The Favourites

As if I could forget, when millions of strangers have been so eager to remind me. I’m sure you’ve seen the news stories, the magazine covers, the social media posts. Maybe you’re planning to snuggle up on your sofa tonight with a bowl of popcorn and binge the documentary series released to commemorate the occasion. Schadenfreude and chill.

Go right ahead. Enjoy the show. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you know me. By now, I’ve heard it all: Katarina Shaw is a bitch, a diva, a sore loser, a manipulative liar. Cold-blooded, a cheater, a criminal. An attention whore, an actual whore. Even a murderess.

Call me what you want. I don’t give a damn anymore. My story is mine, and I’ll tell it the same way I skated: in my own way, on my own terms.

We’ll see who wins in the end.

NARRATOR: They were an obsession.

American ice dancers Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha smile and take theirbows in front of a crowd of screaming fans at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

NARRATOR: Then a scandal.

Shaw and Rocha, surrounded by a crowd again — only this time, it’s paparazzishouting their names, a flurry of shutters and flashbulbs as they leave their Sochi hotel. The couple pushes through the throng with grim expressions, Heath’s arm around Katarina’s shoulders.

NARRATOR: And ultimately . . . a tragedy.

NBC Sports commentator Kirk Lockwood reports live from the Sochi Olympics. “In all my years covering skating,” he says, shaking his head solemnly, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

NARRATOR: Now, for the first time, those closest to Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha will share their stories, shedding new light on what led to the unprecedented events of that fateful Olympic final.

Former Olympic ice dancer Ellis Dean speaks to an interviewer in a West Hollywood bar.

ELLIS DEAN: We used to joke they were going to die in each other’s arms or kill each other with their bare hands. Nothing in between.

Figure skating coach Nicole Bradford is interviewed in her suburban Illinois kitchen.

NICOLE BRADFORD: They were the most talented skaters I’ve ever worked with, no question. But looking back . . . yes, I could see the signs of trouble to come.

U.S. Figure Skating judge Jane Currer addresses the camera from an ice rink in Colorado.

JANE CURRER: How could we have known? How could anyone have known?

In quick flashes, a series of images: Katarina and Heath skating together as children. Then older, standing on top of a podium, smiling, gold medals around their necks. Finally, shouting at each other, Katarina’s makeup ruined, her hand pulled back to strike.

ELLIS DEAN: I know one thing for sure. There’ll never be another team like Kat and Heath.

Slow dissolve to a photo of the ice rink in Sochi. Bright red spatters stain the Olympic rings.

ELLIS DEAN: And you know what? Maybe that’s a good thing.

NARRATOR: This is . . .

THE FAVOURITES:

The Shaw & Rocha Story

Chapter 1

Once I was satisfied, I handed him the knife.

Heath stood up on his knees, and I stretched out in the warm spot he’d left on the bed, watching him: the way his black hair shone in the moonlight, the press of his teeth on his lower lip as he concentrated, making his first mark with the tip of the blade. He was more precise than I had been, drawing curved, graceful lines underneath my savage slashes.

Shaw & Rocha, the carving read when he finished. It was the way our names would be written on the scoreboard at our first U.S. Figure Skating Championships in a few days’ time. The way they’d be announced in medal ceremonies and reported in newspapers and entered in the record books. We’d cut the letters into the centre of my antique rosewood headboard, deep enough that no amount of sanding could remove them.

We were sixteen, and so sure of everything.

Our bags were already packed for the National Championships, costumes and skates in a neat stack next to my bedroom door. As many years as we’d been waiting, working, preparing for this moment, those few final hours felt like torture. I wanted to leave right then.

I wished we never had to come back.

Heath left the knife on my bedside table and settled down beside me to admire our handiwork. “Are you nervous?” he whispered. I looked past him, at the pictures collaged around the drafty leaded glass window — all images of my favourite figure skater, Sheila Lin. Two time Olympic gold medalist in ice dance, living legend. Sheila never seemed nervous, no matter how much pressure she faced.

“No,” I told him.

Heath smiled and slid his hand up the back of the stretched-out Stars on Ice 1996 sweatshirt I always wore to bed. “Liar.”

Nosebleed seats to see that tour were the closest I’d ever come to Sheila Lin in real life. My father sprung for a signed commemorative photo of her too, which was tacked up on my wall with the rest of my shrine. She was the woman, and the athlete, I wanted to be — not when I grew up, but as soon as possible.

When Sheila and her partner, Kirk Lockwood, won their first U.S. title, she was still a teenager. Winning was a long shot for Heath and me, since we’d never been to Nationals before. We had qualified the previous season but didn’t have the means to travel to the competition venue in Salt Lake City. Luckily, the championships were in Cleveland this time, a comparably short and affordable Greyhound bus ride away.

I was certain the competition would change everything for us.

I was right. Just not in the way I imagined.

Heath kissed my shoulder. “Well, I’m not nervous. I’m skating with Katarina Shaw.” He said my name slow, reverent, savoring the sound. “And there’s nothing she can’t do.”

We stared at each other in the shadows, so close we were sharing breath. Later, we’d become world famous for that: stretching out the moment before a kiss until it was almost unbearable, until every member of the audience felt the quickening of our pulses, the pure want reflected in our eyes.

But that was choreography. This was real.

Heath’s mouth finally met mine — soft, unhurried. We thought we had all night.

By the time we heard the footsteps, it was too late.