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alex

“What are we doing at the ice rink at six in the morning?” I asked, my voice still raspy from the night before.

I didn’t have sex with Anastasia last night.

Instead, I held her in my arms and listened to her breathe.

I cradled her, imagining what life would be like if she were taken from me, if he had won and she wasn’t there anymore.

I worried whether he’d come back for Damien or if they’d always be in danger.

But now, I didn’t have to wonder. She was with me, and somehow, we found ourselves at the ice rink at the ass crack of dawn.

“There’s one more thing I want to do with you,” she whispered.

“Are you going inside?” I asked.

She’d gotten over her fear of the rink when she visited, but that was the last time she was there. Aside from that time, I never saw her go in.

She nodded and held up a bag. “When we stopped at my house, I grabbed these.”

She’d called out sick today and told me she wanted to spend the day together while Damien was at school and then the afternoon at her studio. I hadn’t noticed what bag she’d gotten, but I recognized a figure-skating bag from anywhere.

“Are you...?” I hesitated, grabbing her hand and stopping her before we went inside. “After yesterday, are you sure?” I asked.

She nodded. “A lot of my injury has to do with my mental space, too,” she added. “Yesterday, my anxiety took over, and my legs froze up as a version of a panic attack, so to speak.”

She grabbed my fingers and pushed open the door. “I want to do this with you. I need to.”

We walked silently toward the ice rink, the cold air biting at our skin.

When she pushed open the door to the rink, she said softly, “Dirks helped me set this up.”

Last night, Ledger asked if anything felt strange about what we did together, knowing she had seen Dirks naked.

But all that came over me was an overwhelming sense of pride for Anastasia.

After everything that happened with Dimitri, that pride had only grown stronger.

I saw her in a new light—I had almost lost her again, and the thought of that was unbearable.

I’d never let her slip away. I wanted her to experience every joy she had missed out on.

Standing here, at the rink where I practiced almost every day, excitement surged through me for our future. The pride that had filled my chest when Ledger asked me was swelling up again, powerful and warm.

“I need your help, to spot me in case I fall.” Her voice pulled me back from my thoughts, her words a tender plea.

“Always.” She pulled us to the benches where we sat during the game, and I paused. “Anastasia. I don’t have my skates.”

She gave me a smile and shook her bag again. “I do, silly. I grabbed a pair before we left and shoved them in my bag, hoping you wouldn’t notice.”

“I was too busy looking at you,” I admitted. “Are you sure you want to do this? Emotionally?” I gulped down air.

She sat on the bench and pulled out her white skates.

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to, but it’s the one thing I’m terrified of still, Alex.

I’m so scared of going out there when he took it all away from me.

After last night, I thought that was the end of me, but I realized that everything I walked through in my life only made me stronger, so I refuse to put thought into the situation. ..”

“But it’s good to talk about,” I added.

She nodded. “It is, but I can deal with it at therapy. I need to focus on Damien. I need to focus on work, and I really want to give this last piece to you so I know what it feels like to be free.”

I nodded like I understood, and in a way, I did.

“What scares you, Alex?”

“Ending up like my mother,” I admitted softly, grabbing my skates from her and trying to keep my focus trained on them.

“Tell me.” Her hand went to my thigh, and she gave me a squeeze.

I didn’t look up at her. I didn’t like talking about my family, but ending up like my mom was my biggest fear.

“I talk to her every couple of weeks on the phone, but when I do, I feel like somehow I’m still like her. It was worse before...”

“Tell me.” She encouraged me. “Tell me all of it.”

I closed my eyes, replaying the truth in my mind.

“I was young, pressured by my family to be the best. Dimitri was on the rival team, and he was always better.” I sighed, knowing she was already familiar with this part of my story.

“But it wasn’t the pressure from my parents pushing me athletically; I also felt an obligation to earn a lot of money to help her out financially. ”

“Tell me more.” Anastasia looked up at me with her big blue eyes.

“You know about my mom, I told you about her, but I guess I never...”

I’d never spoken my fears aloud. I told Anastasia about my mother and the reason I never made a move on her, but I never delved deep into what that meant.

“I don’t want to be in a relationship like the one she has with my dad.

I don’t want to feel used or hurt like she did.

I don’t want to rely on anyone, but I pushed everyone away instead.

” I turned back to my skates and laced them up, not looking at her while I spoke.

“This was the first year, since you, that I actually let someone call me a friend. The first time Ledger invited me over and he didn’t have to shove me into his apartment. ”

I paused. “Honestly, even with Dirks, things have changed since you came into my life. We became closer, more like friends than guys fooling around and chasing girls.”

She smiled. “I know what you did when I wasn’t around, and I don’t blame you for it. I’m glad you found deeper connections with people.”

I nodded. “I always felt like I was destined to end up like my mom, constantly hurt by the people I loved, like my father did to her.”

“You’ll never be like them, but I can see why you’d feel that way.” She paused and closed the distance between us. “Let me show you how much you mean to me.”

She stood up in her skates as I finished tying mine.

I lifted her over the boards and onto the ice, my voice hesitant as I asked again, “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes. This is the last thing he tried to take away from me and Damien. I want to reclaim it.”

My heart fractured into a hundred little pieces. I understood what she was doing because I was doing the same. We were both trying to mend something very broken. Even though the edges would remain jagged and held together with glue, the pieces were finding their way back to the rest of the puzzle.