For months leading up to the speedskating
finals we trained side by side, but I thought my longing glances
and schoolboy stares had gone unnoticed. In the locker room I
lingered after practice, hoping to catch up with him, but he always
seemed too busy for me. He was the veteran, the big name on the
ice, the one the crowds came to see. He was the athlete with the
sponsorship deals, the guy the coach pandered to, the skater I
aspired to be.
The man I wanted. The one I loved.
To be honest, I didn’t think he knew I
existed.
Me, some upstart wannabe from nowhere in
particular, a good ten years younger than he was and not yet half
as good as he’d been at my age. Me, with my hair cut so damn short
it stuck up in all the wrong places, my gangly legs I was still
getting used to afte
