CHAPTER 46
Laura lets Mom and Dad know where we’re going, and we pile into Daphne as soon as I’m changed. The rink won’t be empty at this time of day, and Jeff will likely be apoplectic seeing me show up with my sister—two Covingtons—during business hours, but if I don’t do this now, I’m worried I’ll lose my nerve.
Thankfully, the ice isn’t too crowded when we get inside, and people give me plenty of space once they see Maggie with her camera. The music pumping through the rink’s speakers isn’t what I’d planned to skate to, but Maggie says she’ll strip the audio and add the music in post when she edits the video.
I know my routine; I’ve practiced little else the past week, but there’s a queasy clench in my stomach when I step out on the ice. Or there is until I see Laura’s beaming face beside Maggie’s. After that, I don’t see or hear anything else.
I don’t skate flawlessly the first time through my routine. I wobble on my sit spin and the landing on my double toe loop is far from clean. But as Maggie is quick to remind me, she’s good for as many takes as I am. So we film the jump again, and I spin until the world seems to turn with me. I skate for the pure, simple joy it brings me. I skate knowing my sister is watching and is proud of me. I skate because my best friend never stopped believing I could. I skate because it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do, and because now, I don’t have to feel like I’m trading one part of my soul for another. My family isn’t going to wither away if I’m not there to stop it. For the first time in a year we’ve started growing again.
And I love my brother, but I know now that I don’t have to sacrifice my future because of his past. I can show Laura that she doesn’t have to either.
I hockey stop in front of Maggie and Laura when I’m done, and I don’t need to see their faces to know I skated well. It never felt better, more hopeful. I felt free. I still do.
We’re all three of us talking over one another as I sit to remove my skates and tie my sneakers back on, when Laura gasps beside me, followed almost immediately by a similar sound from Maggie. The hairs on the back of my neck rise as I straighten.
Maggie tugs a statue-still Laura to her feet, whispering frantically in her ear to get her to move as Heath walks slowly toward me. He glances down at my untied shoe, then drops to one knee to tie it while I’m too stunned to do anything but watch. He stays kneeling in front of me when he finishes and looks up.
“I never imagined you would look like that.” He nods his head toward the ice without looking away from me. “It was beautiful. You were beautiful.”
I don’t feel beautiful. That gloriously soaring feeling that lifted me on the ice deserted me the second Heath knelt at my feet. “What are you doing here?” I ask, letting the pang in my chest color my voice.
“I found you here the first time and the second. Thought it couldn’t hurt to try again.” His smile, slight as it is, doesn’t touch his eyes.
“Heath.”
His gaze flicks back and forth between my eyes. “I didn’t know what to say to you.” I try to look away but he follows with his head to stay in my sight line. “You were there. It wasn’t good.”
No it wasn’t good but it was real. There’s always been this huge, gaping canyon between us, one where my brother and Cal would always reside. It was there under the live oak, back when we needed the rain as an excuse to see each other, and it’s still there now. There’s no way to reach each other, and the longer we keep ignoring or pretending otherwise, the more people—like his mom and sister—we risk hurting in the meantime.
To say nothing of each other.
His hands, which were resting on the top of my foot, slide up to the bench on either side of my hips, bringing him painfully close. His eyes are all over my face and I feel his gaze like a caress. “But I’m here because I missed you. Tell me you missed me too.”
I can’t. I can’t even squirm away, because that would be like denying I’d missed him too. “People are starting to notice us.” My eyes dart to a woman slowly skating past, as though scrutinizing a car wreck on the side of the road.
“Brooke,” Heath says.
I have to drag my gaze away from her even as I feel more and more eyes settle on us. He’s staring at me, and only me, in a way that says, unlike me, he never looked away.
“I don’t care who’s looking. I haven’t for a long time.”
“You should,” I say. “And you do care.” I’m not judging him for that day at his house. He did the only thing he could do. I can tell from the way his expression softens that he knows what I’m referring to.
He draws back a little, just a little, his hands moving to the front edge of the bench. “I wish that could have been different. I’m not saying that introducing you to my family would have been easy, but it shouldn’t have been like that. I should have done better by you. I tried to explain it to them, you and me, but...” He lets the word trail off. “It’s a big ask.”
“Bigger than you and Allison?” I expect the question to make me feel small and petty. What does it matter when his brother is dead and mine is gone? But as soon as the question passes my lips I know it’s neither.
I’d let myself care about Heath—more than care about him. He was the first person who knew about my brother that I didn’t push away. I have to know if I was wrong about him, even now that it’s over.
His eyes leave mine for the first time. “It’s not what you think.”
“You—” I start, and then have to swallow before I can get out the rest. “You never told me about her and them. And you.” I’m glad he’s not staring at me, because I can feel my chin quiver. “I told you about my nightmares and all the time you knew—”
“No.” His head jerks up. “I never met her until after Cal died. I knew about Allison and my brother because he told me. I knew about his guilt and his love for this girl he thought he had to walk away from, was going to walk away from rather than hurt his friend.” His eyes find my face again and the quiver I can’t stop in my chin. “I also knew it was over, that Cal’s killer was in jail and now I was the one with the girl that I was supposed to walk away from. I would break what was left of my family’s hearts—my heart—if I didn’t.” My eyes prick because I see it, his heart breaking right there in front of me.
“I didn’t know I was going to care about you when we met. I didn’t know I was going to track down the girl my brother loved—something I hadn’t been able to do when it was just my nightmares I was living with, but yours?” His face scrunches up like he’s in pain. “I found her number in his phone and asked her to come to my house, told her there were some things of Cal’s he’d have wanted her to have.” He swallows as if remembering something he doesn’t want to and I hold my breath. “She started crying the second she walked into his old room, and I talked to her, grieved with her until Gwen came home.”
“Did she even recognize Allison?”
