Chapter 198
Chapter 198
Elena
The ribbon left my fingers at the apex of the first toss, and for a heartbeat, the arena disappeared.
There was only the ribbon—pale gold spinning through its 720-degree arc with the clean precision that came from ten thousand repetitions. My body moved through the catch before I could think, arms extending at the exact angle Michel had drilled into me since I was nine. The silk kissed my palms. Clean catch. The next toss already loading in my legs, the familiar burn of muscle memory taking over.
Don't think. Just move.
The second toss went higher—I felt it in the release, in the way my fingertips lingered half a second longer, the way the ribbon seemed to hang at its peak before gravity kicked in. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat, but my breathing stayed even, controlled. The arena's AC had died sometime during the second rotation, and mist from the humidity was drifting across the floor, softening everything into something dreamlike. Later I'd realize the fog had been a gift: on my third toss, my landing weight shifted forward a few centimeters—I felt the error the instant my foot touched down, that sickening lurch of wrong—but the mist swallowed it before any camera could catch the mistake. I corrected through the Choctaw with a sharp hip adjustment, my core screaming, and felt the movement settle back on track.
There. Got it. Keep going.
The step sequence was where I stopped being an athlete and became something else. The music wasn't external anymore—it ran straight through my spine, each step hitting its accent not because I counted but because my body had absorbed the rhythm so completely that counting was irrelevant. My torso folded into the deep backbend, ribcage opening toward the lights, and I felt the crowd's collective inhale like weather changing against my skin. My fingertips brushed the floor. For one perfect moment, I was weightless.
The arabesque turn came last. I held the opening position for two counts, my supporting leg trembling minutely as it found center with that quiet click of everything aligning, then started to turn. The ribbon spiraled around my arm. Rotation building, controlled, controlled, controlled—my vision blurring at the edges, the world reducing to the single point of my axis—then snap to stillness.
The music stopped.
I stood there, chest heaving, ribbon draped across my arm, and the arena exploded. The sound hit me like a physical thing. My legs were shaking. I couldn't feel my feet. I pressed my lips together hard to keep from crying and raised my arms in the final salute, fingers trembling.
I did it. I actually did it.
---
189.75.
I stared at the scoreboard, unable to process it. My vision swam. I blinked hard, once, twice, and the numbers stayed the same. Annabelle's score read 186.40—fourth place, incredible for her first senior international. I turned to tell her, my mouth opening, but she was already pulling me into a hug so tight I could barely breathe.
"You destroyed them," she said, laughing and breathless against my shoulder. "Elena, you actually destroyed them."
"You were beautiful." I pulled back, gripping her arms, needing her to understand. "That second rotation was the best I've ever seen you do it."
She looked at me with an expression I'd never seen from her—open, vulnerable, without the competitive edge that usually lived in her eyes. "Michel was right about what he told me before we came out."
"What did he say?" I was still trying to catch my breath, my heart refusing to slow down.
"That you'd gotten to the point where you could comfort other people with your performance." She shook her head slightly, something like wonder in it. "I didn't get it until I watched you from the wings."
I was still thinking about that when the media coordinator herded us toward the mixed zone, her hand firm on my elbow because my legs weren't quite steady. The cameras found my face and the questions began in rapid-fire English and French and Russian, voices overlapping until they became white noise.
The British journalist asked about age—whether I felt pressure to retire, whether the sport had a ceiling on longevity. I looked straight into the lens, thought about Étienne watching from the other side of the world, and felt something fierce and certain rise in my chest. My hands were still shaking. I clasped them together.
"As long as my body can support me, I'll keep shining on this floor." My English came out with its Bulgarian edges, which I'd stopped trying to hide. My voice was steadier than I felt. "Age has never been the enemy of talent. Love is what matters. And I have—" I paused, swallowed hard, because the next words were true in ways the journalist would never understand. "I have the most powerful reason in the world to keep loving this."
---
Chloé found me twenty minutes later in the hallway outside the changing area, already scrolling her phone with the focused look of someone watching a disaster unfold in real time. I was still in my competition leotard, a towel around my shoulders, my hair coming loose from its pins.
"You're trending," she said without preamble. "Not just the score. Your Instagram post."
I'd posted right after the medal ceremony—the photo where I was holding both flags, French and Bulgarian, gold medal catching the lights. Caption: I'm really great! Love u. Plus the flag emojis, because they made me happy and I was done overthinking everything. I'd been grinning like an idiot in the photo, face flushed, still breathing hard.
"How bad?" My stomach dropped.
She turned the phone toward me. The comments had become their own ecosystem. Somewhere in the middle, people were comparing timestamps and locations, and someone with expertise in French luxury plates had noted that the car dropping me at the arena three days ago had a partial plate—75-XXX-BM—consistent with Beaumont family registrations.
I read it twice, my pulse picking up again for entirely different reasons. My hands went cold.
"They don't know for sure," Chloé said, watching my face.
"They know enough." I pressed my fingers to my temples, suddenly exhausted.
"Half think it's just a family driver. The other half think you're secretly engaged to some seventy-year-old." She took the phone back. "Point is, call him before someone else does."
---
The hotel room had that specific quiet of places where you should feel triumphant but were instead sitting on the bed with your heart in your throat, staring at a contact name. I'd showered, the water scalding hot to ease the muscle ache, changed into soft clothes that didn't scratch. Eaten half of what the nutritionist left outside my door, forcing each bite down past the anxiety. Now there was nothing left but to call.
I hit the button. Pulled my knees up to my chest. Counted my heartbeats.
He picked up on the second ring.
"Étienne." My voice came out smaller than I wanted, slightly breathless. "I think I screwed up. They're guessing I'm in a relationship, there are photos of the car, the plate number—" The words ran together, tumbling over each other. I was gripping the phone too hard. "Should I delete the post? Will it cause trouble? I didn't think about the car, I should have been more careful—"
"Respire." His voice was low and steady, that single French word landing in my chest like a hand on a door about to blow open. I closed my eyes, pressed the phone against my ear. "Deep breath. Listen to me. Three. Two. One. Relax." Brief pause, and I could hear him breathing too, slow and even. "Don't delete it. You did nothing wrong. Three days and you're home. We'll face it together."
The panic loosened several degrees. I exhaled shakily, uncurling slightly.
"You're not worried?"
"I'm not worried."