"Your name."
"I have one."
"Heathcliff," I said.
It sounded different when I said it instead of hearing it blasted over a PA system. No echo or crowd noise.
"It's not an accident, right?"
He leaned back against the armrest. "No," he said. "It's not an accident."
I waited for him to continue.
"My mom was nineteen when she had me. Working nights at a nursing home in Rhinelander. Cleaning. Laundry. Minimum wage, no benefits." He didn't rush the story, letting it carry its own weight. "The break room had one of those shelves where people leave books. That's how she foundWuthering Heights."
"Your mom read Brontë on her breaks?"
"She did." He smiled. "No cell phone or internet. She had bad coffee and a shelf of books nobody wanted."
The radiator ticked.
"She said Heathcliff was a person you couldn't look away from even if you wanted to. Angry. Unwanted. Feral. Everything about him was wrong, and none of that stopped him." Heathswept fingers through his hair. "He was still there after everything that should've erased him."
I didn't speak.
"She told me once, when I was fifteen, 'I wanted you to have a name that people couldn't ignore. Something that said you were still here, even when the world tried to leave you behind.'"
He reached out for my hand.
"I think she was scared I'd disappear. So she gave me a name that doesn't."
I inherited my name from a grandfather. Heath's mother chose his. Mine saidyou come from something.His saidyou will survive it.
"That's kind of incredible," I said.
"Yeah." He looked at me directly, holding steady. "Turns out Mom named me to be a survivor. Not a winner."
"Your system," I said.
"Works every time."
I moved closer and leaned back against him.
"Thank you," I said.
"For what?"
"Telling me."
"It's just a name."
"No. It isn't."
He leaned in and kissed me. His lips were warm from hot tea.
I settled my head against his shoulder. He kissed the top of my ear.
After five days in Heath's apartment, the practice facility hit like a plunge tank. Fluorescent light after days of gray winter windows. My skates bit the ice after a week on linoleum and sidewalks.
