Chapter 57: Mollie’s Campaign

- Georgia

My mother starts calling the school directly, and my stomach drops every time my phone buzzes with an unknown Rosethorne extension.

It starts small, the way these things always start with Mollie. A text asking which coach handles my scheduling, framed casually enough that I almost don’t think twice about answering it. I should have recognized the opening move for what it was - I’ve seen this exact pattern play out a hundred times before, the innocuous question that becomes a foothold. But some part of me still wants to believe she’s changed, that distance might have softened her, so I answer without thinking. Then comes a follow-up asking for Coach Ferreira’s email, "just so I can introduce myself, be supportive from a distance." I should have known better than to give it to her. I’ve watched her operate my entire life. I know what "supportive from a distance" turns into within about seventy-two hours, and still I hand her the key anyway, some old, obedient part of me flinching at the thought of refusing.

I find out how bad it’s gotten on a Wednesday, when Coach Ferreira pulls me aside after practice. Her mouth twists to one side, caught between amusement and caution, and something in that expression makes my whole body go tense before she even says a word.

"Your mother’s been reaching out," she says, her tone carefully neutral.

My stomach drops straight through the ice. "Reaching out how?" I ask, my voice climbing an octave I don’t recognize.

"She’s called twice this week. Emailed three times, I think, maybe four." Coach Ferreira ticks it off on her fingers, businesslike, as though she’s recounting a grocery list rather than detailing my mother’s slow, methodical invasion. "She wanted to discuss your training schedule, whether we’re doing enough conditioning work, whether the choreography is going to photograph well." She says this evenly, the way you’d report weather, but I can feel the heat crawling up my neck anyway, humiliation blooming hot and immediate. "I told her I appreciate her enthusiasm, and that we have things well in hand here," she adds, firm as a closed door.

"I’m so sorry," I blurt, apology already halfway out of my mouth before I can stop it, because apologizing for Mollie has been a reflex of mine since I was old enough to notice other skaters’ parents didn’t behave like this.

"You don’t need to apologize for your mother, Georgia," she says, kindness wrapped around something harder underneath, like a line drawn in the ice she wants me to notice. "But I wanted you to know, in case she brings it up to you directly. I get the sense she will," she finishes, wry, something almost sympathetic in the way she watches me, like she’s seen this particular kind of parent before and knows exactly how much damage they can do without ever raising their voice.

She does. That evening, before I’ve even had dinner, my phone lights up with Mollie’s name. My thumb hovers over the screen for a second too long before I answer, a small, useless act of defiance, and I already know from the first ring that this isn’t going to be a short call.

"I spoke with your coach," she says, no hello, already three steps into a conversation she’s clearly been rehearsing in her head all day. "She seems capable enough, though I think the choreography could use some polish before the Classic. I’ve been looking into media access, by the way. A few contacts from my old competition days still do coverage, and I think if we can get the right photographer in the building, the right angle on your comeback story, it could really shape how the scouts see you," she says, already halfway to a plan, the words spilling out of her with the particular momentum she gets when she’s already three steps ahead of any objection I might raise.

"Mom." I sit down hard on the edge of my bed, the same dull ache from days ago flaring behind my sternum again, the one that started the night he first went quiet. It isn’t about him this time. "You don’t need to do any of that," I say, the words coming out smaller than I want them to, swallowed almost before they leave my mouth.

"Georgia, this is exactly the kind of opportunity we’ve been waiting for," she says, ignoring me entirely, warming to the subject like a coach mid pep talk. "A federation audience, a fresh narrative, injury comeback story, disciplined training at a prestigious school. Do you understand how that plays? People love a comeback. We just need to control how it’s told," she says, satisfied, like she’s already sold the story to someone, her voice bright with the particular energy she reserves for a plan she considers foolproof.

"I don’t need it controlled. I just need to skate," I say, my jaw tightening, the words feeling both true and impossibly fragile the moment they leave me.

"Skating well isn’t enough anymore, sweetheart, you know that," she says, gentle in a way that somehow cuts deeper than sharpness would. "Presentation matters. Perception matters. I’m not saying this to upset you, I’m saying it because I want this to actually work for you this time."

There it is. *This time.* Like all the other times were failures that belonged solely to me, never to the woman who built an entire childhood around turning every landing into a referendum on my worth.

My chest tightens, the old ache and this new one tangling together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. The exhibition that felt like mine an hour ago is already being rewritten in my mother’s voice into something that belongs to her instead.

"I have to go," I say, flat. "I have homework."

"We’ll talk more this weekend," she says, already moving on, as if the conversation has gone exactly the way she intended. "I’m going to send you some outfit options for the exhibition too, I think a deep blue would photograph beautifully against the ice," she adds, breezy, like she’s picking out curtains rather than dismantling the one thing I’d started to believe was mine.

I hang up before she can finish the sentence. My hands are shaking, and not in the way they shake after a hard training session. This is a different kind of shaking, the kind that’s been trained into me since I was small enough to not know any better. I press my palms flat against my knees, trying to still them, but the tremor keeps coming back, small and relentless.

I sit there for a long moment, staring at my phone, the screen gone dark and silent now that she’s said her piece. The ache in my chest twists into something new, something that isn’t just about Puck anymore. This was supposed to be mine. Coach Ferreira looked at me just this week and told me to trust myself, and for the first time in years I actually felt like I could. Now I can already see how this goes, how the Classic stops being about the way my body finally feels strong on the ice and starts being about camera angles and narratives and whatever version of my comeback plays best to an audience my mother’s already planning to manage.

I need to talk to someone who isn’t going to tell me to just let it happen, the way I always have before. My thumb finds my father’s contact before I’ve fully decided to call him, and he picks up on the second ring.

"Hey, kiddo. Everything okay?" he asks, his voice warm and steady the way it always is, a small relief after the tight, clipped energy of Mollie’s call.

"Mom’s calling the school," I say, the words tumbling out faster and more frantic than I mean them to, the whole story spilling in a rush: the emails, the phone calls to Coach Ferreira, the media contacts, the outfit suggestions, the sense that something that was starting to feel like my own accomplishment is quietly being rezoned as Mollie’s project before I’ve even landed the first jump of the actual program.

Arthur listens without interrupting, the way he always does, patient in a way that feels almost foreign after years of Mollie’s clipped efficiency, and when I finally run out of words there’s a pause on the line before he answers.

"Tell her no," he says, quiet, certain. "You’re allowed to tell her no."

I open my mouth to respond and nothing comes out, because somewhere in the middle of his sentence something lands in my chest with the force of an actual physical jolt.

*I’ve never told her no.* Not really. Not once, not in any way that stuck. I’ve hidden medals at the bottom of suitcases. I’ve gone quiet on phone calls. I’ve absorbed criticism and swallowed frustration and let entire training plans get rewritten around her expectations without ever once looking her in the eye, or even just through a screen, and saying the actual word.

No.

The word sits in my chest like something foreign, unfamiliar in a way that almost frightens me. But underneath the fear there’s something else stirring too, small and stubborn and entirely new.

"I have to go, Dad," I say quietly. "I love you."

"Love you too, kiddo. Think about what I said," he says, gentle, before the line clicks off.

I hang up and sit very still in the middle of my room, my phone heavy in my hand, that single, obvious, impossible word sitting untouched in my mouth for the very first time in my life, waiting, patient, for the moment I finally decide to use it.