I stop myself. He doesn’t want to hear about my drama. So I ask, “What do you guys do on skip day?”
His eyes twinkle as he meets my gaze. “I’ll never tell.” I laugh, and we keep skating.
“You’re a pretty good skater, Jenna. Must be in your blood.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it. You want to go a little faster?”
Of course I don’t. I can barely keep my legs under me as it is. But he says it with that same little-boy fierceness, with the look that he wore when he said he wanted to marry me on the playground. It’s hard to say no to that face.
Up close like this, his jaw looks so strong that I want to trace the line of it, feel the tension there. I analyze every single thing he does. I wonder if he ever thinks of me the same way.
Chip and David skate by us really fast, then circle back and come straight at us, stopping just short, throwing shaved ice everywhere.
“Hey, take it easy. Idiots.” Julian wipes a piece of frost from my face. “It’s fine. We can go slow.”
“I just…”
“You want to go back?”
I shake my head, a vigorous no. I don’t want this perfect moment to end. “Do you want to go skate with the guys? I mean, you don’t have to keep skating with me.”
“I skate with the guys all the time.”
I blush. “Um, maybe we could go a little faster.”
“You’re sure?”
“Uh huh.”
His arms reach around me, his hands clasped behind my back. My hands go on top of his arms. His body is so different from when we were kids. He’s all muscles and bulk now. A firm place to land. His face is close to mine, but I’ve still got my coat as a layer. He’s just in his jersey. So when he stops us, my body bumps into his.
“Sorry,” I say.
“No worries,” Julian smiles, but his eyes stare into mine, all hazel with earthy brown flecks—the kind that feels most at home on the ice or in the woods.
Eric skates by us, pulling Rena behind him. “No slow dancing, Van Beck. Not with my sister.”
Julian chuckles then starts us skating again, medium fast.
“It’s okay. I trust you,” I say. “We can go faster.”
“You’re sure?” he asks.
I can scarcely breathe, but I say, “Yes.”
“Okay. Hold on tight.” He reaches down to straighten my legs like he’s seen Eric do. His hands, even through my many layers, light a fire in me. “Ready?”
“Yeah.”
I close my eyes, and Julian pulls us faster and faster.
I’m loving it, and I hear myself laugh. I feel myself fall forward and Julian catches me, straightens my legs, and pulls me right up against him. Right up against. And we are flying and the lights are blinking and I’m so happy. So completely happy. I want him to twirl me like in one of those dorky musicals that Rena and her friends love. I want him to do that. I want him to do more. And then it happens.
My hamstring spasms.
My body jerks.
I pull him down with me.
Eric screams, “Jenna!”
I fall forever, in slow motion. Julian tries to adjust us, tries to lift us, but I go into a full-blown hands-over-head extension pattern, and I’m like a rubber band that’s been pulled taut and then released, and there’s no amount of force that can stop that. Julian lands on top of me. Hard. His body on top of mine. My leg scissors behind me.
And I hear a snap.
Seventeen
Red and white lights flash outside, and there’s the sound of people walking on the ice. A gurney appears, pushing through the crowd around me. Eric. Rena. Julian. The pain is as real as a person sitting in front of me. More real than I am. The ice is cold under me, and my body is drifting, pulling me down and into the ocean. I’m swimming, and Dad is holding me above the waves.
That Jennifer voice finds me and whispers, “Stay up here with me. The pain doesn’t need you.” I believe that voice. I throw myself into that voice. “We are in the library studying,” Jennifer says. “In college. There are a group of cute guys at a table across the room.” As she talks, I can feel myself leaving my body, feel the wooden library chair underneath me.
The sound of a scissor. Cutting. They are cutting my sleeve and I should care about that, only I really don’t. A blood pressure cuff snaps around my arm and