."
"First attempt," Michel said, cutting through my spiral. "Show me what you've got."
I took my position and tried to clear my mind of everything—Maxime's earnest compliments, Chloé's pointed observations, the comments section's mockery, Étienne's precise instructions. Just me and the ribbon and the movement I'd practiced thousands of times.
The throw went up, height and rotation both good. I moved into the preparation for the turn, counting the rhythm in my head—one, two, three—and then I was spinning. But somewhere in the second revolution, I felt it: that tiny dip in my right shoulder, barely two degrees off, but enough.
By the time I came out of the turn and reached back, I already knew it wouldn't be there. The ribbon fell short, and I grabbed at it desperately, managing to catch the end but losing all the elegance.
"Again," Michel said before I'd even fully stopped. "And this time, keep your shoulder back."
I tried again. And again. And again.
By the fifth attempt, my muscles were shaking and my mind was a mess of conflicting instructions—keep your shoulder back, but don't overcompensate; maintain your axis, but stay loose; don't think, just execute. The preparation phase felt sluggish, and I knew even before I started the turn that I was already 0.3 seconds behind.
"You're dragging your preparation!" Michel's voice was sharp. "In Olympic competition, that kind of delay is fatal. You'll lose execution points before you even attempt the skill."
"I know," I said, hearing the defensive edge in my voice. "I'm sorry, I'll—"
"Stop apologizing and start fixing it," he snapped.
I set up for the sixth attempt, my heart pounding and my hands trembling slightly. The throw went up, but I was already so tense that my shoulder dipped forward almost immediately. The turn was a disaster, my body wobbling as I tried to compensate, and when I came down the ribbon was nowhere near where it should have been.
I reached back anyway, some stubborn part of me refusing to give up, and my hand closed on empty air. The ribbon came down and wrapped around my legs, and suddenly I was falling, my hip hitting the mat with a jarring impact that knocked the breath from my lungs.
For a moment I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling lights that suddenly seemed too bright, too harsh. The white light seemed to expand, growing brighter until it was all I could see, until it felt like I was drowning in it.
And then I wasn't in Monaco anymore. I was nine years old, lying on a frozen mat in Sofia where the heating had been broken for weeks. My mother's voice cut through the cold, sharp as a blade: "Are you just going to lie there and rest? If you're not going to practice properly, maybe I should just leave you here. Maybe I don't need a daughter who gives up so easily."
I remembered her thick black coat making her look twice her normal size, the frost collected on her eyebrows, the way her eyes had been cold and hard. I remembered thinking: I have to get up. I have to keep going. Because if I don't, she'll leave me here, and I'll be all alone.
Because that was the lesson I'd learned early: children who weren't excellent, who didn't push through pain and exhaustion and fear—those children got left behind. And being left behind was the worst thing that could happen.
"Elena!" Michel's voice cut through the memory, sharp with concern. "Elena, can you hear me? Look at me."
I blinked, and the ceiling lights resolved back into normal brightness. I wasn't nine. I wasn't in Sofia. I was in Monaco, in a facility that cost more per month than my mother had earned in a year, with a coach who had never once threatened to abandon me.
"I'm okay," I managed, though my voice came out shaky. "I'm sorry. I'll get up. I'll try again."
"You're done for today," Michel said, and there was something unfamiliar in his tone. "Get up slowly. Let me see that ankle."
I pushed myself upright, wincing as pain spiked through my hip. Michel was beside me instantly, his hands gentle as they checked for serious injury.
"Nothing broken," he said after a moment. "But you're going to have a spectacular bruise. Why didn't you catch yourself? You had time to break the fall."
Because I wanted to fall, I didn't say. Because some part of me thought I deserved to hit the ground. Because the voice in my head that sounded like my mother was telling me that if I couldn't do this simple combination, I might as well give up entirely.
"I lost my balance," I said instead.
Michel studied me for a long moment. Finally, he sighed and offered me his hand, pulling me to my feet.
"You have the talent," he said quietly. "You have the work ethic. What you don't have is the ability to forgive yourself for being human. And until you learn that, you're going to keep sabotaging yourself at crucial moments."
The observation was so unexpected that I didn't know how to respond. I just stood there, ribbons of red fabric pooled around my feet, and tried not to cry.
"Go home," Michel said. "Ice that hip. And stop reading the comments section. Those people have never done a single ribbon routine in their lives—they have no right to judge you."
"Okay," I whispered, though we both knew I wouldn't stop reading them.
I gathered my things slowly, my body aching. The sun was setting over the Mediterranean, painting the sky orange and pink, and I made my way to the exit feeling like I was failing to appreciate this perfect world, wasting all the opportunities I'd been given by not being good enough.
The parking lot was nearly empty in the fading light, and I was surprised to see a black Maybach waiting instead of the usual Mercedes. Even more surprising: Étienne himself behind the wheel, his expression unreadable behind designer sunglasses.
He got out as I approached and opened the passenger door—not the back seat, but the front.
"Front seat," he said when I hesitated, and something in his voice made it clear this wasn't a suggestion.
I slid into the passenger seat, wincing as the movement pulled at my bruised hip. Étienne noticed—of course he noticed—his jaw tightening fractionally before he closed the door and returned to the driver's side.
We pulled out in silence. I stared out the window, watching Monaco's coastline blur past, and tried to figure out what I was supposed to say.
"Michel called me," Étienne said after several minutes, his voice carefully neutral. "He said you took a hard fall."
Of course he'd called. Because apparently every aspect of my life required immediate reporting to Étienne.
"I'm fine," I said, defensive. "Just a bruise. Nothing serious."
"Elena." The way he said my name made me look over at him despite myself. He'd taken off the sunglasses, and his eyes when they met mine were filled with something that looked almost like pain. "You don't have to pretend with me. I know today was difficult."
The kindness in his voice was almost worse than Michel's harsh criticism. It made something crack open inside me, all the frustration and fear threatening to spill out.