Page 36 of Goal Line
Chapter Sixteen
EVA
“That’s the craziest, most asinine idea I’ve ever heard, Eva,” Christopher says. Doubt and judgement twist his face on my phone screen, where it’s propped against the mirror of the vanity in my childhood bedroom. “Youcan’tbe serious?”
I waited a few days after Luke first proposed the idea to tell Christopher because I wanted to besure.If either Luke or I had any doubts or changed our minds, I didn’t want anyone else to know about the plan in the first place.
We agreed that Christopher was theonlyperson we’d tell about the arrangement because he already knew the circumstances of my pregnancy, and I didn’t want to lie to him. It had taken some work to get Luke on board with the plan. I wish I understood why he hates Christopher so much.
“There arewayworse outcomes to this situation than a marriage of convenience with my best friend. We love each other,” I say, and when Christopher’s eyebrows shoot uptoward his hairline, I clarify, “as friends. We always have. And since we’ll never be more than just friends, it’s the perfect solution. Neither one of us will fall for the other, so we don’t have to worry about this arrangement getting complicated.”
I have a decade of experience hiding my true feelings for Luke, so this will just be more of the same. As long as I can keep these pregnancy hormones under control, I can do this—especially if it helps him stay on the Rebels and return to his father’s good graces.
“And what about when one of you has . . . needs . . . that you want to satisfy outside the relationship? You know Luke’s reputation.”
I sigh and grab my curling iron off the countertop, hoping that if I focus on doing my hair, I’ll be better able to hide my true feelings on the matter. Christopher doesn’t need to know how much it hurts every time I see pictures of Luke with a new girl. At least he never lets things progress to relationship status. “I do, and that’s something we still need to work out.”
Christopher just shakes his head. When we first started skating together, I think he was almost jealous of my friendship with Luke. He always insisted that Luke must have feelings for me.No guy puts as much effort into a girl as Luke puts into you, unless he has feelings for her,Christopher once told me.
I’ve always insisted that guys and girls can be friends, as long as no one’s feelings develop beyond that—something I’ve apparently failed to do withbothof my best guy friends.
Or, maybe convincing myself I had feelings for Christopher was just a diversion, a way to pretend that I didn’tstillhave feelings for Luke, a decade after he showed me that he wasn’t interested in anything more than friendship.
“So if you plan to stay in Boston, what does that mean for us?”
“Okay, hear me out. There’s this coach . . . ” I tell him about a veteran coach who trained a Boston-based Olympian, Catarina Mosche, who retired after the last Games. Coincidentally, she had also trained Lauren, and her name had come up late into our visit at the Neon Cactus two nights ago. “She’s currently taking on new skaters.”
“Catarina was a singles skater, Eva,” he reminds me. “What experience does she have training pairs?”
“So, I actually met her for coffee yesterday,” I tell him, and watch his eyebrows raise again.
Christopher is extremely emotive, and his face has limitless expressions. It’s something that’s made him an excellent performer. If I’d only understood that the emotion he displays does not always correspond to how he actually feels, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache.
“She’s trained pairs before,” I tell him. “Never at the Olympic level, but she has plenty of experience with Olympic skating. Come out to Boston. Meet her. Let’s figure out how this can work.Please.”
Christopher closes his eyes briefly, nodding before opening them again. “So...what? I’d move and we’d train there?”
“Just until the Olympics. Just eight months,” I remind him, hoping he considers the fact that we’ve spent our entire adulthoods together, side-by-side, whatever the world threw at us—as a team.
“And you’re still planning to retire after that?”
I don’t know if it’s the fear of the unknown that makes him unable to process this, but I first broached this idea before I even found out I was pregnant. Now that I am, how could I continue to train and compete with a baby? It will be hard enough to do for the short time leading up to the Olympics, but continuing at that pace afterward? It seems impossible.
It would be one thing if I had a husband or partner who could be home and could also travel to competitions with me and the baby. But that’s not what I have, nor is it something I could ever ask of Luke.
He travels more during the season than I do in an entire year. And then the playoffs are totally unpredictable and have the potential to extend a season by a month or more. His suggestion of a nanny who could travel with me when needed is definitely the best solution.
But for the long term? I don’t want my child raised by a nanny while his or her parents are gone all the time.
“This is my last shot at an Olympic medal. After that, I only get one shot at being a good mom—to be present and loving and supportive. I don’t want to mess that up.”
Alothappened between us this winter. I admitted that I was developing feelings for him while we were at a competition in Italy. He said we were better off as friends and skating partners. I ran out and got drunk to cope with the rejection and realization that he was right. I ended up pregnant as a result and needed him to overcompensate to make up for my inability to skate at the same level as I had before the pregnancy.
But despiteallof that, he’s always stood by my side. He’sbeen my confidant and my closest friend, aside from Luke, for years.
“You’re going to be a great mom, Eva. I just hate to see you give up your career. Plenty of people keep skating after they have a child.” He’s right, but their circumstances haven’t been the same as mine. “I get why it would be harder, but that doesn’t make it impossible.”
How do I tell him that as great as our years of skating together have been,I’m tired? I’m tired of pushing myself so hard all the time, of the constant need to be perfect, of the strict exercise and eating regimen, of the travel and the competitions.
