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“What does that mean?” I asked. He sat, staring at the carpet. My eyes scanned his body, like I’d somehow be able to tell what was wrong. “What’s going on? You have to tell me. Please start talking before I—”

“My dad,” he said, cutting me off.

“Your dad?” I questioned slowly. The only time I’d ever seen him was in the wedding picture above the mantel at his mom’s house.

“He died.”

“Of…?”

“Cardiac arrest.” His hands trembled. “At thirty-two.”

My stomach dropped. “Okay, but that doesn’t mean that’s going to happen to you.” I shook my head. “That doesn’t mean that you have the same—”

“I have it.” He held his jaw as he stared up at me.

It felt like I was plunged underwater. “What?” My mind ran through the past, trying to place when this would’ve happened. “When?” My voice came out as a whisper. “When did you find out?”

“In the spring, I didn’t have a concussion,” he repeated.

“I passed out at practice. The team labeled it as concussion protocol so no one would ask questions. I wrote it off as a fluke. Buried it deep. Pretended it didn’t happen.

I was too nervous to go to the check-ups, so I just blew them off.

” He rubbed a hand down his face. “We only had one game left, so I just pretended everything was fine until…”

“Until?” I croaked.

He closed his eyes like this conversation was hurting him, but I needed this information. We needed to fix this. Right now.

“Until when?” I demanded, feeling equal parts scared and furious that I was just finding out about this.

“End of the hockey season, mandatory testing.” He sighed. “They pulled me away from the group and made me do this EKG stress test. Mine was all fucked.”

My mind spun. “End of the hockey season?” I ran through my mental calendar. That was smack in the middle of my two months in Montreal. “That was months ago, almost a year ago.”

Everything started to click into place then. The way he was acting all off-balanced after picking me up from the airport. The way his mom was crying. The way he got emotional when visiting Centre Ice.

“I thought it was just…” He shook his head, cutting himself off. “I don’t know what to say. I was in denial. I felt good. I thought it was just…a fluke. A mistake.”

Everything was tunneling in on me. My ears rang. My eyes blurred. He passed out on the ice. My Richard passed out. His dad. Thirty-two. Richard was thirty-two.

“We have to go. We’re going to a hospital. We’ll fix this.” I reached for his hand to pull him up, but he wouldn’t budge.

“No.”

“What do you mean? What are you saying?” Shaking my head, I started frantically gathering our clothes and shoving them into our bags. “C’mon.”

He stood up. “Stop, Piper. Just…stop.”

“Why aren’t you moving?” I asked, my whole body trembling with panic.

“Because I’m not leaving,” he said firmly. “We have the Gala.”

I stared up at him in utter disbelief. He must’ve lost his ever-loving mind. “Skating doesn’t matter!” I burst out, shocking even myself by those words, but it was true, and I didn’t take it back.

“Yes, it does. It’s the only thing that matters to me,” he bit back.

“No.” I shook my head. “You’re wrong. What the fuck are you doing to yourself, Richard?” I cried. All the information whirled in my brain. “Why aren’t you finding out if you need treatment? Medication, surgery! It could be getting worse! ”

He just shrugged.

Feeling like my legs were giving out on me, I braced myself against the dresser. My mind ran through all of our exchanges over the last few months. How had I missed this? How? My brain snagged on one vital question, one that he meticulously avoided over all these months together.

“Why are you skating with me?” I asked. “You told me it was because you liked me, but you also told me it was self-serving.”

“No, I didn’t say—”

“Yes, you did!”

He clenched his eyes shut.

“Don’t lie to me anymore,” I blubbered between tears. “No more secrets. Tell me everything, Richard. Right now. You have to.”

He seemed to shrink back. Sitting on the edge of the bed again, he looked helpless and lost. “I’ve only ever had two dreams,” he whispered.

His eyes were red. “Make the NHL, and…” His chin quivered.

“Make a life with you. I was waiting, you know. Until after you got your gold. That was always my plan.”

My heart cracked down the center. “Richard.” A new wave of tears hit me as I moved to him.

“Wait, just… Just let me explain…” He swallowed hard, gathering himself.

“All I’ve ever wanted was to be with you, save up to provide for you, maybe I’d even be lucky enough to be your husband one day.

Even when we weren’t talking, I always checked in to see how you were doing, even when it was painful.

I wanted you to be happy. I really did. When we crossed paths this year, I thought, maybe it was finally our time.

” His jaw tightened. “When everything happened this spring, when that test came back…” He trailed off.

“And then you didn’t have a partner.” He looked up at me.

“It felt like a sick joke at first. But then I just thought…maybe this is how it’s supposed to go.

Maybe I can’t give her any of that, but maybe I can help her get this medal.

And then…” His chest expanded with a ragged breath.

“Maybe I can be the man in your mantel picture. And then maybe it won’t hurt so bad if I don’t get to be the man you marry. ”

I covered my eyes and my whole body shook with a sob. Again, I wanted to slap him and hug him at the same time, but the hug won out. I hugged him, feeling so completely angry. Mad at the world. Mad at the unfairness. Mad at him for putting himself in danger and not even telling me about it .

“We can’t keep going. Let’s go home,” I said into the crook of his neck.

His hand went up to cradle the back of my head. He stayed silent for a beat. “I’m not going, Piper.”

I pulled out of his arms. “Your heart could stop, Richard. That’s what you’re telling me, right? That it could stop?” I choked out.

His face flinched. “It could stop while going to get a coffee, Piper. My dad was on a morning jog, the same jog he went on every single morning for years, and he—” His throat bobbed with a swallow.

“Richard, that was decades ago,” I said as gently as I could. “There have been medical advancements. We need to go in, we need to talk to doctors.”

“Okay, I will go in,” he said softly, trying to settle me. “ After we win the Olympics.”

“You could die at the Olympics!” I cried. I knew it was harsh, but I was desperate for him to listen to me.

His jaw locked. “I can’t be scared of hypotheticals. You said that to me, Piper.”

My hands flew to my head. “That was just something I said when I was a stupid kid!”

“No,” he cut me off harshly, his brown eyes searing into me. “Don’t take that from me, Piper. Not when I’ve lived so much of my life by it. This is my choice.”

I sucked in a shocked breath. “It’s a stupid choice.”

His throat bobbed with a swallow. “Maybe, but it’s mine.”

I could see it on his face. His decision was made, and he wasn’t budging.

I couldn’t make him see how insane this was.

This didn’t feel real. I wanted to rewind time, stop this from happening, but that wasn’t possible.

It felt like I was once again stuck on a rollercoaster ride that was making me sick.

“I need a minute… I need to…” I stormed out of the room.

All those years ago when I was afraid he was quitting and lost his fight… Nothing compared to the fear I felt now.

I ran to the trash can on wobbly legs and hurled everything from this day. Tears and snot streamed down my face. Too many emotions warred in my brain. But two stood out:

Pain.

Because we wasted so much time.

And terror.

Because his heart could stop.

________

I paced backstage before the Gala, but I wasn’t even sure why I put my dress or skates on.

“I don’t want to skate.” My whole body trembled. I held my chest, attempting to fight off an incoming panic attack. “This is too much, Richard. It could hurt you.”

He held my shoulders, trying to steady me. “This is not as strenuous as a hockey game, Piper,” he said, trying to downplay it.

“You shouldn’t have been playing hockey either.” I held my temples as my body shook with more tears. What should I do? I didn’t know what to do.

His face softened. “I met with the health team here. They’re now aware of the situation.” He said it like it irritated him, and I wanted to scream. “They’re on standby. They think it’s fine to skate for the Gala and then go in on Monday.”

Standby . A whole ass health team was on standby for a problem I was completely unaware of up until an hour ago. I rushed to the trash can and braced myself. My body lurched, but there was nothing left in my stomach.

Swearing under his breath, Kappy came up behind me and rubbed my back. “C’mon, Piper. It’s going to be okay. It’s only a slow two-and-a-half minute program. I’m asking you to dance with me, please,” he urged, offering me a water bottle.

“The health care team is really on standby? You promise? You’re not lying?” I asked, my hands shaking as I took the water.

“I promise,” he said earnestly.

I locked eyes with him. “And you’ll really go in on Monday?”

He swallowed hard.

“You’ll go in on Monday?” I repeated, my voice going pitchy with panic.

His jaw locked. “Only if you dance with me.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I wanted to fall into a heap on the floor, but I knew I couldn’t. Steeling my spine, I nodded and followed him out to the rink.

Kappy and Patrick whispered under their breaths to each other while I continued pacing until it was our turn to take the ice .

When the stadium lights shut out, we glided to our opening position.

And that’s when it dawned on me: We’d been speaking to each other through lyrics for years.

And now I finally understood this particular song choice of his: He was sharing his thoughts out loud.

He was asking if I’d still love him even when he changed, even when he couldn’t physically skate anymore, even when his heart stopped working.

My mind went back to my hotel room, back to everything he said to me this afternoon, and it became clear: Richard made peace with only being the man in my mantel picture. And that angered me more than any bad result or poor skating performance ever had.

Because this just wasn’t enough for me.

I wasn’t about to repeat past mistakes—mistakes like excusing the space and time between us.

I was no longer the girl who would wait around in hopes of earning points for my patience.

I was going to demand more time —the way I should have with every relationship in my life, the way I should have from the very beginning with him.

I was going to demand his heart to keep going.

Because what we had was love, and I wasn’t letting it go.

The first few chords floated in the air and the spotlight hit us, making the crowd roar with thunderous applause, but I couldn’t even fake a smile.

He smoothly grabbed my thigh, and I stood tall as he spun me around him like a ballerina in a music box.

I hated that my anger and fear turned into tears.

My eyes went blurry, and no amount of blinking could clear my vision.

Thank God for muscle memory because I couldn’t see a thing through the entire routine, but my body continued moving on its own accord.

By the time we hit our ending pose, we were both on our knees on the ice, leaning against each other.

Taking his face in my hands, I laid my forehead against his, and my shoulders shook with tears.

“Piper…” He features twisted into such helpless anguish that I couldn’t take it.

“You better still be here loving me when we’re old and gray,” I choked out. “That’s not an offer, it’s an order,” I said before wiping my eyes and skating off without him.