Page 63 of Blade
Florida shrugged. “I heard he decided to quit and go to college—Ivan knows the whole story. He just left.”
Ana took off around the boards, inhaling the smell of ammonia and Zamboni exhaust and rubber mats and then the shitty coffee as she rounded the corner to the snack bar.
Hugo was never coming back, Ana suddenly understood, and he didn’t tell Jolene because he was a dickwad, or because Jolene never meant anything to him. They’d been having sex and she needed the pilland now she was puking and crying. And what would Ana do? Without Indy. Without Kayla. The bleacher bees dying to see another one of them go because they werelittle sluts.
She ran outside, where the sleet had turned to snow and was now falling hard and fast, a frozen film covering the pavement. She had to find Ivan. Find out if this was true—about Hugo. And then what?
What did she think she could do?
The doctor would tell her to channel the fear that was now pulsing through her blood. Turn it to rage. Then fight. She’d tried to fight for Indy, and look what had happened.
Suddenly, she was slipping, her feet out from under her, body in the air, then crashing down. Onto her elbow and wrist, smacking her head.
She lay there, perfectly still, absorbing the shock of the fall, and the shock of what was happening to her friend, on top of everything else. Indy on the plane with the DMSO and hidden dresses she probably wouldn’t wear. Kayla gone forever. And Ana’s mother in that bed.
She started to cry from all of this, but also because she should be on the ice, circling the rink close to the boards, practicing the triple flip, just being a promising skater with a sixth-place junior finish at Sectionals. Or maybe the girl back home with Connie and Carl and Tim, whatever was left of her.
She felt like leaving right now, walking through the front door of her old house, marching up the stairs to Connie’s room, climbing into her bed, and curling up next to her and never leaving. Telling her—This is still my home. My life is here. My life is with you.
She saw herself doing it—packing up her skates and dresses and medals and trophies and shoving them in the attic. She would forget about skating and never look back.
Because she was drowning here. They all were. In the middle of a lake, holding on to one another as they slowly sank, their heads tilting back to gasp in one last breath of air before the black water covered their mouths and noses and filled their lungs.
Fight the fear.But it was too big.
They were not enough. They were children playing grown-up, just like Mio had told her that day before they went to the field, and the game had taken a turn right off a cliff. Just like that, two months after Sectionals when she felt like this dream was slowly becoming real.
She lay there for a long time, until the tears started to freeze on her skin and the pain in her elbow and the back of her head demanded her attention. She began to gather herself, rolling to her side. Propping herself up on her forearm. That’s when she heard someone approaching.
Boots crunching snow, then two legs standing before her. And a hand reaching down.
“Are you all right?”
Ana wiped the tears and the snow from her eyes.
“Ana?” Coach Emile said. He was on his way inside, crossing the parking lot from his car. But now he was here, standing over her. Throwing her a lifeline.
“Take my hand,” he said.
Like hell.Emile couldn’t be trusted after what he did to Kayla.
Fight, Ana!she screamed at herself.
But her hand was already there, reaching for his.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ana
Now
Dawn steps aside and politely welcomes me in. Like I’m a stranger. Like we have no history between us.
I follow robotically. Accepting her invitation to take my coat. To remove my boots. Shake off the snow on the doormat. I walk behind her in my wool socks and say nothing as she tells me which way to go.
“The living room is through there,” she says. Like I haven’t been here before. “I made a fire.”
Dawn sits down on a love seat and motions for me to take the sofa. The furniture looks new, with rounded arms and straight backs. Large square cushions made of linen. Light gray. Four decorative pillows sit in the corners. Off white. Gone are the deep reds and blues. The soft velvet. And the television that once hung over the fireplace—the one that would play my programs—has been replaced with a framed print of Monet’sHaystacks.