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During a moment of weakness some time ago, in conversation with a friend I dissected a failed relationship that had exploded with passion, endured for a time, then flickered out. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but I still have hope for you two,” she said. “Why?” I asked. “Because I’ve never seen anyone look at anyone the way he looked at you,” she said, solemn.

Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images

Virtue and Moir’s is an equal pairing. They train together. Before each performance, they breathe in sync to ensure they can literally feel when the other person is about to breathe. They both do the work. There’s a gloriously feminist bent to the move, partway through Roxanne, where Virtue stands on Moir’s upper thighs, the blades of her skates pressing down into his skin, him supporting her as her arms extend up to the sky, calling for victory before any judge has weighed in. But the key to their success really lies in the way their eyes fix on one another, follow each other, return to meet again, and how deeply they must be seeing to remain so in sync. It fills a wandering mind with a surfeit of questions: how much of another person can we really, truly see? What they will let us? Opening our eyes every day and meeting another set of eyes, the same every day, is a choice. Virtue and Moir have made that choice for 7,300 days running. How many of us can claim that, even amid the lower stakes of humdrum life?

As Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge comes to a climax, the wealthy Duke of Monroth argues that obviously the courtesan Satine should choose wealth and stability he can promise her over the love that, laughably, is all the penniless writer Christian can offer. “Let Zidler keep his fairy-tale ending,” Monroth spits, rejecting the ideal that underlies so many narratives throughout history: that love really is all we need. And yet, as the curtain goes down on Virtue and Moir’s final Olympic performance — they skate Monday and Tuesday, the prohibitive favourites to win gold — we yearn for a fairy-tale ending beyond just another medal. We recall the end of the program they skated last week to the film’s soundtrack: Moir’s hand wraps around the base of Virtue’s neck, supporting her, before they unravel. Their eyes meet briefly. In that moment, he sees her. She sees him. They smile and shine. That’s enough. And the crowd, enraptured by all the knowing and seeing and yearning that one fleeting glance can belie, goes wild.

Katherine Laidlaw is a Toronto writer and contributor to Hazlitt, Toronto Life and Marie Claire magazines.