AN: Just a warning, there's some talk of eating disorders in this chapter.

☆

Lily didn't care much for Valentine's Day. She'd gotten a few odd trinkets from boys in previous years, and last year she'd been with Eugenie, although they'd only been dating for about a month, so neither of them made exactly a grand gesture, they'd just exchanged presents and gone to dinner.

This year, she was very single though, so imagine her surprise when she opened her locker door and found a small bouquet of flowers inside.

Lily looked around the room as if whoever left the flowers was still there. She only spotted Mary with a cheeky smile on her face.

Lily read the note attached to the arrangement.

Lily,

Before you get mad at me, I realise that Valentine's Day has a bit of a romantic connotation but in my mother('s)land of Chile, it is also known as the Day of Friendship. So, these flowers are to symbolise how much I appreciate your friendship and partnership. That is all it means, so, please accept them.

With love,

James

Lily tried hard to hold back the grin from her face but found it hard.

Mary nudged her on the ribs. "Those are nice."

Lily bit her lip to school her features. She nodded. She grabbed her leg warmers from the locker and closed it quickly.

James was already on the ice once Lily came out of the locker room. His face brightened when he spotted her and her insides warmed. She slipped onto the ice beside him quietly.

"Did you see the..."

"Yep," Lily answered quickly. "They were nice."

James nodded and rubbed the back of his neck a little nervously. "I hope I didn't overstep, Mary let me into your locker."

Lily shook her head. "No, it's okay. I... it was nice. Thank you."

Minerva went over to them quickly and they got to work. They worked on adapting their programs for the junior category since the requirements were slightly different than for the senior category. Lily didn't think she'd felt this good and light in the rink in... well, ever really.

She liked how easy things were with James, he wasn't moody or overly dramatic like some of her previous partners had been. He listened to her and she found his presence reassuring. And she really didn't want for it to change.

Once their session on the ice was over, Lily found her friends arguing on the bleachers. "What's going on?"

Melanie and Yuna gave each other a look.

Mary scoffed. "Do not tell her!"

Well, now Lily needed to know. "What?"

Melanie tore Mary's cell phone from her hands and handed it to Lily. "Look at her story."

Lily took the phone. Catherine's Instagram page was open on the screen. She hadn't posted very often since moving away. Lily's chest tightened. She clicked on the little profile picture feeling a little short of breath.

It was a bouquet of flowers. Not exactly like Lily's but in the same style. The handwriting on the small card clearly stated 'Rooting for you always, James'. Lily felt her heart drop. She handed the phone back to Melanie.

Her friends looked at her in concern. Lily tried to brush it off. She handed Mary's phone back to her. "Guys, it's okay. He can send Catherine flowers too, they're still friends."

Mary frowned. "Wait, are we still pretending like you don't fancy James?"

"I don't fancy him, Mary," Lily whisper-yelled.

"Okay, so, you don't mind that he and Catherine might be going out?"

"They're not going out," Lily's voice faltered in the end. She realised she really had no idea if they might. She felt like she was going to collapse. What am I, thirteen? Pull yourself together, you dumb bitch, she scolded herself.

Mary raised a sceptic brow. "But would you mind? If they did?"

"Mary, come on. I seriously doubt they're dating, let's just drop it," Melanie put in.

But Lily's stupid brain wouldn't drop it. Even if they weren't dating, it irked Lily that James remained close with Catherine. She felt like an asshole for even thinking that but it truly wasn't (just) because she liked him. Actually, it had almost nothing to do with that.

"Hey, are we going to dance class?" James had approached them at some point.

Right, dance class. They had planned on doing that after their session on the ice. Lily cleared her throat. "Yes. Let's go."

Lily walked beside James to the small dance studio not too far from the rink while trying very hard not to let her mind wander where it shouldn't.

"You okay?" James asked.

Lily's head snapped in his direction. She'd hoped he wouldn't say anything of her crossed arms and dead silence. "Fine."

James stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. "Lily, there's obviously something bothering you. We're about to spend the next hour dancing in very close proximity, so I think it's best if we resolve this now."

Lily sighed. "I can dance with you even though I'm mad at you, it's happened before," she muttered.

James frowned. "Wait, what?"

Lily huffed. "I'm fine, James. Can we please just go?"

He shook his head. "You were in a great mood all through practice. You even laughed at my jokes! Then you went over to talk to your friends and your whole mood switched. So, something obviously happened. Will you please tell me what it is? Did I do something?"

She looked over at the wall beside his head so she wouldn't have to look in his eyes, she was afraid she might forget what she was mad about if she did. She didn't want to sound like a jealous bitch asking about the flowers though. "If... Catherine was to come back today... would you drop me for her?"

James looked genuinely shocked at her words. He ran a hand through his hair. "What...? Why would you even be thinking about that? She's not coming back."

"Just answer the question. Please."

James reached out as if to touch Lily's cheek but put his hand down, Lily kind of wished he hadn't. He sighed. "No, I wouldn't drop you for her, Lily. Catherine was a great partner and I still care about her as a friend, but no, if she hypothetically were to come back right now, I'd still want to skate with you. She won't come back though, you can be sure of that."

Lily held back a scoff. "She could very easily change her mind. It's not like she'll find a partner as good as you that easily. I would've probably already changed my mind if I were her."

"Lily, she hasn't said anything yet, but Catherine didn't just leave this rink, she quit skating. She's retiring."

Now, that threw Lily aback a little bit. "Oh. Seriously?"

Retiring at their age wasn't entirely uncommon, but she'd been doing pretty well, Lily couldn't imagine why she'd want to retire all of a sudden.

"Yes," James replied.

"Why?"

"That's not something for me to tell."

Lily thought for a second. "Are you sure she's not just taking a break? Why would she retire now? She was doing great. She won a JGP Final medal."

James let out a small sigh, he was starting to get frustrated. "Will you just trust me on this?"

Lily bit her lip and took a second to respond. "Okay... fine."

James nodded once. "Can we go now? We're going to be late."

Lily didn't feel entirely reassured, though she did feel slightly better. So, she nodded and followed after James.

☆

The dance class had been slightly tense. Talking things out had made Lily feel better but there was still something slightly... off between her and James. She thought it was just fallout from their argument but two days later, they were still being a little wary with each other, the ease from the past few weeks since James had gotten back on the ice gone.

This meant that Lily was very surprised when James had texted her, asking her to go somewhere with him after practice that day. He wouldn't tell her where they were going, just that he'd drive her there from the rink and then home.

James being so cryptic put Lily on edge all during practice, but she tried to put it off her mind. After their afternoon session on the ice, James led Lily to a sleek black car she assumed was his. It wasn't the same car she'd seen his parents drive before though. Ah, to be rich.

They rode in silence for about thirty minutes until James pulled up at a nondescript suburban house. It was fairly large and painted a neat pearl colour. Lily had no idea what was happening.

Still not saying a word, he got out of the car and started walking towards the house. Lily followed after him, and though she didn't want to be the one breaking the silence, she finally gave in and asked, "What is this place?"

"You'll see," replied James.

The front door of the house was open, and James walked in casually. Lily's eyes immediately took in the foyer in an attempt to guess where she was. Only a small plaque on the wall made her realise what this place was. It was an in-patient facility for treatment of eating disorders. Her breath caught.

Lily barely had time to process this when a door opened to the side and out came Catherine.

Lily's stomach dropped.

Catherine's face was sunken, her skin stretching over her cheekbones, making them look sharper. Her arms were covered by long sleeves but Lily could tell that they were slimmer than before. Before they had been slim, but just enough for it not to look quite so... skeletal, now there was no denying there was something wrong here.

Catherine had always been very thin. But Lily had never really thought much of it. Most female figure skaters were quite skinny. In fact, a lot of coaches preferred taking in small girls – which Lily knew was wrong. A lot of girls at the rink had envied Catherine, how she managed to keep that slim figure, and though Lily had never had much of an issue with her own weight, she had definitely noticed Catherine's eating habits, having trained alongside her for years now.

Looking at her now though, guilt gnawed at Lily's heart. Because she had definitely noticed Catherine eat very little in a day back then, but she'd never said anything about it. She hadn't thought it was her place.

Lily hoped the shock on her face didn't show too much. She didn't want Catherine to feel bad. But the brunette just smiled good-naturedly at her. "Hey, Lily. It's nice to see you."

James took a step towards Catherine. "Hey." He hugged her quickly. Lily genuinely worried he'd break her.

"Why don't you step into my office?"

Catherin led them down the hallway and to a big lounge room with sofas and other furniture. There were three people playing on some sort of pinball machine in the corner but Catherine led them to the other side of the room and sat down on one of the sofas. James sat next to her.

Lily took an armchair beside the sofa and sat so she could face Catherine properly.

"So, how have you been?" James asked.

Catherine smiled. "Quite well, actually. My roommate got discharged and she let me have her bathroom time. Well, at least until they realise they have to take her off the rotation."

James chuckled. "That's good."

"What about you guys? Patrick sent me a video of your free dance at the Torun Cup and barring from your little Tonya Harding moment, that was quite great."

James looked caught off guard. He struggled to find words for a few seconds. "Oh? Patrick sent you that?"

Patrick was Catherine's closest friend at the rink, a pair skater. Lily wasn't sure why but she felt mortified at the prospect of Catherine watching that.

Catherine rolled her eyes playfully. "Stop looking at me like that, guys. I promise I didn't have a breakdown watching James skate with another girl."

Lily looked down at her hands self-consciously. She wanted to say something to Catherine, at least to not act so weirdly, but she just couldn't get words out of her mouth.

Catherine glanced at her, then turned to James. "Hey, do you mind finding Darnell, the nurse and asking him for the red notebook I gave him for safekeeping?"

James nodded once and stood. Lily very much didn't want to stay with Catherine by herself, but she wasn't about to say anything to James. So she just watched as he exited the room.

Catherine looked at Lily. The easy smile still on her face. "So... James told me you've been feeling a little... unsure about your partnership."

Lily shifted in her seat. "I guess... I just, I wasn't great with him when we started out, and the agreement back then was that we'd take this season as a trial and then see if we wanted to continue... and now I'm afraid that he'll take me up on that when the season ends."

Lily could not believe she'd just said all of that to Catherine.

Catherine nodded slowly. After a beat, she said, "I'm not coming back, you know?"

Lily didn't know what to say.

Catherine had a more serious look on her face now. "That sport... it broke me. And as much as I did love it, I don't think I could go back and stay healthy at the same time. And if there's one thing I've learned in the past six months is that my health comes first." She took a breath. "James was a great partner and I probably wouldn't have lasted as long as I did skating if it weren't for him, and he still cares about me because he's a good person, but I wasn't a great partner to him at the end, and I genuinely don't think he even really wanted to skate with me those last few months, but I appreciated him sticking by me through those struggles and I'll always be grateful to him for that."

Lily felt terrible. "I... I get it, Catherine. This was all just... me, I shouldn't have doubted him. I feel bad you had to tell me all this just because I was feeling unsure of myself."

Catherine shook her head. "It's fine, Lily, I find it kind of cathartic to finally talk about it with someone from... my old life."

"Don't you talk about it with James?"

A smile tugged at Catherine's lips. "We mostly just skirt around the topic. He feels genuinely guilty about... everything, even though I've told him he shouldn't. You should see him whenever I use the actual words 'anorexia' or 'eating disorder', his face just freezes, it's kind of funny actually."

"Listen... I'm sorry about... not doing anything to help you. Because I'd be lying if I said I never noticed anything, because I did notice some things, I just never had the guts to say anything about it."

"It's okay, Lily. Not your fault. Even if you'd tried to help, I would not have accepted your help."

"Still, we were rinkmates for years, I feel like I could've tried to do something."

Catherine looked into Lily's eyes. "Lily, it's fine. No hard feelings. This isn't even slightly your fault, or James's. It's in the culture of the very sport, which I've never seen either of you do anything to perpetuate. It's the judge who told me at twelve years old that I needed to lose some weight to get better scores. It's my coaches who put me on diets since I was a child. It was the British Ice Skating officials who told me I was too big for ice dance. It was the coach who weighed me every single morning and would punish me if I put on even one gram. You haven't done any of that, so you are officially exempt from any blame."

Lily found it hard to meet Catherine's eyes. How anyone would think Catherine was too big for ice dance or anything was beyond her. She knew things like this happened a lot in figure skating, but nothing quite like that had ever happened to her. Sure, there were some judges and officials who overstepped their boundaries on occasion but her mum had always taught her not to listen to them, and she usually didn't. "I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that. I understand why you wouldn't want to come back and I absolutely respect that, but ice dance would be lucky to have you."

Catherine smiled. "That's nice of you to say, but rest assured that it will be a long time before I set foot on a rink again. Besides, now that I have tons of time and am starting to get a semblance of mental and physical health, the possibilities are endless! I want to go out into the world, experience new things, meet different people. I've been stuck working my arse off and destroying my body for the past ten years or so, I'd like to go out and have some fun for a change."

For the first time in the evening, Lily let out a smile. "That sounds great. I very much support that idea."

James returned to the room just then, a little out of breath. "Catherine, I could not find Nurse Darnell anywhere, I'm sorry." He looked at the girls' smiling faces and got a look of relief on his face.

Catherine let out a small smirk. "Oh, I totally forgot he's not in today, sorry."

James's shoulder slumped slightly. "That's okay."

Not long after, more people started piling into the room, and it was time for Lily and James to leave.

They walked in silence to the car, though it was a less awkward silence than the one they'd been in on the way to the facility.

James waited until they were on the road to speak. "So... you guys have a nice talk?"

Lily took a breath. "Uh... yeah, you could say that." She thought for a moment. "I'm sorry. I should've trusted you when you said she wasn't coming back."

"That's okay, Lily. I get it. I just thought it'd be good if you talked to her."

"Oh, I'm glad I talked to her. I just hope I didn't overstep... if she didn't want people to know about this."

James shrugged. "She said it was okay. And I think she'll say something publicly soon, once she officially announces her retirement, probably in a few weeks actually."

"So, she's been here the entire time?"

"Oh, no, at first she and her family wanted to deal with it on their own, and it seemed like it was working at first, but then things got worse really quickly, that's when she decided she wasn't coming back to skating at all and when I asked Minerva about partnering up with you. Then, she went to this clinic out of the city and it didn't work out there, and then she came here a couple of months ago."

Lily felt rude not saying anything about Catherine, but she couldn't help hanging on to one part of what James had said. "What do you mean you asked Minerva about partnering up with me?"

"Well, of course I was the one who suggested it, Lily. She wasn't going to just ask you to partner with me when she knew full well you didn't like me, I had to actually beg her to try to convince you."

Lily bit her lip but could hardly contain the smile that overtook her features. She was glad his eyes were on the road and not on her.