Page 12

“Ah, dang.” His shoulders fell, mirroring my disappointment. Pushing up his sweaty hair, he stared down at the rankings on the machine. “Kinda pisses me off that we’re not number one.” His brow furrowed. “I wanna find out who DrunkAliCat is. I bet we could take ‘em in real life.”

A laugh popped out of me. “You think?”

“Oh, I know .” He grinned.

Rolling my eyes, I struggled to maintain a straight face. Grabbing up my skate back, I gave an awkward wave and turned on my heel.

But right as I was pushing open the door to enter the cold winter night, he called out, “Piper the Viper!” making me whirl back around.

He was already back at the picnic tables, opening up his math textbook. “Same time tomorrow,” he said with a wink.

And my whole body felt a little warmer as I stepped into the snowy night.

_________

The next day we went back to ignoring each other, but after everyone left, he’d walk over to the arcade section of the lobby and put quarters in a machine and silently wait for me.

We’d play a game or two, sometimes staying quiet, each lost in our own heads about skating or hockey.

Other times, we shared good news or funny stories.

I shared how Patrick and I qualified for Junior Nationals.

He shared how he, Colt, and JP pranked the high school hockey team by setting off the sprinklers in their locker room, which froze all their equipment.

“Why’d you guys do that?” I asked with wide eyes.

“It was revenge for what they did to JP.”

My eyebrows slammed down. “What’d they do to JP?”

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” he said with a chuckle.

“On second thought, I don’t think I want to know.” Hearing that story made me glad I didn’t go to school in person with everyone else my age. I enrolled in online school starting in sixth grade so I could spend as much time on the ice as possible.

He laughed. “It’s all good. And it was good for Colt.

He needs to live a little. The dude’s so serious all the time, he’s like a hockey machine these days.

I thought dating Mer would make him chill out a little, ya know?

It did the opposite . Now he wants to go pro so he can buy her a big ring and all that. ”

The way Colt loved my best friend brought a smile to my face. “That’s nice, but I think Mer would marry him even if he proposed with a Ring Pop.”

“Thank you!” he blurted out. “That’s exactly what I said.” His face scrunched up in thought. “A Ring Pop actually sounds kinda good, you want one?”

“It does kinda sound—”

Before I could finish my sentence, he took off in a jog across the lobby to the concession stand, making me shake my head. He had a youthful energy about him that somehow kept all worries at bay, at least for a little while.

But the rink isn’t always a happy place. Actually, rinks should have warning labels taped to their entrances telling parents and kids that happiness is a fleeting thing inside their walls…

That spring, I started experiencing more consistent pain in my legs, but I pushed through, thinking my muscles just needed time to adjust to my more intense skating schedule. But the pain wasn’t easing, and I did my best to hide my limp as I walked out of the rink.

One rainy April night, when I walked out to the lobby, an older hockey coach with white hair was screaming in Kappy’s face, calling him a little twerp , calling him a good-for-nothing-lazy-piece-of-shit .

Kappy’s jaw went tight, his muscles taut, as he hung his head, just taking the coach’s harsh words.

For a second, it was tempting to jump in front of him and shove the old man on his ass.

I knew I couldn’t interfere, but it wasn’t right.

I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to hug Richard, to whisper the opposite of everything that old man yelled at him.

But it’s almost like Kappy could feel my presence, could feel me staring at him, because he looked over and locked eyes with me.

When the old man finally stopped screaming and walked away, Kappy just stood there, his shoulders sagging. After a beat, he wandered over to the Dance Dance Revolution game and stuck quarters in. He gave me a hopeful look as he waited on me to walk across the lobby.

Taking a step forward, pain shot up my leg, making my heart plummet to the rubber floor.

I didn’t want to hurt him, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t dance with him. I could barely walk . But I wasn’t about to admit that I was in pain, not to him, not to anyone. I wouldn’t risk getting pulled from training.

My body shook with too many garbled emotions as I continued forward, focusing on each step.

“Piper…?” he croaked as I passed him.

My jaw tightened so hard my teeth could crack. My shoulders rose and fell with a breath. When I finally looked over at him, his brown eyes were wide as saucers. “I can’t.” My voice cracked.

“I’m sorry,” he said automatically, like he was used to taking blame, and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest. He hung his head for a second before looking up at me in confusion. “Wait, you can’t?”

Keeping my eyes down to avoid the hurt look on his face, I shook my head. “I shouldn’t—”

“Save it,” he practically snarled. He looked angry. No, he looked hurt. “This was stupid anyway.” He scoffed before stalking away.

I stood there, frozen to the spot, staring at the arcade game, feeling like my heart just crumbled.

Because dancing with him wasn’t stupid. Not even a little. Not at all. It was my small highlight, my mental reward. Every time I struggled, I mentally told myself that if I made it through the day, I’d get to dance with him.

Now it was just another thing that this injury ruined for me.

After that day, Kappy barely looked at me. When he did, it was with contempt. We spent the entire next year basically ignoring each other.

And we probably would’ve never talked to each other again, if not for Mer and Colt. Because of them, we were forced into each other’s presence on special occasions—such as Mer’s seventeenth birthday.