For the next hour, we progressed through several skating drills—most of which I’d seen during my YouTube marathon. I definitely wasn’t the strongest skater in the pack, but Fee was right—my balance was far superior to most (thank you, skateboarding), and my lack of fear over getting hurt allowed me to try everything they threw at us without hesitation. By the end of the hour, I was starting to feel a bit better about my performance, despite the persistent niggling in my brain telling me I didn’t have everything it would take to make this team.

At one point, Dominique randomly paired us up and demonstrated with Lena that we were going to practice holding our ground on skates while pushing up against someone. Finally, I thought, some damn contact!

My partner was roughly my height but nowhere near as thick. She seemed to be all elbows and legs. Her name tag said Gwen (she/her). When we got paired up, she gave me a head nod, but not much else. Friendly.

“Hey,” I said. Another head nod from her. Okay, that’s all you’re getting from me, then.

We were meant to push up against each other—not hard enough to force one another to the track, just with enough pressure to test out our stance and see if we could maintain our ground. When Dominique blew her whistle, all of us began pushing on one another, adjusting our skates as we needed to, giving and taking ground as we leaned into each other.

Gwen was stronger than she looked and started out pushing me harder than necessary. So naturally, I reciprocated. I could respect a good, all-out effort. But then she let up and stepped a couple of inches backward, which made me lose my balance and topple over sideways. Landing on my hands and knees, I quickly looked up to see if Kat and the others were watching—they weren’t. I was thankful they hadn’t seen me on the ground, but I also realized if they hadn’t seen the stunt Gwen had just pulled, I’d have to deal with it myself—which was fine by me.

I got up, fists curled and face hot. Gwen was just standing there, hands on her hips like nothing had happened. Like she was impatiently waiting for me to get my shit together. That’s how you want to play it, huh? Game on, asshole.