A Figure Skating Queen Who Can’t Be Lifted But I Was Born To Fly Chapter 03

A Figure Skating Queen Who Can’t Be Lifted But I Was Born To Fly Chapter 03

I pushed open the storage room door and stopped dead in my tracks.

My locker had been pried open. Everything inside was scattered across the floor.

Spare knee pads, kinesiology tape, a few changes of training clothes, all tossed into the corner like garbage.

And Scarlett Brown was sitting on the bench, trying on the custom skates I’d spent months of savings to have made.

“What are you doing?”

Scarlett Brown looked up without a shred of guilt.

“Oh, Chloe, you’re here.”

She stood up and deliberately stamped her feet a couple of times.

“Ethan said your locker was just sitting empty, so he told me to go ahead and use it.”

“You said these skates gave you blisters, but they fit me perfectly.”

I strode over and pointed at the mess on the floor.

“Who gave you permission to touch my things?”

Scarlett Brown pouted.

“Chloe, you’re basically retired. Keeping all this stuff around is just taking up space.”

“Ethan said the club doesn’t carry dead weight.”

I let out a bitter laugh.

“When did I ever say I was retiring?”

“Where’s Ethan? Tell him to come out here and explain himself.”

Scarlett Brown sighed, looking at me with a mixture of contempt and feigned pity.

“Ethan’s on the rink with the coach, working out my new program music.”

“Chloe, we’re all adults here. Can’t you just handle this with a little dignity?”

She stepped closer and lowered her voice.

“You’re just too heavy. Ten years of dieting and you’re still not light enough.”

“I’ll be honest with you. Every time Ethan lifts you, it makes him sick.”

I raised my hand to push Scarlett Brown away, but she grabbed my wrist and slapped it hard against her own face.

“Ow! Chloe, I didn’t mean to, please stop hitting me!”

The words had barely left her mouth when the locker room door slammed open.

Ethan burst in and shoved me aside.

“Chloe, have you lost your mind?”

The push sent me crashing into the metal lockers. Pain flared across my back.

Ethan cradled Scarlett Brown’s face in his hands, his voice tender with concern.

“Scarlett, are you okay? Does it hurt?”

Scarlett Brown’s tears came flooding out as she choked through her explanation.

“Ethan, I really didn’t know those skates meant so much to Chloe…”

She made a show of reaching down to take the skates off.

Ethan stopped her hand, then turned and glared at me.

“It’s just a pair of old skates. Was that really worth hitting someone over?”

“Chloe, when did you become this vicious?”

I leaned against the locker, looking at this man I’d loved for ten years.

The feeling inside me was beyond words.

“Those are my things.”

“If I don’t give them to you, taking them is stealing.”

Ethan let out a cold laugh.

“Stealing? What do you own that wasn’t sponsored by Crown Ice Club?”

“Your training fees, your rink time for the past ten years, which of those didn’t come through me?”

He walked to the corner and ground his heel into my knee pad.

“I’ve been too soft on you. That’s why you think you can get away with anything.”

“Chloe, if I kept score the way you do, you’d owe me a debt you could never repay.”

I stared at the knee pad smeared with dirt, and the pain in my chest was almost unbearable.

It wasn’t true that I’d needed Ethan to get any of this.

He was the one who’d stolen my spot with the elite-level coach, the one who’d reduced me step by step to a background prop.

To this day, I still remembered what Ethan looked like ten years ago, on his knees, begging me.

“Chloe, you’re so talented. You’ll have bigger stages, more opportunities down the road.”

“But I’m different. If I lose Coach Charlotte’s guidance, my career is over. This is as far as I’ll ever go.”

When I didn’t respond, he pressed harder.

“Didn’t we promise we’d stand on the Olympic stage together? Can you really bring yourself to leave me behind?”

I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So I gave him my spot.

I thought it would be better for both of us.

I thought we’d become the most in-sync partners on the ice.

I was wrong.

Spectacularly wrong.

From the very beginning, Ethan had only ever thought about himself. He had never once considered me.

While I stood there lost in the memory, Ethan’s voice came from above.

“Your club entry for the Northwest Regionals. I already signed the withdrawal form on your behalf.”