THE PAST
"Allez, Allez, Allez!"
The trainer clapped in his hands for the rhythm. It was utter silence in the ice hall, you could only hear the blades gliding over the ice, and the two trainers talk. The skaters passed every one with high speed. The skaters finished.
"Juliette! Hannah!" The trainer yelled and pointed at the start. "Go to the start."
Two girls skated to the start and were preparing themselves for the start by standing in the starting position.
"We're right on time," Sara said when she sat down on the grandstand. "Who of the two is Julie?" She looked at the two women standing on the ice, but she had no idea who Juliette was. They were wearing the same spandex skin suit and both glasses.
Pierre scanned the two girls. "How am I supposed to know that? I'm not sitting close enough to see that," he said and smirked.
"Ready..." Silence fell in the colossal hall when the trainer yelled. "Go!"
The two girls pushed themselves away and basically ran over the ice to create speed and grip. Speed skating is an odd sport; you have to push the speed skates sidewards to go forward. They had to skate on the straight as first, so they had created quite some speed when they reached the first turn.
Pierre parted his lips and looked perplexed at the skaters. "How goes nothing wrong when they go through a corner with this much speed?"
The blades of the ice skaters were gliding over the ice, it sounded satisfying to Juliette. She swinged with her arms when she reached the straight again. Juliette was now taking the lead, but she started on the inside, so Hannah would pass her when they were about to switch lanes. After the second turn, they switched lanes. But when the trainers clocked the time, Juliette still had the lead.
"It is honestly so satisfying," Sara said when she watched how Juliette and Hannah were moving in sync. "I never knew Julie was this good. My goodness, look at their feet; crossover, crossover," she whispered, perplexed when Juliette and Hannah were skating through the turn.
When the last lap was about to start, Juliette picked up her trainer's call: it was a close call to her personal record. It gave Juliette more motivation to push herself a bit over her limit; she wanted to show her mother she could make it. Perhaps she pushed herself way too much over her limit. Juliette almost lost her balance when she went through the last corner, but she regains herself. On the final straight, she squeezed the last bits of power away.
As soon as Juliette finished, she opened the zip from her suit, grabbed her glasses from her nose and removed the headpiece from her head. She leaned on her knees and let the skates decide the speed.
"Juliette 2.00.11! Hannah 2.03.18!"
Hannah created some more speed, so she could catch up with Juliette. "Congrats, Jules," she breathed and.
It felt like Juliette's lungs were burning as soon the air entered her lungs. Juliette looked at Hannah and gave her a hand. "Thanks, you too." She took a deep breath and straightened her back. Both of the girls skated a new personal record, and that after being back on the ice for the first time in months.
"One small mistake, but fabulous race. Great job, Juliette," her trainer said when she passed him. They gave each other a high-five.
"Merci," Juliette said and gave him a nod. It was quite a struggle to catch some breath, it had been a long time since she pushed herself to the limit like this. It had been a while since she skated on ice in a cold hall. She looked around and found Pierre and Sara sitting on the grandstand. A tired smile grew on her face, and she waved at them.
Pierre and Sara walked down the grandstand, and Juliette skated towards them. "That looked so cool," Pierre said, impressed. "So smoothly."
"Thanks," Juliette breathed. "Bloody hell, I'm not used to this anymore." Her throat was hurting, which was odd, because she still skated on the track outside. "It was just luck."
Sara softly smirked. "First time back on the ice?" Juliette nodded and leaned against the cushion walls. "But holy Mac' n cheese balls, Julie. That looked insane. How you get away," Sara said and imitated the sound and moves of the start. "And getting through the turns with that much speed."
"The corners are awful, trust me. You don't want to know how many times I fell because I didn't observe it good enough," Juliette laughed.
"This was your personal record, right?" Pierre asked, interested. "What was the distance?"
"1500 meters," Juliette answered and put her glasses on her nose. "Massive fault at the end. Great job, Julie." She rolled her eyes. "I have to get to the 1.55-ish for the championship."
Pierre gave her a warm smile. "So? You broke your record anyway, that mistake didn't have consequences for the time. We prefer a win with a mistake, over a faultless race without a win."
Sara nodded heavily. "That's the spirit." She padded Pierre's shoulder. "Beautifully said."
"Thank you, thank you," Pierre proudly said.
"Yeah, true," Juliette chuckled. She sniffed and looked around; the training was over. "Give me twenty minutes. I need to stretch and get my stuff. Then we can have dinner?" She looked back at Pierre and Sara. "Alright?"
Pierre nodded. "Yes, sure. Take your time." He held up his hand for a high-five.
"In the canteen are laying some magazines and other stuff. I will try and hurry up," she said and gave him a high-five.
"Easy," Sara said and gave Juliette a high-five as well. "Take your time, champ."
A giggle left Juliette's lips, and she went to the island in the middle of the ice track. She switched her speed skates for trainers. While she evaluated the training with Hannah and another teammate, they walked to the cooling down rooms to stretch their muscles and cool down. There was one person she avoided; that was her mother, who was standing on the side.
☐
The next day at school, the tension was odd between Pierre and Sara, and Juliette. Juliette was behaving absent, and she was quiet. It was a tough training, as she said, so all her muscles were stiff. However, the way she was moving around wasn't the 'tough training' stiff. Pierre, Sara and Anthoine were top athletes, they were part of a sports class, and they know what 'tough training' stiff looked like.
Juliette sat at the back of the class, at the window. After an hour of struggling on finding a proper position to sit on the chair, she found one without getting pain in her body. Because she was focussing on the pain and pressure, the time went slow.
She was looking outside, scanning the area and dreaming away in her own thoughts.
"Juliette," Professeur Ansel said when she saw one of the students wasn't paying attention to her maths lesson. "Juliette!"
Silence filled the classroom, but Juliette was far away in her thoughts. People were looking at the young woman. Sara turned next to her, to share a confused look with Pierre. Pierre frowned, concerned and looked at Anthoine, who was trying to get Juliette's attention to prevent her from trouble. It didn't work.
Professeur Ansel grabbed a book from her desk, and she walked towards Juliette.
"Julie," Pierre whisper-yelled, trying to prevent an unfortunate situation with one of the school's strictest teachers. Mayday, mayday, a war was about to begin.
Professeur Ansel gave Juliette a few minutes to react when she was standing in front of Juliette's table. A deep sigh rolled over Juliette's lips, and a thin line appeared between her eyebrows; she was unaware of this situation. Professeur Ansel dropped the book on Juliette's table. A loud bang went through the class.
A shock went through Juliette's body, and her eyes shot up to the person who was standing in front of her. She leaned to the back of her stool, away from Professeur Ansel. Tears filled Juliette's eyes and an anxious look flushed over her face.
Professeur Ansel saw the change of looks on Juliette's face, this was more than just a distracting student. "Are you alright?"
Juliette nodded and looked away. She cleared her throat. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"
"You weren't paying attention to my lesson," Professeur Ansel replied.
"Oh, my apologies." A fake smile covered Juliette's anxious look. "I made the exercises." She gave her notebook, which showed all the maths exercises.
Professeur Ansel rose her eyebrows, and she looked at the exercises. She looked impressed; Juliette made all the exercises already. "Good job, but it still isn't giving you the reason to zone out and not pay attention to my lesson. I want to speak to you after your last class, young lady."
"Yes, Professeur Ansel." Juliette swallowed hard, and her eyes glanced over her classmates; everyone was looking at her with a judging look. She looked at Pierre and gave him a forced smile. Professeur Ansel continues her lesson, keeping an extra eye on Juliette.