The Hockey Star and the Ice Princess (Complete)

Ch. 11 - Exhaustion

Cain went through a few other leg strengthening exercises with Rachel before giving her some supplement powder to drink every morning and night and then she was done for a while and could FINALLY take a break. This already felt like the longest day of her life and it was only half over. 

She went out to her car in the parking lot and laid the seat all the way back and as soon as she closed her eyes she fell asleep. She got in an hour and a half nap before her alarm woke her up and she drug herself back into the building for her second round of skating. She stopped at the food cart and bought an energy drink really quick to wake her up and it worked. By the time she got out to the center of the ice she felt refreshed and ready to go. 

"Ok. We're going to work on fundamentals again. The same drills we did earlier. I want you to do them all again but this time, I want you to skate blindfolded," her coach said. 

"What?! Are you crazy?" she laughed, scrunching up her face and putting her hands on her hips. 

"No, I'm completely serious," he said, taking out a scarf and walking over and tying it around her eyes. 

"How exactly am I supposed to skate blindfolded?" she laughed. 

"I'm going to bring you out to center ice and I want you to just use your internal sense of space. You know this rink like the back of your hand. You've been skating on it since you were five. I've seen you close your eyes when you skate a million times when you're really into the music and you're feeling it. Your body just knew where the curves of the rink were. So, it'll be just like that," he told her, taking her hand and leading her to the center. 

 She was so nervous her heart was pounding. She was so scared to even attempt skating blindfolded. 

"What's the worst that could happen? Even if you slam into the wall, you've done that a million times. It doesn't hurt that bad. Just calm down and get out of your head and skate with your heart," he said. "Feel the music." 

She heard some soft, slow instrumental music start playing and she timidly moved her feet back and forth in a little shuffle. 

"Push off with your toe pick and glide! You're not even close to the wall!" he shouted. 

She took a deep breath and did what he said. She just barely pushed off with her toe pick and started to glide. It was the weirdest feeling in the world not being able to see. She held her arms out in front of her like she was preparing to run into the wall. 

"I'll yell if you're heading for the wall and I'll tell you which way to turn," he shouted. "Just skate normal! You can do it!" 

She kept gliding and eventually he shouted, "Slowly curve to your left! The wall's coming up!" 

She did what he said but it was so hard to get her bearings without being able to see where she was going. After skating around the rink in circles with him guiding her like this for a while he shouted, "Ok. You're right at center ice. Go to your left and do a waltz jump just like we practiced it earlier." 

"Seriously? You want me to do a jump not being able to see?" 

"Yes, you can do it. Just close your eyes and feel the music and let the muscle memory come back to you."

She took a deep breath and let it out and her heart was racing like crazy. This little game of his was really triggering her anxiety. She exhaled deeply and closed her eyes and listened to the music. The violin sounded beautiful and it was calming. She pushed off and then flipped around and landed with her foot stretched out behind her with her arms to the side. 

"There you go! You did it! Try that again!" he shouted and she did it again. Her adrenaline was pumping like crazy. 

"I actually did it," she said loudly, laughing. She couldn't believe she did a jump blindfolded. She knew she didn't do it well but she still did it.