Page 69 of Home Ice

“People who are fine don’t cut their best friends out of their lives like they never existed.”

We stare at each other for a very long time.

Then my fingers find their way to his temple. “This is too important to me. You’re too important to me. Please. I need to do this.”

“I’m fine, Hawke.” But there’s no conviction behind it.

The tension leaves both of us, but I don’t move off him. Don’t even want to. Those brown eyes that I’ve exchanged looks with a million times in our lives tug at something behind my sternum. “Please?”

“Hawke, I⁠—”

“You’ve been there for your dad ever since he needed you. Who’s been there for you?”

He presses his lips tighter together.

“It should have been me,” I say with all the regret that exists between us. “It should have. Let me make up for it now.”

“I can’t take your money.”

“Then …” I scratch my brain for a solution and am surprised when it comes easily. “Think of it as repayment for coaching.”

“What?”

“I help you with coaching, and in exchange, you do this for me.”

“That’s not even close to even. Technically, I should be paying you.”

My thumb finds its way to the scruff on his cheek. “You’re right. It’s not even. Because you’ve always meant more to me than money … and you always will.”

“Okay,” he whispers, like he’s unsure but can’t keep fighting me.

“Okay,” I say, like I have all the answers.

Then I peel myself off him. He sits up stiffly.

And after a long moment of silence, he tosses me a smile.

“Race you!” Barrett’s in the water before I figure out what he means.

Chapter Twenty-Two

TAI

It’s a long week. Something about reaching into the depths of my soul for the moments that have been decaying there has wiped me out. I’ve needed to get those words out for so long, and now that I have, I’m not convinced I feel any better.

I avoid the cafe during Dad’s first shift. Hawke shows up every day to coach with me, and after the two classes that Kasen comes in for, he drives him home. Dad cooks again. Pasta this time, but it’s a relief when he has me carry the heavy pot of water to the sink to drain for him.

Still, I have this growing feeling of everything coming apart. People in town tell me how good Dad did in the cafe, and it should be a relief, but I only feel like we’re setting everyone up to be disappointed. Hawke is my comfort, but I can’t cling to him, and on the afternoons when I make plans to meet up with my other friends, I’m only reminded of how hollow those friendships are. Of how they don’t give me the connection that I crave.

So I hang back at the rink after classes and just skate. Skate so hard my thighs lock up. My clothes soak through with sweat, and the cool air freezes suffocatingly in my lungs. I’m a heaving, wrung-out mess by the time I’m done, but at least I can’t think.

I slump against the boards, struggling to catch my breath, knowing I should go home, but even the thought of home has frustration building in my chest. So instead of doing that, instead of doing literally anything useful or productive, I tip my head back⁠—

—and scream.

It echoes through the empty building, and I keep going long past when I should stop. I scream my throat raw, forget to breathe or worry or even think, and when I can’t keep it up, I slump forward, elbows on the side board, mentally, physically, emotionally exhausted.

It’s not until my breathing is under control, weight on my chest feeling more manageable than it has all week, that I straighten and head to change.