“Then what am I supposed to do, Jared?” I turned my head and looked at him. “I have no idea what to say. I have no idea what to do to get her to see me. Hell, she’s not even talking to me properly. Do I just go to her house and demand that she talks to me?”
He seemed to think about it for a minute, squinting his eyes, and chewing on his cheek.
“Grand gesture.” I almost didn’t hear him.
“A grand gesture? Seriously?”
“Yeah.” He turned to me. “Seriously. I’m not saying that you should propose to her in front of the entire school, but you need to do something that’s going to remind her of all those times you guys were happy, hanging out together. Then you can tell her what an idiot you were, and beg her, on your knees if you have to, to forgive you.”
Sophie hated drawing attention to herself in public, unless she was on the ice, in her own element. She hated over-the-top things, and she was never a materialistic kind of girl that asked for expensive clothes, and shit like that. Her favorite birthday gift was a painting of the two of us I made.
“Grand gesture,” I murmured again, pushing myself to think about things I could do to get her to take me back into her life. “You’re a motherfucking genius, Jared.” I threw my arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer to me.
“Whoa, whoa, easy there, tiger.” He laughed. “I’m gonna start thinking that you might be in love with my girlish features.”
“Shush.”
“But yeah, I know I’m a genius. I don’t know why you all think that I’m all looks and no brain.”
“Uh, Jared, I hate to break it to you, but we don’t think you’re all looks at all.”
“You mother—”
He tried to grab me, but I jumped up first, running toward the frozen lake. “You’re more of an annoying little brother none of us wanted to have.”
“I’m gonna drown you in this lake, Noah Kincaid,” he yelled, running after me.
“You’re gonna have to catch me first!”
I slowed down as I stepped onto the ice, slipping here and there as I moved farther away from him.
“Just you wait!” he hollered, going as slow as a snail after me, trying to balance himself on the ice. “I should have never told you that idea.”
“Thank you!” I laughed, feeling lighter than I did before. “I’ll make sure to invite you to our wedding one day.”
“You fucking better!”
And I would. There was no doubt in my mind that one day, she was going to wear my ring. Nobody else would ever come close to her.
9
SOPHIE
“Come on,Sophie. Lift that leg higher!” Coach Liudmila yelled from the sidelines, while I pushed myself further, blocking everything else.
Here, on the ice, was my happy place. It was the only place where it didn’t matter if I felt good or bad that day, because the moment I put on my skates and stepped inside the arena, everything else faded away.
My pain, my worries, my anxiety, my love for Noah… Those things didn’t belong here, because even the smallest distraction could cost me my life, and I couldn’t afford that.
I remembered the first time I’d come here for practice, and how insecure I was on my skates. I’d spent two weeks holding the wall, because my balance fucking sucked. I remembered seeing all those beautiful girls, skating as if they were born on the ice, and I wished that one day I would be as good as them.
And I became that good—if not better.
My first coach once told me that talent has nothing to do with success. You could be the most talented person, but that talent you might be blessed with was only twenty percent of the whole package. Hard work, sweat, tears, and blood were those remaining eighty percent, and those were what mattered.
I was a competitive kid, not toward the others, but with myself. If I did something good in one practice, it had to be perfect on the next one. I drove my parents crazy, jumping around our garage and skipping dinners, because nothing less than perfection would be sufficient for me.
I’d missed birthdays, holidays, and going out with my friends, because my practices were far more important than those other things. Two years ago, I didn’t even go to school for an entire week, because I’d been preparing for the Nationals.
