Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Home was a minefield. If Cam and I crossed paths, a heavy silence pressed out all the air.
I quit being the perfect wife. No more dinners; I’d microwave something for myself or order takeout without a second thought.
If Cam wanted to eat, he could fend for himself.
I stopped bringing him coffee in the mornings, too.
The first day, I watched him fumble with the machine and almost laughed out loud.
Eventually he gave up and just bought coffee on the way to work.
We barely spoke. If he asked me a direct question, I gave him the shortest answer I could.
If he tried to talk, I shut it down. At night, whenever he reached for me, I’d say I had a headache, or else move to the couch, sometimes both.
He always carried me back to bed, which was more about control than care, but it amused me to make him mad.
Childish? Maybe. Satisfying? Absolutely.
Beneath all that, I was still angry. He’d said he’d tell me what happened, and then just… didn’t. More secrets. More lies. How much longer was I going to be left in the dark?
A knock at the front door startled me from my thoughts. I opened it to find Nate, grinning like always.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
I glanced at my reflection in the hallway mirror and just laughed. “You always say that. I didn’t even dress up. You just told me to dress warmly.”
“You’re always beautiful so it’s always true. I just think someone should remind you. A lot.” His smile was soft, and for a second I wanted to kiss him.
I shouldn’t have let him pick me up from my place, but there was no threat of Cam coming home tonight. He was with Lacey. Or, at least, I assumed it was still her. Not that Cam would ever admit it.
Nate had insisted we drive together tonight. He liked pretending we were just a normal couple, with no secrets or stakes, just a boy picking up a girl for a date like everyone else. The illusion was nice. It made my heart ache a little.
Because, the truth was, I could imagine a life with Nate. If I let myself. In that life, we’d be together, only each other, no wondering if my partner was sneaking around behind my back, no lies. He’d never broken my trust. It would be sweet, and simple, and safe.
But I still loved Cam. Even when he hurt me.
Even when he acted like I barely existed.
I missed him more than I wanted to admit—even though I was the one keeping us apart, I still wanted things the way they used to be.
I missed his arms around me in the morning, the way he’d press a kiss to my forehead at night, the hunger and heat in his eyes when we made love.
I missed the feeling of mattering to someone.
It was my fault. It was his, too. If he would just talk to me… Maybe I wouldn’t be so desperate for answers.
I couldn’t help spinning theories. Was he protecting her? Was she married, and now her husband was threatening Cam? But Lacey’s social media made her look definitely single.
“Are you ready to go?” Nate’s voice broke me from my spiral.
I smiled and nodded. At least with him, I didn’t have to pretend to be anything other than what I was. Even on the days where everything felt wrong, Nate made things hurt a little less.
He opened the car door for me, like always, and buckled my seatbelt. Weird little ritual, but it made me feel cared for.
“Where are we going?” I asked, brushing a stray hair behind my ear.
He glanced over, eyes glinting with mischief. “As much as I love watching movies with you all night—among other things—I thought we’d try something different today.”
I raised an eyebrow as he took a turn I didn’t recognize.
“It’s something we can try together. Probably fail at together but who cares.” He gave an easy shrug.
Twenty minutes and a few neighborhood detours later, Nate pulled into a big parking lot. The building looming ahead was unfamiliar, but the sign over the door said “Johnson’s Ice House.”
“Um, what is this?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.
“You’ll see.”
He got out, circled around, and helped me from the car. “Grab your coat,” he advised, popping the trunk.
Inside, the answer hit me in the face: ice-skating rink. “It’s an ice-skating rink!” I turned to Nate, grinning. “How did you know?”
He blinked, genuinely confused. “Know what?”
“That I used to ice skate as a kid?”
He let out a laugh. “I didn’t. I just thought we could try it together.”
We paid for our skates and plopped down on a bench to lace up. Now the warnings about dressing warmly made sense. I finished first and helped him with his laces, then we shuffled over to the rink.
I grabbed the guardrail for dear life, legs wobbly, but it started coming back faster than I expected. Nate, meanwhile, looked like a newborn deer. He slid and flailed more than he actually skated.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” he admitted, gripping the rail like it was a lifeline.
I giggled and let go, coasting a little as a pop song piped through the speakers. “This was a great idea. I can’t believe I never knew about this place.”
Nate struggled with his balance. “Do you want to hold my hand and I’ll take you around?”
He glanced my way, a subtle challenge in his tone. “You said it’s been a while. Think you still skate that well?”
I let myself drift backward, hands loose at my sides.
“Supposedly, it’s like riding a bike. You never really lose it.
” I spun away, easing into the music, my hips falling into the pulse as I moved.
He was right; it really did come back, all at once.
The silvery gloss of the ice. The distant echo of laughter.
I hadn’t skated since I was a teen, but now, out on the rink, it was as if I’d only paused for a moment.
I circled, lifted a leg high behind me, bent forward, testing my balance.
I dared a few tight spins, even attempted the little jumps I half-remembered from before.
I was so glad I’d listened to Nate and worn jeans instead of leggings.
The chill out here would have bled right through anything thinner, even with the exercise warming me from inside out.
Eventually I angled back toward Nate, who was shuffling along the rail, knuckles white on the cold metal. I slowed beside him. “You ready to come with me yet?”
He watched me, eyes wide. “Why’d you stop skating, Livi? You’re… incredible. You look happy out there.”
I felt my smile slip a little. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been smiling until then—for a second, the whole place faded out and I was a kid again, worry-free, thinking only of my next test or who’d be mad if I missed curfew.
I felt a knife of homesickness for my parents.
Things had changed since I moved to the city with Cam; we only talked on holidays now, or sometimes for birthdays. The drifting had been gradual but real.
“I don’t really know,” I said after a beat. “It was just a hobby. After I graduated, I went to college and… I guess I just dropped it.” The words felt small in the chilly air.
“You met Cam,” Nate finished quietly, “and he never took you skating?”
“It’s not really his fault,” I said, meeting Nate’s gaze. “I never made it sound important. I think I did mention I used to skate, but I didn’t tell him it meant anything.”
“If he’d ever brought you,” Nate said, “he would’ve seen.”
I let that go, grabbing Nate by the hand and prying him off the rail. “Let’s just take a lap.”
He looked like he regretted coming out here, wobbling hard, feet splaying wide. It threw me straight into laughter when he almost did the splits, twice. I tightened my grip on his arm, steadying him, leading us forward.
The next song drifted over the speakers—a Bruno Mars ballad, “When I Was Your Man.” I started singing along as we went. I couldn’t help it; that was just one of those songs that demanded a singalong no matter what.
Nate fell three times, grumbling about his butt every time I hauled him back up, but he never told me he wanted to quit. He was a good sport, embarrassment and all.
“Hang on,” I said at one point, parking him back by the guard rail. “Be right back.”
I skated off, ducked over to the entrance, and returned with a penguin skating support—a goofy-looking thing with a single eye. Nate just stared at it.
“Uh… what is that?”
I tried not to laugh as I handed it over. “Sorry. It’s all they had left.”
He pointed at it, deadpan. “It’s a cyclops.”
“It’ll get you across the ice.”
He actually looked a little insulted, but grabbed the handles anyway, hunched over the cartoon bird, and started inching along behind me.
I kept gliding backward, cheering him on as he picked up speed, his confidence growing in fits and starts. He almost wiped out a couple more times, but there was no stopping him now.
The rink was perfect, not too crowded: a teenage couple drifting by, a knot of kids tossing themselves at each other while their parents watched from the benches.
I left Nate to his conquest of the cyclops penguin and took my moment to really skate, letting “Somebody That I Used to Know” fill my ears.
I spun, circled, throwing in leaps and little tricks as memory unlocked them.
It was a while before Nate finally caught up, panting and pleading for a break. I grinned and helped him back to the entrance.
We exchanged skates for shoes and headed to the concession stand. Pizza and sodas in hand, we found a table. He sat down gingerly, wincing.
“You okay?” I asked, sinking into my chair.
He winced again, rubbing his lower back. “I’m going to be sore in places I didn’t know I even had.”
He downed half his soda at once. I laughed quietly, peeling off my gloves.
“Thank you for this,” I said. “It was really fun. I didn’t realize I missed it.”
He leaned in, his voice warm. “I’m glad I thought of it. You’re already a pro.”