Chapter 13 #2
“Do you think I should ask Elisa what she thinks? She has so much more experience with this stuff. You know, moving on from a guy you like because he likes someone else.”
I tilt my head and narrow my eyes at my little sister, who shrugs.
“That’s not…” But I can’t even be mad because yeah, that’s exactly what happened, or at least what everyone thinks happened, and Elisa has every right to be pissed about it.
Guilt tickles at my conscience for a second, but I push it away. I’m doing what I have to do.
“It’s true, right? I mean she’s been throwing herself at Brayden for years and obviously she’s not the Russo sister he wants.”
“But…” I trail off. I was going to say that he doesn’t want me, reflexively, but stop myself just in time because that’s not exactly true, is it?
Maria shrugs, even though I don’t finish my thought.
She’s moved on and relief floods through me.
“I think I want to sleep on the flight. After we take off, will you still sit with me anyway, like you used to?” When we were younger, after Mom died, whenever Maria was sick—or thought she was sick—I’d sit next to her bed and rub her back until she fell asleep.
The seats in this cabin are big enough for her to fully recline.
“Sure,” I say.
When did everyone get so opinionated about my relationships?
I’ve never even had a boyfriend. Never even gone on a real date.
And up until last week, I’d never been kissed.
Not really, anyway. More and more I’m realizing that Zac Brewer shoving his tongue in my mouth does not count.
Real kissing is something else entirely.
Real relationships? Those I have no idea about.
Maria passes out less than an hour into the flight and I’m not far behind her.
When I wake up, it’s hours later and we’re somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Despite the first-class seats, every muscle in my body feels like it’s coiled and pressed in a vise. I start to sit and stretch when I hear hushed voices across the aisle from me.
“I think she’s too good for him, but whatever, they seem happy,” Riley whispers. “Who knows, maybe it’s one of those relationships where he’s figured out what’s really important, you know?”
“Or it’s convenient,” Freddie’s low rumble answers. “He doesn’t seem her type.”
“People can change,” Riley says, “and you can’t help who you fall in love with.”
“You definitely can,” Freddie shoots back. “You can just decide. If you don’t want to love someone you don’t have to and if you want to love someone, you can just decide.”
“Have you been bingeing Grey’s Anatomy again?”
“Riley,” he sighs, exasperated, but I can hear the smile in his voice. “I’m just saying I don’t get it. That’s a pretty big risk to take, hooking up with your skating partner.”
“Since when are you afraid to take risks?” Her voice is teasing, but I can hear the truth in her question.
“Never, but there are risks and then there’s potentially throwing away everything you’ve worked for, for what? Infatuation?”
“So you think partners being in relationships is a bad idea? How can you say that? Your sister married her partner.”
“I think it depends on the partners, and those two? Him, I get it. Her? I just…”
I shouldn’t be listening to this, but there’s no way to stop, and maybe Riley doesn’t hear it in his voice, but I definitely do; there’s…
hurt there, in his voice. Hurt that I wouldn’t take a risk with him two years ago for something he couldn’t control and now I’m, at least from his perspective, choosing to make things riskier.
And maybe it’s not just from his perspective. Maybe it is way riskier, what I’m doing, because it would be so easy for this to blow up in our faces.
Except he doesn’t have all the facts. Doesn’t know why I’m doing this, and the urge to sit up and explain, to tell him everything, is suddenly so strong, I literally have to bite my lip to keep the words inside.
But still, he’s not entirely wrong.
The pair falls silent and it’s not long before I hear their breathing even out. They’re asleep again, like almost everyone else in the cabin. Even Brayden, his head propped against a neck pillow with Elisa out cold beside him, head thrown straight back against her seat.
What am I doing? When did my life become such a complicated mess, a tangled sort of flow chart of disaster? And suddenly I feel the urge to talk about it, all of it, but there’s…no one knows the whole truth, and there’s no one I can tell the whole truth to. What a freaking mess.
And then my eyes land on Georgia O’Connell-Croft.
She married her partner, like Riley said.
She’d know better than anyone what I’m going through or at least sort of what I’m going through.
I just need someone to listen, even if I can’t spill everything.
Or maybe if I ask her the right questions, maybe she’ll hit on the solution I’m looking for.
It’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my only option.
My feet are carrying me toward her before I can think about it for one more second. There’s an empty seat across from her and Harry is snoring in the chair beside her.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask.
“Exhausted during the day, can’t sleep at night, one of the fun pregnancy symptoms they don’t tell you about,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” she says, shifting around, trying to get more comfortable.
“If it’s too private, you don’t have to answer, but I was wondering, how did you know that it would be okay? Dating Harry, I mean.”
Yeah, very subtle. She’s definitely not going to know who I’m talking about. Yep, there it is. Her gaze turns to Brayden across the cabin and then she looks at me, her eyes softening at whatever she sees on my face.
“I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask, sweetie.”
“You’re really the only person I can ask,” I whisper, and she sends me a sad smile.
“Well, for me, it was that despite everything, he was worth it.”
“Worth everything falling apart and losing your skating partner?”
“Yeah, worth that. It’s a big one, huh?”
“The biggest.”
“So that’s the question you have to ask yourself: Is what you’re feeling, and presumably what he’s feeling, worth risking all of that?”
“I don’t know.” I haven’t even taken a second to really process what he asked me, let alone think about what I’m feeling.
Do I like him like that? I didn’t think I did, but…
maybe it’s like what Freddie said. Maybe you can choose?
Can I choose to feel that way about Brayden?
He’s my friend, my partner, a really good kisser, stupidly good-looking, and he’s been there for me through all of this. Isn’t that enough? More than enough?
“That’s okay, you know.” Georgia cuts off my thought spiral. “You’re allowed to not know things. Especially when you’re sixteen.”
“I…don’t like not knowing things.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Yeah, that’s me, the control freak.”
“From what I’ve seen, not so much a control freak as someone who takes too much on herself, which isn’t necessarily a bad quality in someone who wants to win an Olympic gold medal.”
“Not so great for romance, though.”
“Maybe not. Okay, you got the easy part of the advice. Want the hard part?”
“Hit me with it.”
“I’ve been watching you for a bit now, Adriana. You are incredibly talented and dedicated and the way you and your partner skate together, well, some couples never have that kind of chemistry, let alone as juniors.”
“I sense a but coming,” I say with a heavy sigh.
“All of those things I mentioned, they make for a great ice dance partnership, and those don’t come along every day.
I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t explore that relationship beyond what happens on the ice, but I will tell you this.
It’s important to be sure because the decision you’re thinking about making, it will impact the rest of your life.
Here’s the hard part: you have to talk to him about it.
It’s not a choice you should be making on your own. ”
“He seems to think it’s a great idea.”
“I bet he does, at least on the surface, but have you discussed the other things? The possible fallout?”
“We promised that if it didn’t work out, we’d go back to how things were before.”
“And you think that’s possible?” she asks.
“I…” It had sounded so simple and easy when we made those rules. Except that was before, before he complicated everything by wanting to make it real. I don’t know. There are feelings creeping in, feelings I didn’t plan on, and now it feels like one false move could ruin everything. “I’m not sure.”
She sends me a tight smile, but nothing else. There’s nothing left to say, I guess.
“Could you not tell anyone we talked about this? There’s enough crap with that stupid TV series and now the social media stuff.”
Georgia pats my hand gently before raising hers to her mouth in a zipper motion. “My lips are sealed.”
“Thanks.”
She smiles and for a split second I wonder what it would be like to have someone like her as a big sister, supportive and kind and…there for you, and then I swallow that back along with a tiny lump in my throat, because all the wishing in the world isn’t going to make that dream come true.