Page 37 of Fake Skating

What the hell what the hell?

I paced around my bedroom, all keyed up and unable to relax because there were multiple problems with this pretend-dating situation already.

Like the fact that we’d already kissed twice.

Both kisses fit into the scheme, because they were both for the optics of gossipy hockey people, but if I was being honest, I liked them too much.

Way way too much.

I mean, maybe it was just because I hadn’t kissed anybody in a really long time, but my brain wouldn’t stop constantly replaying the way Alec’s brown eyes got all intense just before he lowered his head and put his mouth on mine.

God.

“Kid,” I heard from the other side of the door.

I assumed he was talking to me, because of course Grandpa Mick didn’t knock like a normal person.

No, he just barked out a word and waited for doors to open.

I pulled open my door and he was standing in the hallway.

“Hey, Grandpa,” I said, dreading what was coming.

Because the idea of Grandpa Mick lecturing me for kissing Alec?

Nightmare.

“You okay?” he asked. “I heard you walking around in circles, and it’s one in the morning.”

So far, so good.

“Sorry, did I wake you up?” I looked down at his flannel Snoopy pajama pants and said, “I forgot that your room is underneath mine.”

“No, I was up reading,” he said. “I just thought maybe you were awake and might need to talk about something.”

What was he doing? Had he read more articles about how to talk to teens?

I kind of wanted to just say no, I’m good because it was easy, but after what Alec had said about my grandpa, maybe I needed to give him a chance.

But in my way.

Here goes nothing….

“I need to play twenty questions with you,” I said.

He made a growling sound. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I have a lot of random things I’d like to ask you.”

I hadn’t planned on this little game, but I did have a lot of things I wanted to ask him.

He squinted, like he was waiting for the universe to translate my words, and then he said, “Fine. Go.”

“Oh. Okay,” I said, surprised. I cleared my throat and asked, “Question one. Do you miss playing hockey?”

“Yes,” he said.

Oh- kay. So much for learning something new about my grandpa.

I tried again. “Question two. What’s your favorite memory of Grandma?”

He sighed and looked uncomfortable, which made me think he was going to walk away and quit the game. But then he said, “The way she used to sit by the penalty box during every one of my games.”

“What?” It was hard for me to even imagine her watching hockey, to be honest. She’d just always been the woman who smelled like Jergens cherry-almond lotion, owned a closet full of floral dresses, and giggled like a scandalized child every time my grandpa cursed in her presence. “She didn’t sit with everyone else?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

He looked like he wanted to smile (but of course he didn’t). “She said she knew I’d end up in the box at some point, and she thought if I saw her sitting there, I’d have to settle my ass down and focus.”

“Grandma said the word ‘ass’?” I said with a laugh, feeling shocked by the thought.

“Maybe I’m paraphrasing.”

“Or not,” I said, for some reason intrigued by this new-to-me version of her. “Did it work?”

“Like a fucking charm,” he said, and then he did smile.

“Smart lady,” I said.

“The smartest,” he agreed, and then I felt guilty for even bringing her up.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For…?”

I shrugged. “For bringing her up, I guess.”

“Don’t be,” he said quietly. “My favorite thing to talk about.”

His face was softer for a second, and a small part of me felt like hugging him.

“Okay, then—question three,” I said, because I didn’t think he’d appreciate the hug. “How many times did she turn you down when you asked her out the first time?”

I used to love this story.

“Twelve,” he said with a smart-ass grin.

“I asked her out for twelve days in a row, showing up at her mom’s house every morning with a cruller from Kriz’s and an invitation to the movies for that night.

And for twelve days in a row, she took the donut, said, ‘ Thank you but I must decline,’ then walked her sweet ass back inside. ”

I laughed even though I knew this one, because it was so romantic.

“And on the thirteenth day…?” I prodded, loving this part.

“And on the thirteenth day, I opened my front door to see her standing in my yard with a donut in her hand. She told me she’d broken up with her long-distance boyfriend—who I hadn’t even known existed—and she was wondering if I’d want to go to the lake with her.”

“And the rest was history?” I leaned against the doorframe and wondered what it’d be like to have the power to make a man so tough fall so hard.

“The rest was fucking legendary,” he said with a grin. “Any more questions?”

“Actually,” I said, not wanting to let him walk away when he was sharing like this. “Question four: Was there ever a time that you got along with my dad?”

Since he was opening up (as much as he opened up), I wanted to know more about why he hated my dad so much. Grandpa Mick was a grumpy jerk in general, but now that I’d been around him a little more, I knew he wasn’t like that to everybody.

So why was he like that with my dad so very much?

“What kind of question is that?” he asked, lowering his voice like he didn’t want my mom to hear.

“I don’t know. I was just wondering, because my parents got married in college, but it wasn’t until years later that you…” I hesitated for a second, my voice going soft before I said, “That you… flipped out on him.”

I’d always been scared to bring up this black mark. This scar of a memory between us was still tender, but I felt like it was now or never.

“Yeah?”

“So I guess I want to know if you got along when they first got married, or if you’ve always… hated him.”

He sighed. “Maybe you should ask your mother about this.”

“No,” I said, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him into my room.

I closed the door behind him and said, “I don’t want her version of this.

To be honest, I think you’re unfair to my dad, but I want to know why.

There are two sides to every story, right?

I think it’s maybe fair to hear it from your point of view. ”

He sighed. “I’m not going to bash your dad, kid. I think he’s a prick and I can’t stand him, but he’s your father.”

“You do know that calling him a prick is bashing him, right?”

“Eh,” he said, like he disagreed.

This made me smile a little. “Okay, so tell me about the first time you met him.”

I knew I wasn’t going to agree with what he said, but I was curious what things had been like in the beginning. Or if it had always been capital B-A-D bad.

“I’m only gonna state the facts,” he said like he was dropping a legal disclaimer.

He walked over to my bed and sat down. “The first time I met your dad, I acted like a jackass.”

“Wow, the self-awareness,” I said, the smile I had tugging harder at my lips.

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Sorry.”

He cleared his throat. “So your ma told us she met a guy in one of her classes and they were dating. He was stationed at the base an hour away but was working on his master’s. Sounded like a decent guy, but right away I didn’t like that, because she was only a freshman.”

I wanted to explain to him that this wasn’t reason enough to hate my dad. But I kind of understood. The fact that he was five years older than my mom wasn’t a big deal now, but when she was eighteen?

That would’ve felt huge. Especially to her parents.

As if he’d read my mind, he continued, “Not a reason to hate him so much, sure. But when she called a few months later to tell us she was quitting school to marry him?”

“Wait, what ?” It felt like someone had doused me with a bucket of ice water. I knew they got married in college because she was pregnant, but I hadn’t realized it’d been like that , so sudden. So soon after they met.

“Out of nowhere, she calls to say she wants to give up a full-ride academic scholarship to be an Air Force wife. She worked her ass off to get the Fricklinhauger Fellowship, but suddenly she says she wants to leave.” My grandpa shook his head and said, “I still can’t believe it.”

If I had felt that I was slapped by ice water, now I was drowning in it. Breathing became harder.

“ S he had a Fricklinhauger Fellowship?” This was literally the first I’d heard of this—in my life . “This can’t be true. Like, I knew she was smart and that she met my dad at school, but she was a Fricklinhauger fellow ?”

What the hell? This was unbelievable !

They awarded like five Fricklinhauger Fellowships a year to high school graduates, fellowships that covered all expenses because the recipients were literally geniuses.

It felt like my world was imploding. How much more didn’t I know about my parents? Why didn’t I know this?

You’d think, as I rambled incessantly about Harvard for most of my life, she might’ve mentioned it.

“She’s brilliant, your ma,” Grandpa Mick said, his mouth curving into something close to a smile. “She used to work on math equations at my games—when she was like six—because she said it was more fun than watching hockey.”

I couldn’t quite form any words—my brain was still processing everything. My mom, a genius. We had never talked about that. Ever.

What else didn’t I know about my mom…? And why did it make my heart hurt?

“But she bailed on the fellowship after less than a semester.”

Instantly, I thought of Harvard, of how badly I wanted it, of how hard I’d worked to hopefully get it.

Had it been like that for my mom… before she had to give it up?

I looked at his face and realized she’d quit because of me .

Me.

The silence felt heavy.

I’d taken her Harvard away from her.

The panic and anxiety I’d been fighting the past few years started rising and rising, stealing my breath the way they always did, until a rough hand found mine.

“And don’t you for one minute think it was because of you,” he said firmly. Protectively.

My heavy eyes met his and he said, “She could’ve stayed; your grandma was ready to move there and help. We had a plan all figured out.”

“You did?” I pictured my grandma’s face, and, yeah—that tracked. She’d been the sweetest, so of course she would’ve moved to another state to take care of her daughter and a baby.

“But your mother was adamant that the only option was to marry your dad and move with him—he’d just gotten a new assignment when she got pregnant.”

“Why wouldn’t she—”

“It doesn’t matter now,” he said, cutting me off.

“Oh.” I thought of my dad’s persuasiveness when he thought he was right, the way he couldn’t even fathom that his way wasn’t the only way. “So he said it was the only option.”

My grandpa shrugged, confirmation without him actually confirming. My stomach dropped.

“It gets worse,” he said, a soft but guarded smile cracking his weathered face. “I showed up at your mom’s dorm and told her she was coming home with me.”

“You did?”

“I did. I was in the middle of telling her to start putting her shit in boxes when her boyfriend showed up and asked me to leave.”

“My dad asked you to leave ?”

“That was when I put him in a headlock just to shut him up so he’d listen, and your mother started crying, and the little dorm RA announced that if we didn’t knock it off, she was going to have to issue a residential citation.”

I watched as Grandpa looked down at his hands—he was clutching them so tightly they started to turn red.

Wait—was he nervous to tell me all of this?

“In hindsight, I should’ve slowed down, because I probably drove your mom to be more stubborn about what she wanted to do, but it was clear to me what was going to happen. He was career military. And that meant moving from base to base and taking my daughter—and grandkid—with him.”

I could tell he was reliving it, that Grandpa Mick had just been transported back to the night he learned he was losing his daughter.

“That’s probably enough of twenty questions,” I said, suddenly feeling tired.

“It was only four,” he said, his eyes searching my face.

“Yeah, but it was enough.” I didn’t want him to see me try to absorb everything. Didn’t want him to see the panic stirring in my chest.

Just breathe.

He watched me for another minute, then nodded and stood. “You should get to bed now.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding. “I’m pretty tired.”

“Good,” he said, walking to the door. “That means I can finally sleep because you’re done walking in circles.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t keeping you up.”

“Sometimes I lie,” he said, and then he was gone.

And I was left sitting in my room, completely in the dark as I tried to digest the enormity of what he’d just told me.