Something tickled at my eyeball, and I reached up to wipe at it with the tip of my index finger. It came away wet, but it didn’t scare me or make me mad. I didn’t feel weak.

I felt pathetic.

I felt like shit.

“Everyone, Jasmine, everyone that’s an athlete—that’s successful—has had to give up a lot. Some of us more than others. You’re not the first person, and you’re not the last person that sees that and feels bad about it,” he started to say, his voice steady and even. “You don’t get to become good at anything without sacrificing something to make time.”

I didn’t look at him as I pressed my middle finger against the same eye, feeling the wetness on there too. I opened my mouth and felt a choke in there, so I closed my lips. I wasn’t going to cry in front of Ivan. I wasn’t. When I opened them again. I made myself say, “I—” and my voice just… cracked. I pressed my lips together and closed my eyes and tried again. “Successful people, Ivan. It’s worth it if you’re successful, not if you’re not.”

And we both knew I wasn’t. Everyone knew I wasn’t. Not even a little bit.

More wetness formed at the corners of my eyes, and it took the pads of every other finger to dab the liquid away.

Everything had been for nothing, I had told myself a year ago when Paul had left. And it had cut me open.

And it did the same thing again right then.

Everything had been for nothing, and I couldn’t justify all of my sacrifices anymore.

The sniffle that came out of me, embarrassed me. Humiliated me, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it, even as my brain said, Don’t do it. Don’t you fucking do it. I was better than this. Stronger than this.

But I sniffled again anyway.

I wanted to walk out. I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. But if I left, it would look like I was running away from Ivan. Running away period. And I didn’t run away. Not ever.

Maybe turning away so you wouldn’t see something wasn’t exactly the same as running, but it really was at the end of the day.

And I wasn’t my dad.

“I’ve never won anything,” I said, fully aware my voice sounded watered down and lame, but what was I going to do? Hide it? What the hell did I have to be proud of? Of making my mom feel like she didn’t want to bother me after she had been in an accident and had to go to the hospital? You’re a piece of shit, Jasmine. I had no reason to hold on to my pride. None. And it wasn’t like Ivan didn’t know that. Like he wasn’t aware of how much of a loser I’d turned into. How much of a loser I really was. That’s probably why we were only in this together for a year. Why would he want to get stuck with me? Natural talent only took you so far. I was the fucking poster child for it. The poster child for being a letdown of a human being, daughter, sister, and friend.

And it burned me. Oh hell, it burned the fuck out of me so bad, I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth. Little pieces of glass sharp along every jagged, broken edge. “So what’s it all been for then? Second place? Sixth place?” I shook my head, bitterness swelling up inside of me, crowding out everything; everything, everything, everything. My pride, my talent, my love, fucking everything. “That doesn’t seem worth it at all.” I hadn’t been worth it at all. Had I?

There was no response, but when there was it came in the shape of two big hands landing on my shoulders, curling around them.

My entire life had been for nothing. Every goal for nothing. Every broken dream and promise for nothing.

The hands on my shoulders squeezed, and I tried to shrug them off, but they didn’t go anywhere. If anything, they got even tighter.

“Stop it,” Ivan’s demand was gruff in my ear. At the same time, I felt the heat and length of his body come up behind me.

“I’m a loser, Ivan,” I spat and took a step forward, only to come up short when the hands on me kept me from getting an inch away. “I’m a loser, and I gave up so much of my life and so much of my time with the only people who have ever loved me, for nothing.”

I was a failure. At everything. At every single fucking thing.

My chest ached. It hurt. And if I’d been dramatic, I would have thought it was breaking in half.

“Jasmine—” he started to say, but I shook my head and tried to shake his hands off again as my chest hurt even worse at how my mom had tried to play her accident off. Like she was okay with me not making her a priority.

Like my own mom thought she didn’t matter to me.

My throat burned. My eyes burned. And I… I was a giant asshole. A loser.

And the only person I could blame was myself.

I almost didn’t recognize my voice as I kept on talking for some fucking reason I would never understand. “My own family thinks they don’t matter, and for what?” My voice cracked as anger and some other shit I didn’t know how to classify swelled up inside of me. “For nothing! For not a single fucking thing! I’m twenty-six. I don’t have a college degree. I have two hundred dollars in my bank account. I still live with my mom. I don’t have any functional career skills besides waitressing. I’m not a national champion, a world champion, or an Olympic champion. My mom’s gone nearly bankrupt for fucking nothing. My family has paid thousands of dollars going to competitions for me to come up in second place, third place, fourth place, sixth place. I don’t own anything. I’m not anything—”

Was I dying?

Was this what having you heart broken felt like? Because if it was, I was sure fucking glad I’d never fallen in love before because goddamn. My God.

It felt like my organs were rotting away.

My mouth watered and my throat was sore, but by some miracle, I didn’t actually start bawling. But I felt like it. I was doing it on the inside. Crumbling. Falling apart. Feeling like a piece of worthless, worthless, worthless shit.

You can have all the talent in the world and still do nothing with it, my dad had told me once years ago, when he’d tried to convince me to go to college instead of pursuing figure skating full-time.

I screwed my eyes closed and held my breath as the pain in my chest got so bad, I wasn’t sure I could breathe if I tried. And I sniffed. This tiny little sniff I only barely heard.

“Come here,” was the soft whisper right by my ear as the hands on my shoulders tightened.

The “No” out of my mouth sounded like two rocks sliding against each other.

“Let me give you a hug.” His voice sounded even closer, his body warmer.

Shame burned me inside out, and I tried to take another step forward, but the hands on me didn’t let me go anywhere.

“Let me,” he demanded, ignoring me.

I squeezed my eyes closed even more and said, before I could stop myself, “I don’t want a fucking hug, Ivan. Okay?”

Why? Why did I do this to myself? Why did I do this to other people? All he was doing was trying to be nice and—

“Well, too fucking bad,” Ivan replied a moment before the hands on my shoulders started to shift, to slide, going across my upper chest, right beneath my collarbones until his forearms were crossed over me in an X, and then Ivan was pulling me back—stumbling me back—until my upper back hit his chest, flesh to flesh.

And he hugged me. He hugged me so tight to him I couldn’t breathe, and I hated myself. I hated myself for being a hypocrite. For not being nicer. For expecting the worst all the time. I hated myself for so many things, I wasn’t sure I could count them all and survive.

And the arms around me somehow got even tighter, until every bone in my spine was curved into every bone in his upper body.

“You’re the best figure skater I’ve ever seen,” this man whispered directly into my ear, his hold the strongest thing I had ever felt in my life. “You are. The most athletic. The strongest. The toughest. The hardest working—”

I leaned forward to get away from him because I didn’t want to hear this shit… but didn’t go anywhere. “You know none of that fucking matters, Ivan. None of it means anything if you don’t win.”

“Jasmine—”

Dropping my head forward, I squeezed my eyes even tighter because the burning in them only got worse. “You don’t get it, Ivan. How could you? You don’t lose. Everyone knows you’re the best. Everyone loves you,” I croaked out, not able to finish the words, not able to say and no one loves me the same except the people I’ve let down over and over again.

Warmth hit my cheek at the same time the arms around me swarmed me. Ivan whispered, his lips against my earlobe, “You’re going to win. We’re going to win—”

I choked.

“—and even if we don’t, you’re as far away from being a loser as anybody can get, so shut up. I’m sure your mom doesn’t feel like it was worth nothing. I’ve seen her watching you before. I’ve seen you before. There’s no way anyone would see you on the ice and think there was a price limit on it,” he suggested.