Brennan stood up and shook his hand and they talked quietly. I kept meaning to reach out to Louis, but with everything that had happened, I just never did. I’d been semi-active in the group chat, but mostly just lurked, offering the occasional comment or reaction. They didn’t pressure me though.
Lukas wiped out a little over a month ago.
Things were kind of getting back to a normal that made sense. My birthday had come and gone. It was weird being another year older than Asher would ever be.
I swallowed the hard lump in my throat and tried to not slip into the past. The last month had been hard, brutally so. I’d basically shut down after Lukas’ wipeout. It took days of me being practically a ghost, before I’d slowly pulled out of it. My parents had been worried sick, Eloise had sobbed when my eyes finally refocused.
I’d been so lost in my head—all the worries and fears and the memories replaying in constant, never ending loops in my brain. I’d been exhausted and had slept for almost two days straight after I came to. My parents took me to the hospital and they gave me the all clear. My therapist prescribed some new meds and I’d been taking it easy.
A week after we’d gotten home, Zara’s text had come through—the time and date of her trial with Brennan. I made a note on my phone of the date and time.
And today, I slipped out of the house—leaving a note for my parents. They would have wanted to come, and it would have been a whole big thing, but I just wanted time for myself. They’d been a bit over stifling lately—not that I could blame them. I needed a few non-sleeping hours to myself. I needed to come here, remember the memories by myself.
Louis was lacing his skates up when Zara strolled in. A man and woman behind her smiled at Brennan, who reached his hand out. They must’ve been her parents. My eyes scanned the area behind them without my permission, looking for Lukas. There was no way he was going to miss Zara’s trial. But I didn’t see him.
I clenched my hands into fists and wanted to scold myself for the hope that I let bubble up. I’d put off texting and calling him so many times—my thumb hovering over his icon. It was weird that we didn’t have a phone history, but for those weeks, we hadn’t needed them. And now, I wanted to have a face to face talk, and I was hoping that he’d be here today and that could happen. I guess he didn’t want to come…didn’t want to chance seeing me.
I watched and Brennan walked Zara over to Louis and introduced them. She blushed. Objectively, Louis was cute. He had the floppy dark hair thing going, the glasses, and an attractive face. He looked like a hot nerd—like he liked to sit in dark, moody coffee shops with a book. He was also genuinely nice, caring, and would be a great partner for Zara if she chose to go that route.
I guessed Brennan would have her skate first by herself so he could gauge her skill level, and then he would have the two of them skate together. He was primarily a pairs coach, but I had a feeling he would make an exception for Zara.
Zara quickly laced up and she and Louis did a couple of laps around the rink to warm up and then I watched the trial. Zarawas good—she had definitely gotten better since the last time I saw her skate. Brennan waved her off the ice, and then spoke to the two of them. Louis held out his hand and Zara took it and they made their way to the center of the rink.
“Now, I know Zara, you’ve never skated with another person before, and Louis, you have. So Zara, let him lead and?—”
“Do you know Aimee’s “Love Story” program?” Zara asked.
Louis nodded—I knew he knew it. He’d helped me practice it years ago when Asher had been out with the flu. Nicola had been on vacation or something.
“I—I know it. We could do it,” she said, looking at Brennan.
He considered it, and then nodded. “Let me cue up the music.”
CHAPTER 45
lukas
I could almost hearthe crowd from that day. The energy that had filled this place—thrumming off the walls and bodies that filled the stands. I remembered the sounds of my footsteps as I walked the concrete halls, the first up close view I got of Aimee as I tried to catch Zara.
I let out a breath.
She hadn’t seen me yet. I’d arrived early ahead of my parents and Zara.
I wanted to talk to her before the trial.
I watched her walk into the rink, oversized hoodie drowning her frame, hood pulled low over her head and face. She seemed smaller than she had, like a weight was bearing down on her, curving her shoulders in, and hunching her over.
I’d slipped in behind her, and watched as she climbed her way to a row almost at the top and slouched in her seat. She pushed the hood back to adjust her hair before pulling it back over her head.
My chest hurt at the sight of her.
She looked exhausted. Dark bags hung under her eyes—eyes that were filled with such desolate sadness. The girl who was opening up, finding the fun in life again seemed to be missing.Seeing her there—I wanted to do nothing more than pull her into my arms and hold her, hugging her tight.
We needed to talk before anything like that happened.
Mom and Dad had spotted me before I could get to Aimee. Zara was excited but nervous. Mom fussed over me—she’d barely seen me since the accident—her work had kind of gone off the rails as soon as they got stateside, so she’d been busy. My wrist was back to normal, and the tweak in my knee was taking a little longer to heal, but the bruises and scrapes were long gone. I was fine.
Petyr and I were already talking about the next Olympic push. In a crazy turn of events, the whole race had been discredited for Olympic qualifiers after five more skiers wiped out—the course was deemed unsafe—something that rarely occurred in the sport.
