I burst out laughing. Snorted and slapped a hand over my mouth. “No.”
Memories of us—good, bad, my favorites, come and go as if they are waves on a beach. Calm one minute, violent the next. If I’m not careful I can get pulled into a riptide of them.
I stomp across the street on a mission, when I’m outside the rink I see Cooper’s car.
I suppose sometimes you can trust your gut.
Someone from the coaching team is leaving.
“Wait! I need in the rink.” I rush forward, my knee stings at the sudden sprint and lingering memory. They hold the door open for me. I give them a smile and say, “Thank you so much! I forgot my student ID and am meeting one of the players for a project. We’re running behind.”
They give me a thumbs up when I notice their headphones in and phone open on a call.
“Sorry,” I mumble with an apologetic shoulder shrug.
Taking in a slow inhale of chilled air, the smell of stale popcorn from a game days ago and chemicals from the coolant, my lungs fill with longing.
It happens anytime I think about lacing up a pair of skates again, braiding back my hair and slipping on my helmet, or the roar of a crowd. The burning desire to be the best, to win. I haven’t skated since reinjuring my knee and making the decision to stop playing. There’s always a part of me, the same one that wonders about my birth parents, about what my life would be like if I was still playing.
And I would be if it weren’t for the boy I find skating, pushing a puck through a series of orange cones.
“No surprise finding you here.” My tone harsh, unaware to its implications.
He cuts, skating over to me and stopping abruptly. A shower of ice trimmings hit me.
“Hey.” Cooper smiles brightly.
“Don’t ‘hey’ me. I waited thirty minutes for you.”
His face falls with realization. Chest heaving as he slips off a glove, dropping it to the ice. He twists a wrist to look at the time. Something rattles in his sleeve, another bracelet of sorts, but I can’t see it through his sweatshirt sleeve.
“Fuck,” he curses under his breath.
I sigh, shaking my head. “Unbelievable. No, you are believable. Predictable. This was a mistake, again. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
“Okay, okay, okay. I’m sorry.” He throws his hands out.
“Your apologies mean nothing to me. There’s never any action behind them.” I stand tall, shoulders back and gaze into his brown eyes.
There was one time when I was nine that I thought they were the most beautiful eyes in the world. Wanted to look at them for the rest of my life. What a foolish girl I was, overrun with preteen hormones. Easily swayed into an unrealistic fantasy.
Cooper peers down at me.
He’s taller in his skates. I quickly give him a once-over when I realize he is still in his pads from practice. Practice jersey removed, he’s wearing a team issued sweatshirt. Our school logo in the center of the navy fabric with Bears Hockey sandwiching it.
“Didn’t practice end almost two hours ago?”
Cooper lifts a hand, squeezing the back of his neck. He takes a slow inhale.
“Why do you need two more hours of practice?” I ask, my tone becoming solid.
“I have to be good enough,” he chokes out.
“For what?”
My brain is trying to figure out if it’s supposed to be in friend or psychologist mode.
“I have to be better than him,” Cooper modifies his statement. It still means the same thing.
