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Victor is a boy who’s come to like the cold. He’s a professional figure skater from Russia, for god’s sake! Ever since he learned to walk, he has spent the majority of his life basking in the freezing temperatures of skating rinks across the world. How ironic that he feels most comfortable when freezing.
But this chill he’s feeling is nothing like he’s ever experienced before. It brings no comfort, only a terrifying numbness in his heart. It’s like he’s a robot going through the motions of life without truly experiencing a morsel of it.
It’s the kind of chill that leaves him unable to feel anything at all.
As his sapphire eyes stare blankly at the fluorescent lights in the rink, he realizes that his passions have reached an early winter. Skating simply doesn’t enchant him the way it used to, and that boredom has bled into his performance. It has brought more flubbed jumps, more fights with Yakov, more sleepless nights where he dreads waking up the next morning just to disappoint everyone again– to disappoint himself again.
It is in the middle of another one of Yakov’s scolding rants when he reaches the inevitable conclusion.
“I’m taking a break from skating.”
It’s as if he had pressed the pause button on everyone in the rink, as they had completely stopped stretching in favor of staring at him in shock. Yakov’s mouth is in the widest gape Victor had ever seen on him, and Victor hates how satisfied he feels about that.
At least he’s still good at surprising people while off the ice. If only he remembered how to while on it. Perhaps he wouldn’t even be in this mess then. He smiles bitterly at the thought.
Without another word, Victor unties his skates, packs them into his duffel bag, and walks solemnly to the rink’s entrance. Nobody stops him, but he hears Yakov’s booming voice following him to the parking lot.
“You can’t just quit now! The Grand Prix Final is only a month away, and you’re doing so…” His voice trails off in somber realization. When he finds his voice again, it is barely above a whisper. “You were doing so well, Vitya. How could this have happened?”
If only Victor knew the answer. He never imagined he could have ended up this way. He loves skating more than anything. He knows the sport like he knows breathing. It’s a piece of him that could never be removed even if he tried.
He smiles, but it does not reach his eyes. “Don’t worry, Yakov. I’m not quitting.”
It’s the truth. He knows there will come a day when the siren will sing her beckoning song to him again, and he knows he will return when she does. Like the fool he is.
With one last smile, he turns and walks away. He feels Yakov’s stare like an itch on his back.
It’s a bit of a walk from the rink to the bus stop. Usually, he would hitch a ride home from Yakov, but he’s already troubled the man enough. Besides, he’s found himself enjoying simply walking along the vacant road, breathing in the crisp air of the approaching winter.
The bench he sits on freezes his skin beneath the thin fabric of his leggings. Frigid winds break through the long silver tendrils of hair protecting his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. Somehow, the sensation alleviates a tension he hadn’t noticed before in his shoulders.
In all honesty, he hasn’t felt so relieved in months.
The bus ride home is also peaceful, with Victor bopping his head gently to the unfamiliar music playing in his earbuds while he looks out the window. It is only when he reaches his stop that he realizes that he will have to explain why he’s home early to his mother.
His mother is a quiet, inexpressive woman who’s hard to talk to and even harder to please, especially regarding Victor’s skating. She’s passionate and strict, and a big contributor to Victor's success at such a young age. She has put as much of herself into the sport as Victor has, and it makes him dread seeing her reaction to the news. As much as he hopes he’ll be wrong, he knows she will be highly disappointed at the very least.
In his anxiety, he takes his sweet time walking home. He even stops at the grocery store to buy his mother a placating plyushka in case things go south.
After an hour of aimless strolling around neighboring streets, he finally gathers the courage to go home. But that courage quickly filters out at the sight of the distinct blue of his front door. Hesitation halts his feet from moving any farther, leaves his fingers hovering anxiously over the door handle. With a deep breath and his plyushka at the ready, he unlocks the door with a trembling hand and quietly steps inside.
The warm air wafting from the kitchen brings with it the smell of fresh bread and soup that makes Victor's mouth water. He takes off his shoes and drops his duffel bag on the floor to join the only other occupant of the house in the kitchen.
It’s a rather humble space. There aren’t many cabinets, so pots and pans are hung from hooks above the ivory counters while one pot is on the stove, rich broth simmering under the steamy lid. There’s a small, circular table in the corner of the room with a small, cream-colored tablecloth with a dull floral pattern on its fraying borders. There's a stack of envelopes on the table, serving as a reminder of Victor's general neglect of his responsibilities these past few weeks. Luckily, an excuse to push the harrowing thought away comes in the form of Victor's mother nearly smacking her head on the fridge as she leans on her tip-toes to reach for the contents of the overflowing spice cabinet.
“Mama?”
She doesn’t startle at his sudden presence. “Ah, Vitya, grab the dill for me, will you?”
With a small smile, he reaches into the cabinet. He’s careful not to knock over the tower of spices when he finds the small jar and hands it to her.
“You're earlier than I thought you would be, Vitya. The soup is almost done, so just sit down.”
Obligingly, he takes a seat at the small, circular table and looks at the mail pile– as expected, they are all addressed to him. "Your mail has been piling up for in weeks, Vitya. I put scissors on the table, so make yourself useful."
He doesn't waste time in sorting through the pile. His focus catches on a colorful skating magazine with his face on the cover, but the bitter taste in his mouth leads him to ignore it in favor of opening the letters. He grabs the scissors his mother left for him and opens each one carefully in case one of them is important or interesting.
To his disappointment, they are all– of course- about skating, cruelly reminding him of his current predicament. He sullenly puts the scissors at the edge of the table and busies his hands by tracing the pattern of the beige tablecloth instead.
It feels like an eternity has passed when his mother finally places the stewpot at the center of the table. When she’s done ladling Victor’s portion of soup into a bowl, she slowly takes a seat while pinning him under her sharp gaze. “Finished practice early today? That’s unusual for Yakov.”
“Well…” He gulps. “Practice didn’t end early. I left on my own.”
She furrows her brows skeptically. “What do you mean?”
Oh god, his palms are getting sweaty. He rubs them on his pants beneath the table and tightly weaves his fingers together to steel himself.
“I decided to take a break from skating for a bit... It won’t be forever! I just… Mama?”
Her face has always been rather stony, but her expression holds a severity that he has never seen on her before. “I do hope you are joking, Vitya, although I do not find it funny.”
Victor’s heart plummets to his feet, making him feel lightheaded. “Mama, I’m not joking. I just need some time to rediscover my passion for skating. Please understand that this isn’t easy for me...”
The usually stoic woman suddenly slams a bony fist onto the table and jumps from her seat. “Of course it’s easy for you, Vitya! It’s always easy for you to run away from these things once they get a little hard, because you don’t have to deal with the repercussions! While I work tirelessly, dedicating so much time and money for you to train and master your craft, you make this last-minute decision that could completely throw your career away while you’re at your peak? Do you understand how selfish that is?”
Victor has never seen her this angry. Her face is bright red, small beads of sweat dripping from her temple onto the table, and feels a deep, stabbing ache in his chest at the realization that his mother doesn’t understand his pain in the slightest. He stares at the sweat droplets on the tablecloth, further muting its dull beige color, like remnants of a storm that has smothered the remaining flames of his passion, dulling his spirit into a weak wisp of smoke.
The familiar numbness is creeping its way into his chest again, daring him to throw these painful feelings of betrayal into the blissful nothingness.
“...Selfish. You think I’m being selfish.” The words carry no emotion. He shakes his head, huffing an equally hollow laugh. “That’s fucking rich coming from the woman who hasn’t listened to a single thing I’ve wanted since I was three years old.”
His mother's mouth is agape, but it doesn't deter his rage in the slightest.
He briskly stands up from his own seat and points an accusing finger at her. “You never cared about how I felt! Not once have you ever asked me if I was enjoying what I was doing! Because as long as I was doing well in competitions, of course I was happy, right? Well guess what, Mama? No, I haven’t been happy with what I’ve been doing for months, but you haven’t noticed because you've been too busy thinking about how successful your ‘little project’ has been!” The look of pure offense on his mother's face makes him feel nauseous.
"How dare you insinuate such a thing about my parenting? I chose this path for you because you were so happy doing it! I've been paying for your lessons, working with your sponsors and Yakov, and I've been doing so all by myself, Vitya! I am your only parent and you are my only son. Everything I have been doing, I have been doing for you. If you stop now, you are throwing away all of the work I have done to keep you on this path to a happy, successful life! So don't you dare compare what I've done for you to a mere project!"
Victor scoffs. "That isn't a problem that I created for you, Mama. You're the one who decided to dump all that work onto yourself. I know you've been working hard for me, and you have no idea how much I appreciate it, but if you had just talked to me, we could have–"
"How could you possibly have made it this far in the professional ice skating world if I hadn't worked so hard for you? You wouldn't have gotten any sponsorships or coaching without my help in pursuing your passions!"
"Did you listen to a word I just said? You've been burning yourself out doing all of these things without even asking me if they were what I needed! You dropped me from school, isolated me from my peers, and damned me to this loneliness that's landed us in this situation in the first place! I love skating more than anything, but I've never intended for it to be my entire life the way you have made it yours! And yet I'm the one to blame?"
"I did these things because I wanted what's best for you! How was I supposed to know what you needed if you've never voiced any objections on these decisions?"
"Because I do love skating! I do want it to be my career, but I never asked you to take so much responsibility for my success! I could have been the one to garner sponsorships. I have the skill and the recognition, and you and I both know that my placements have earned plenty of money to continue furthering my career.
"All I ever needed from you was to see you were there for me!" Victor's throat is on fire from the strain of holding back his tears. The effort causes his voice to crack at the end of his confession.
"I wanted you to visit me at the rink to meet my rink mates and watch my progress! I wanted to look in the stands at my competitions and see you sitting there with a smile of encouragement! I wanted you to be there for me as a parent instead of a business partner! I wanted you to tell me that I was the kind of son that you could be proud of!" Victor's tears flow further beyond his control with every admission. "But you haven't... and it has made me feel more alone than you could ever imagine." His words slice through his chest and rip out his barely beating heart, leaving him raw and vulnerable for his mother to further tear to shreds.
Little does she know that he’s going to beat her to it.
His eyes catch on the scissors at the edge of the table, and he makes a split-second decision that will undo years upon years of growth and hard work.
Perfect.
He snatches the scissors and immediately hacks them through the beautiful silver locks of his hair. He stares straight into his mother’s red-rimmed, horror-stricken eyes as they watch the shimmering tresses fall onto the table and into his soup. He chops his front into thin, uneven bangs. The hair on the top of his head is cut too close to his scalp, making the tufts prickle and stand straight up. It looks as if he let a toddler run through his hair with a saw. But with a lighter head and a lighter heart, he holds his arms up in a challenging posture, as if telling his mother to take a good look at the mess her son– her investment– has become.
“Well, are you proud of me now, Mama? Are you happy with the monster you’ve created? You’ve made it so that skating is all I’m good for, and now that I've lost my luster, I’m useless! And you think it’s easy for me to admit how useless I am?”
“Vitya–”
“No. It’s too late to fix me. I am a skater. It is in my blood as much as you are... but I just need you to let me have this one thing. The one thing I’ve ever asked from you… A break” His grip on the scissors loosens, sending them clanging on the kitchen floor as he sags in his chair equally loudly. He buries his head into his arms on the table and weeps quietly at the irreversible damage he’s done.
“I just need a break.”