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Brian Boitano has talked multiple times about how a month after our famous Battle of the Brians we talked about what we'd been through, and how we agreed that we alone could understand what we'd been through, and how a bond remains between us, something that will remain somewhere inside both of us for the rest of our lives. What he never mentions is that when we were done talking about understandings and bonds, he kissed me. And I mean he went all out, seizing my head in his hands and grasping at my hair, pushing his tongue almost down my throat. Like he would die if he didn't kiss me hard enough. The kind of kiss most people will never get, or give, their entire lives. I actually couldn't kiss back; it was too overwhelming.
All I could do was wait until he pulled away, and then ask him why. He replied, "Because I always wanted to, and this was my last opportunity." Then he fled the room, not wanting my indignant reminders about how he never would kiss me again.
I tried to put it behind me. I tried to put the whole thing behind me, as futile as that was.
It helped when I had Jason. When we had been together for long enough, when I started to realize that I might very well spend the rest of my life with him, I started to feel safe. Safe from the memory of Brian, from what he had so badly wanted, from what I might have wanted as badly myself, if we hadn't been two World Champions who both wanted Olympic Gold more than we could ever have wanted each other. Ironically enough, my being outed made me feel safer in the long run. Part of the power of that kiss was in its secrecy, it being the sort of thing we'd keep to ourselves even if we both were out; I'll never even tell Jason. But at least my sexuality, my side of it, had been opened up and dealt with, and now lies harmless by the wayside.
So the kiss, at least, stopped rousing my heart in time. After all, there were plenty of more important things in there that will never stop hurting entirely.
There was a time, though, where I thought even the pain of losing the gold would, at least, continue to fade, be reduced to some dull presence to my heart, and stay that way for good. For a long time, I'd been moving away from the Olympics the long way: show by show, day by day, year by year. I thought I could bury it, pebble by pebble.
But as the games prepared to return to Canada, with the nation's best hope of skating gold clutching to two ice dance couples, only one of which is certain to even be there, and both facing stiff competition, a talented Korean girl crossed my path. Now I find myself a full time coach, preparing Yu-na Kim to try to succeed where I failed.
I have to remind myself that it probably won't exactly be the Battle of the Asians between her and her equally new emerged rival in Vancouver the way it was the Battle of the Brians in Calgary. Japan has a deep field, and so will the United States by 2010, and together the two of them will likely send more genuine contenders for the gold. Nor can I rule out someone else emerging from elsewhere in the world. The career of a Ladies Singles skater goes so quickly, quickly enough to make you seriously wonder if it's worth it, though Yu-na sure seems to think it is. That means you don't necessarily hear the name of the Olympic frontrunner until the Olympic season is fast rushing up upon you. And those wishing to upset the favourite do have an easier time of it under the new scoring system, one way or another. But even so, I think if neither of them make major mistakes, it will come down to Mao Asada, the technical skater, and Yu-na Kim, the artist.
I would be cheering for Yu-na even if I wasn't coaching her. Other girls can do more difficult jumps, but noone today can make the act of skating itself as beautiful as she can. Combine that with elements earned with training hours that make even a couple of fellow elite skaters blanch, , and noone deserves Olympic gold more than her.
Jason has accused me of seeing myself in Yu-na, even living through her, and trying to redeem myself through her victory. He worries I'd take her defeat as badly as I took Calgary. That at least isn't really a worry; I'll never take anything as badly as I took Calgary. But it is true that she does remind me of myself, especially in her strengths on the ice, and when I see her carry her country's flag into Vancouver, I'll probably revisit memories of hope that I've fled from since. What I'll think if she wins, or if she loses, I don't yet speculate.
But right now, it's not Calgary itself I flashback to. It's that kiss, and Brian, and what threatened to bind us together all too closely, because Mao Asada is in love with my student.
I don't know how many people realize it, even from around them. You don't look for it or remember the possibility the way you do with the men, because it's the men of figure skating who are supposed to be gay, not the women. So to guess Asada's feelings, you have to catch her in the right moment, when it becomes very obvious. Such moments usually occur when the girls are sharing practice ice-it's her skating that enraptured Asada, I'm sure of that-so Arutunian knows, as do I, and probably their old coaches, and possibly some of the other competitors.
As for Yu-na herself, well, she has to suspect at least. But I'm not sure that if she knew the way I did, she wouldn't actually do something about it. Because while I'm not dead certain about Yu-na's feelings the way I am about Asada's, I'm afraid things between them are probably mutual, and stronger than what was between Brian and I.
Even if Brian and I had held such feelings for each other, we would have known better than to act on them. But we were a good decade older; you have to remember these girls are still teenagers. They hear that the girl they like likes them back, and they don't think about what it's going to feel like when they're up against each other again. They don't think about what it's going to feel like when one of them's beaten the other for a World title. They certainly don't think about what it is going to feel like when one of them destroys the greatest dream of the other.
Of course that may not happen. Someone else might win. Which only makes the terrible possibility more remote and harder to remember when Asada's staring at Yu-na from the other side of the ice and Yu-na can't help but notice.
I think if either Arutunian or I told them to stay away from each other, they'd do it. There's something about most Eastern cultures that makes their athletes more...committed to duty seems to be the best way to describe it. That at least they'd understand about each other, young or not. And being frontrunners already, the way they are, sometimes I think if they both fell in the short and there was no Battle of the Asians between them, they'd still end up with that special understanding that Brian and I have of each other.
Maybe Arutanian will tell his student to stay away, I don't know. But I won't. I'm a Western coach, convinced my students have to make their own choices there. I just wish I knew what choices she'll make.
I wish I knew for sure what she felt in the first place. I wish I knew how she's likely to ultimately view Mao Asada. I wish I knew just how likely this Battle of the Asians is to happen. I wish I knew whether or not in March 2010, somewhere in the world, two still young girls, maybe with a history between them, maybe not, will meet and talk about all those things noone else can understand, then one of them will give the other that desperate kiss before running for her life.
I know it wouldn't be nice for her to be the one having to give it, but if it comes to that, I'm just praying to God it won't be my Yu-na on the receiving end.