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ELLIE

T he first time I’d fallen in love with the ice, it had been watching him play hockey. My five-year-old self had been dragged along to a game, and I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off of the way the players glided across the ice.

Especially not off of him .

But I’d turned to my mom—tugged on the edge of her big, cozy sweater, and then I’d asked a question that would change the trajectory of my life forever. “Mommy, can I learn how to skate?” My eyes grew wide.

I was already in dance class—my mom taught lessons, so I’d basically grown up in the studio—but I couldn’t explain the rush it gave me to watch the blond-haired boy float on his skates.

And two weeks later, when I was laced up in my first pair of ice skates and holding my mom’s hand at the mall ice rink, I didn’t give up. Not once.

No matter how many times I fell, I kept getting up.

Maybe my mom saw the determination there. Whatever the reason, she let me keep going.

The second time I’d fallen in love with the ice, I’d been twelve years old, training as a competitive figure skater after I’d taken lessons for the last seven years. It was my dream. One day, I hoped to make it to the olympics. I’d already competed in competitions at the state level, but I craved more .

Staring out across the rink at our local practice facility, I waited for my ice time to begin. My coach was somewhere around, and I’d already warmed up, but the hockey team was still practicing.

His hockey team. My best friend’s brother. Though in a lot of ways, he felt like my best friend, too.

I swung my legs back and forth as I watched Owen hit a slap shot. He was good . At least, I was pretty sure he was. He was fourteen, growing like a weed, and the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen, with that soft, dirty blond hair, and a pair of warm, chocolate brown eyes. I felt gooey inside whenever he looked at me. He had no clue that I had a giant crush on him.

Owen skid to a stop, creating a spray of snow behind him, before resting his arms on the ledge. “Hey, Skater Girl.”

“Hi, Hockey Boy.” I smiled shyly at him as he heaved his leg over the wall, hopping over it in a way I could never even hope to.

And he hadn’t even finished growing yet. He was already almost five foot ten, and his fifteenth birthday was still a few months away. Owen sat down next to me on the bench, bumping my shoulder with his before undoing his helmet and running his fingers through his hair.

“You waiting to start practice?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, just watching him as he grabbed a bottle, squirting the water into his mouth.

God, it should have been wrong how much of a crush I had on him. He was practically family. Our mothers were best friends, and we lived on the same street. I saw him as much as I saw my brother, who was a year older than me, and as into football as Owen was into hockey.

Part of me loved that this was our special thing. Owen and I’s.

Even if he had no idea that I liked him like that. I was just his little sister’s best friend. His cousin. That was all he saw me as.

It was okay. I was alright with that.

“How’s your solo coming?” Owen asked, and I watched as the rest of the guys headed off the ice and into the locker rooms.

“Good.” My cheeks warmed. Had he been watching me? “It’s fun. Mom’s making me a new costume for it, too.”

His eyes brightened. “What color? Yellow?”

That was my favorite. I cleared my throat. “No. It’s um… It’s blue.”

“That’ll be pretty,” he muttered, looking away.

“I should go,” I said, stumbling to my feet. “Get on the ice before my coach gets here and sees me talking.”

“Okay,” Owen said, standing up from the bench himself. “Bye, Skater Girl. Catch you later.” He winked, and I skated out onto the ice, trying to ignore the butterflies in my chest. How much I liked having his attention on me.

What he didn’t know was that I’d picked the fabric of my new skating dress because it was his favorite color. Light blue.

And god, I loved this building, because here, I didn’t have to share him with anyone else. Here, I could pretend he was all mine.

The third time I fell in love with the ice, I’d been fifteen, wearing his last name on my back and his hockey sweater on my body. It was a big game for him, and I knew there were scouts in the stands watching him.

He was amazing out there.

And he was mine .

The way he commanded the ice was beautiful. Even under his pads and hockey gear, his body was finely sculpted and honed to perfection. There was no doubt in my mind that he was going somewhere, and I couldn’t wait to watch him climb.

I balled up my fists in the sleeves, holding them against my nose. If I inhaled deep enough, I could still smell him on the jersey that was several sizes too big for me. Even though it had been washed, it still had the faintest scent of ice and cologne. I blushed, thinking about what it was like to have his body weight on top of me. We hadn’t gone all the way yet, but we’d had some hot and heavy make-out sessions.

Sometimes, it still felt surreal that he’d asked me out last year. That we were dating. I was trying hard to forget about the fact that in a few months, he’d be graduating, and we’d have to do long distance. He’d decided not to enter the NHL draft right out of high school, deciding to go to college and get his degree, so when he was done with his hockey career, he’d have something to fall back on. It was something I knew his dad, a finance professor, had encouraged him to do.

It wouldn’t be easy, but this was us, after all—Hockey Boy and Skater Girl.

My first kiss. My first boyfriend. My first love.

I loved him the way I loved being on the ice. When I was skating, the world went quiet. It was just me and my blades as I lost myself in my routine. The world, normally chaotic and frantic, was calm when I was with him, too.

I was sitting on the edge of my seat the entire game, watching him any time he was on the ice for a shift. It felt like I wasn’t breathing when he had control of the puck, passing it to a forward. Like I was so finely attuned to him, to his body, that I couldn’t help but track him unconsciously. I didn’t even have to try.

As the final minutes of the third period ticked down, I watched as the opposing team tried to make another shot on goal, but the Wolves’ goalie blocked it successfully, and Owen hit the rebound down to the opposing team’s ice as the buzzer sounded, the game coming to an end. And with that, the Willamette Wolves won the game.

I couldn’t wait to tell him how proud of him I was.

Just like he did every time he watched me at one of my skating competitions. We supported each other, and everything was so good.

Later, when Owen came out of the locker room, hair damp from his shower, his face lit up as he saw me.

“Hey, Daisy.”

I blushed. He’d started calling me that after we’d started dating—my middle name. It was a nickname only he called me, and it felt special.

“Hi, Owen.”

He stepped in close to me, wrapping his arms around my upper back before tugging me into a hug.

“I’m so proud of you,” I murmured in his ear. “You played amazing tonight.”

Owen nuzzled his face into my hair. “Thank you for coming. I love being able to look up and see you in the stands.”

“You know I’ll always be here,” I promised. I meant it, too. I’d sit in the stands for him at all of his games.

He drew back, pressing a small kiss to my lips, before interlacing our fingers as we walked out to where his family was waiting.

It only took a moment to fall out of love with the ice. Good things didn’t last. I knew that now. Twelve years after I stepped on it for the first time, and it felt like everything I’d worked for crashed down around me with one decision. One mistake.

One goodbye that hurt more than anything ever had before.

That was the day I left the ice behind.

The day I knew I’d regret for the rest of my life.