Page 10 of Fake Skating

Thank God pep rallies aren’t mandatory.

I made my way toward the doors, excited for this unexpected reprieve. I’d gone into the gym with everyone else when we were dismissed for the event, and I didn’t realize until we were three cheers and a fight song deep that I had the option to leave.

Talk about a bonus.

It was weird, though. Even though it wasn’t required, it looked like the entire school was sticking around for the pep rally.

Not only that, but Grandpa Mick had been right: Nearly every person in that gym was dressed in black.

I actually stood out in my off-white sweater, though I still stood by my tiny little act of rebellion, because it made me feel like I had a shred of life control.

Just as I reached the exit doors, the hockey team was announced, and I swear to God the entire student body jumped to their feet, screaming like they were at a concert and not a school-spirit event.

I turned back when it sounded like the crowd was booing, but as it turned out, they were just chanting “Zeus!” like a bunch of zealots.

I mean, even if “Zeus” was great at hockey, this adoration was absolutely unhinged.

And there was no way the boy wasn’t a total egomaniac.

I narrowed my eyes and went down the row of players, curious to see if by some chance I might recognize the guy who’d apparently mentioned me. But the tall dude wearing aviators and raising a fist in the air like Bender from The Breakfast Club was no one I’d ever seen before.

Thank God.

I left and headed for the counselor’s office, grateful for the empty halls and the extra time to get something accomplished.

And when I got there, not only did I discover that my assigned counselor (Joan Hrznski, according to her name plate) had also chosen to skip the pep rally (obviously she was smart), but she had time to talk.

“Come in, Dani—have a seat. What can I do for you?”

I sat down, took a deep breath, and launched into the whole nightmarish story of how I was still in limbo.

I’d applied under Restrictive Early Action because I was all over my Harvard shit, but the divorce nightmare had had me so upset that my application hadn’t been as strong as it might’ve been.

As it should have been.

Which led to me not being accepted, but being deferred.

God, I still couldn’t believe it.

When I freaked out over the news, the counselor at my school in Germany had recommended not only that I keep my grades up— Harvard is always watching— but that I beef up my résumé with extracurriculars at my new school.

“Well, I’m inclined to agree with her.” Ms. Hrznski nodded and said, “Keep writing to them, keep calling and pursuing the admissions office, and I’ll do the same on my end. Nail down the extracurriculars here at Southview, keep your GPA up, and I’m confident we can still make it happen.”

I had my doubts about her confidence, but I was going to delusionally believe her because what was my other option?

I wasn’t about to face reality, for the love of God.

I would rather call admissions every other day until the breath left my body. I’d pictured my first year at Harvard for longer than I knew what the word “freshman” meant; failure was not an option.

“Do you know of some clubs that might be easy for me to get connected with?” I asked.

I’d always been good at finding activities that looked great on admissions applications—environmental club, math club, Amnesty International—yet didn’t require a lot of social interaction.

Hopefully Southview would have the same.

“Well, it’s February, dear,” she said, her usage of the word “dear” irritating me because I wasn’t some annoying spouse or child who was asking for the moon, for God’s sake.

I just wanted to join a damn math club.

Then she added, “It’s a little late to join a club.”

So… why did you tell me to find an extracurricular if it’s too late?

I swallowed down my frustration and calmly said, “What would you suggest for extracurriculars, then?”

“Maybe a spring sport—that’d be great,” she said, nodding like she’d come up with the perfect solution.

Yes, Joan, that would indeed be great if I were magically athletic all of a sudden.

“Yeah, um, I don’t play any sports,” I said, trying to sound positive and not like I wanted to bang my head against a wall. “Isn’t there like an environmental club or yearbook—”

“No, those are all closed by now,” she said, cutting me off with a smile and a head shake. “If I were you, I would go home and rack my brain for potential activities that you might not be thinking of. Maybe track and field…?”

Do you seriously think if I were a runner I wouldn’t have thought of running, Joan Hrznski??

“Okay, thank you,” I blurted out, climbing to my feet. I needed to get out of there before I lost my mind and did something stupid, like cry.

I walked out of the office, fuming because how ridiculous was it that my Harvard aspirations could be dead in the water unless I joined a team?

It was absurd.

It was just as absurd as the fact that legacy students were able to get in simply by being related to a former smart person, and jocks could get in on scholarship because they were able to dribble a ball while wearing a Harvard jersey.

How were those people seen as fantastic candidates, yet someone like me, who’d studied my ass off my entire life, could maybe only get in if I added to my permanent record that I’d bowled at a high school somewhere in Minnesota?

Insane.

I stepped out into the hallway and gritted my teeth as crowds poured out of the gym.

Fabulous timing.

I just wanted to be left alone to pout and be unhappy—was that so much to ask? The last thing I needed was to be surrounded by students losing their minds over whether or not the hockey team was going to be able to outpuck Simley’s hockey team that night.

And how stupid a name is Simley anyway?!

Just as I was mentally raging, a group of hockey players walked by and I was suddenly surrounded. They didn’t even notice me as I was absorbed into the center of their saunter pod, stuck because they were each hauling a huge hockey bag that served as some sort of duffel perimeter.

Please kill me.

I clutched the straps of my backpack, keeping my head down while trapped in the middle of the swagger sandwich as everybody in the hallway cheered them on as if their mere presence was the greatest thing to ever happen to the world.

The exit doors were just ahead, so I needed to keep my head down and make it a few more steps and then I’d be free.

“Zeus!”

One of the guys in front of me—the tallest guy—turned, which made his ginormous hockey bag come around and knock me to the floor.

Literally.

His body-bag-sized duffel laid me out.

“Oof” was the moronic noise I heard myself make as I fell to my ass, and something about that duffel slamming into me—and a random laugh I heard from somewhere behind me in the hallway—was the final straw.

“Can you maybe watch where you’re going?” I snapped, too frustrated to hold back. “Just because you know how to hit a puck with a stick doesn’t mean you’re allowed to just mow people down in the hallway with your stupidly huge bag.”

I wouldn’t have thought he’d hear me, because it was so noisy in the hallway, but the guy stopped. The huge dude in the hockey jersey turned his head and looked down at me, and I gasped when those brown eyes met mine.

Brown eyes that were sort of amber and absolutely familiar.

Brown eyes that’d looked into mine countless times during those summer months. Brown eyes that I’d never forgotten, even when I tried my hardest.

His mouth kicked up into a cocky smirk, and he held out a hand.

“Nice to see you too, Collins.”

Alec.

Alec was Zeus. Zeus was Alec.

I was too shocked to move, to speak. Words escaped me because the everything of us hit me harder than his hockey bag. Alec, my Alec, was standing right in front of me, close enough to touch. After everything and all the years, it was finally happening.

We were back.

“Zeus! You comin’?” yelled one of the guys ahead, breaking me from my trance. “The bus is here.”

Alec’s eyes narrowed as he took in my face. Silence lingered for too long until he lowered his hand away from me. The crowds in the hallway moved in slow motion, their cheers and yells a blur of noise. But I heard Alec’s voice clearly.

“Yeah,” he yelled back, his lips lifting teasingly. “I knocked some chick over with my bag.”

Some chick?

His Adam’s apple moved around a swallow. The smirk stayed on his mouth, but his eyes went hard.

Um.

I might not know him anymore, but I recognized that look.

He… definitely wasn’t happy to see me.