Page 45 of Fade into You

“Dade went to the snack bar,” she tells me, “but that skanky girl left right after him. I can’t fucking believe this.”

“Well, what did he say about her?”

“He said there was nothing there. But clearly he’s lying. Right?”

I can tell by her eyes, pleading, that she wants me to disagree and tell her there’s nothing to worry about, and god, I almost do because it’s killing me to see her so insecure. But this is all for the greater good, I try to remind myself. “Right,” I finally agree, and she looks about ready to crumple in on herself. “It seemed like they had history or something.”

I hate myself.

“Will you ask Jessa about her?” she says, casting a quick look over her shoulder.

“Sure, yeah.”

And here’s Dade again, except this time he glides in right behind Kayla and snakes his arms around her waist, lifting her up and scooping her away from me. I speed up after them, and I don’t know why—what am I going to do, pull her out of his arms? I skate past instead and call over my shoulder, “You better not drop her!”

And as soon as I turn around, Dade has caught up to me, nolonger carrying Kayla. “Hey,” he says, touching my arm.

“Yeah?”

“Listen, did I, uh, do something to you?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“You just don’t seem to like me very much, and I’m wondering what I did,” he says, this weird grin on his face like he’s got me in some kind of standoff he doesn’t think I’m capable of winning. If I didn’t dislike him so much, I might respect him for confronting me about it.

I look back to see Kayla skating solo, lagging behind us.

“It’s not that I don’tlikeyou, Dade,” I tell him. “I don’t know you, okay?”

“Well, there’s something you can do about that, you know. You barely say two words to me whenever we’re all out.”

I take a breath, and I honestly don’t know what’s about to come out of my mouth from all the thoughts scrolling through my brain—thoughts about him, Kayla, me, Jessa, how I don’t think he’s a good guy or at least not good enough for Kayla.

“Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to squeeze two words in when you’re constantly attached to my best friend at the mouth.”

He laughs. Like that’s not a reason. Except it is. It’s one part of the reason, anyway.

“You could at least give me a chance,” he says.

But before I can pluck another response from the many swirling around my head, the DJ comes on over the sound system and announces, “We’re gonna slow things down for all you couples out there…. Here’s ‘Iris’ from the Goo Goo Dolls. And don’t try to come up here and complain that it’s playedout—you all know you can’t get enough of this one.”

“Or not,” Dade says when I don’t answer. “Do whatever you want. But just ’causeyoursummer boyfriend dumped you doesn’t mean I’m gonna do that to Kayla.”

“What?” I yell. “That’s not how—”

But he peels off before I can finish. Skates back to Kayla. All the singles are rushing to get off the floor, and I’m suddenly surrounded by pairs.

My heart is hammering in my chest, and I’m so angry my hands are shaking. How dare he. And Kayla, why is she talking aboutmyrelationships? And not even getting it right. Nobodydumpedme. And he wasn’t my boyfriend.Andwhatever happened with me and Silas and Kat—which Kayla doesn’t even understand, because I haven’t had two seconds alone with her to explain any of it—has nothing to do with why I can’t stand Dade.

I make my way to the side of the rink, barely able to catch my breath as I watch the two of them roll past me, hands interlaced. Dade gives me a chin nod as they glide along to the romantic song, as if we’re cool, as if he didn’t just make a totally uncalled-for and inappropriate and faulty assumption about me and my life. And then I see them coming up behind Jessa—the last single left out on the floor—down at the other end. Dade is pulling Kayla closer and closer to Jessa, and just when I think he’s going to make them collide right into her, he raises their conjoined arms above Jessa’s head as they swoop past on either side, sending her off-kilter.

I can see it in slow motion. Her foot flies out from under her,an arm flails to the side, and she goes down, slamming and sliding on both knees. Hard.

She’s still trying to get up by the time I make it over to her.

“Are you okay?”

She’s trying to laugh, but as she looks up at me, I can see through it. “I’m fine!” She takes my hand, pulls herself up, but she can’t stand straight. I look down at her knees—I’m pretty sure she already had holes in her jeans, but she definitely wasn’t bleeding.