Chapter 43 That Dream Grew in Your Heart for a Reason #2
“Sure. Whether you believe it or not, I’ve known how to read a clock for fifty-eight years. I’m fairly certain that it’s ten.”
“Oh my God.” I slept for over six hours. That has to be the exhaustion. And the desire to block everything out. To simply sleep and forget what’s happening. I squint and look outside the window but can’t make out the signs. “Where are we?”
“Close to…”
She’s interrupted by the bus driver honking his horn, cursing, and slamming on the brakes. I’m thrown forward but my seatbelt keeps me down and pulls my body back into its seat.
The bus driver yells, “FUCKING ASSHOLE!”
Everyone in the bus raises their heads to see what’s going on.
“There’s a car,” the guy in the back with his girlfriend says.
She agrees with a nod. “Yeah, an SUV type thingy.”
“How brave,” the older woman says. I am relieved she didn’t stab herself with her needles.
I crane my neck to see through the window and see a white SUV blocking the road.
And then Knox gets out, just like that, right in the middle of a snowstorm, six hours away from Aspen, in his black Canada Goose jacket and without a hat.
Snowflakes land in his hair, which is shooting out in all directions, on his shoulders, his lips.
He walks up to the bus and knocks on the door, as if that’s just something you did.
Cut someone off and then just knock on the door all friendly like just to say hello.
“Oh my God,” I mumble. And again, “Oh my God.”
I hear the girl behind me let out a breath. “That’s Knox Winterbottom, right? Shit, yeah, I think that’s him. Take a photo, Lane, quick!”
The bus driver considers whether to let Knox in or not, but then appears to conclude that the dude won’t drive his car away beforehand anyway.
Press the button, press the button, do it, ohmyGod, ohmyGod, ohmyGod, press the goddamn button, open the door!
He does. The door opens. Knox steps in. He looks down the aisle. He looks toward me. My heart stops. This second we’re looking at each other isn’t a second. It’s an eternity, that’s what it feels like. When it feels like this, it’s real, right?
He starts walking toward me. My face is burning. He stops next to my seat. His breath reaches me. It’s cold. From the air outside. His fingers dig into the seat in front and behind me. He lowers his face until it is just a few centimeters away from mine.
“Don’t. Ever. Do. That. Again.”
“I had to.”
“You’re getting out.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“Why are you here?”
“Why are you?”
“I had to.”
He growls. “I just drove 150 mph for hours to catch up with this fucking bus after William called me. You’ve got a choice, Paisley.
Either you get off the bus, listen to what I have to say, and come with me, or you stay here, continue on to Minneapolis, and accept the fact that I’ll be there when you get off and will not leave.
Either way. You’re not getting rid of me. ”
“That won’t work.”
“You’d be amazed by what works when you let it.”
The old woman’s face slides past Knox’s lats. “Go on. Otherwise the guy’s going to die of longing.”
“Yeah, go with him,” the girl says from in back. “You’re that figure skater, right? From the news? You two are so cute together!”
Knox’s lips curl into a self-confident grin. “You see?”
The bus driver clucks. “Come on, girl, I want to get home.”
I’m not sure how this is supposed to work; how Knox imagines us though we don’t stand a chance. But now he’s standing in front of me with his birthmark, with those eyes of his, and I can’t not go. I managed to leave him once today, but I won’t be able to do it a second time.
Knox’s grin grows wider when he sees that he’s won. He pushes off the seats, takes a step backward, and pulls my bags down with an ease that’d make you think they were simply filled with cotton.
The old woman casts me a mischievous smile as I walk past. “And then there are always people who save their harvest; it’s a good thing he’s one of them.”
I don’t think I’ll ever forget this woman.
Knox and I get into the Range Rover. He turns it on. The seats get warm in a second and everything smells like Aspen, like Knox, like my life.
He steps on the gas and speeds off like it’s a race against time.
“Knox…”
“Listen,” he says, his eyes on the road. He seems keyed up. Completely out of his senses. “Ivan is gone.”
“What? Where?”
His hand finds my thigh. “No idea. But your contract is now null and void.”
“What?”
Knox passes a truck. “Dad did some research, Paisley. The guy is disgusting. He’s been that way for half his life. Mom and him were pair skaters back in the day. Did you know that?”
“How on earth could I have known that?!”
“No idea. I didn’t know it, either. Long time ago, back in her hometown. But she told Dad about him later on. We did some research. Dad’s got a few contacts at the criminal investigation department.”
“At the criminal investigation department? Knox, you’re talking in riddles!”
“Yeah, yeah, let me explain. It’s actually illegal, but there was a guy there who owed my dad a favor, so Dad said, ‘Hey, get ahold of his record for me.’ Guess what was in there.”
“Tell me.”
“Multiple reports of sexual harassment. Stalking. Blackmail. To be honest, I don’t understand why the dude hasn’t been behind bars for years.”
“Yeah, okay, but what do you all get out of the info?”
Knox types an address into the GPS before continuing.
“The reports all came from a girl from your former association, Paisley. Before Minneapolis. Dad got in touch with them and lost his mind. Truly lost it. I don’t think I have ever heard him yell like that.
He asked how it could be that multiple skaters were harassed by their trainer, yet they didn’t report him.
They were pretty intimidated, and he said that if they didn’t deal with your former association on the spot and demand that Ivan be fired for his actions, then he’d report both associations for not having a safety net in cases of harassment.
” Knox looks at me. His eyes are big and open, so open I could lose myself.
“It didn’t take long for them to call us back.
Ivan was officially out. The contracts were rendered invalid. You’re free, Paisley.”
You’re free, Paisley.
The words race through my head, over and over, so quickly that I become dizzy.
“It’s over,” I whisper, just to hear it, as otherwise I wouldn’t believe it. “It’s really over.”
I feel weightless, in this moment, in this car, with Knox next to me.
And I think the bravest thing I’ve ever done was simply to keep on going, to keep on going even when I wanted to stop, even when I wanted to die.
If I hadn’t gone on, I wouldn’t have believed in hope or in life and I never would have experienced what joy in its purest form feels like.
It’s a beautiful feeling. Everyone should keep on going just to feel what I’m feeling right now.
Knox tilts his head. “It should be obvious to you by now that you’re not going to get rid of me, Snow Queen.”
I look at him for a second, two, maybe even ten, then laugh with all my heart.
I have never been as free or as happy in my whole life.
I laugh for me, for Knox, for this life, and for all the others who have forgotten how to laugh in the hopes that they won’t give up until, at some point, they learn again.
Because laughing can be so wonderful.
Knox beams at me, tugs at my ear, and gives a number to the hands-free system.
A few moments later I hear Polina’s voice. “Where are you?”
“Six hours,” Knox says.
“You’ll never make it.”
“If you knew the way I drive, you wouldn’t say that.”
“I don’t care, kid, just make sure she’s on the ice on time.”
“We’re driving to Skate America,” I mutter. So much is happening at once I can hardly keep up.
“Of course, we are. Do you think I’d let your program go unseen? You’re nuts, Paisley, nuts.”
“We’re never going to make it,” I repeat Polina’s words.
Knox rolls his eyes. “I hate that expression. ‘We’ll never make it.’ Please. We’re Paisley and Knox, you forget that already? We can do everything.”
And then he really steps on the gas. He’s driving so fast the other cars are just a blur, all the way to Las Vegas.
Everything is so bright, so colorful, I’d love to have a look around, but we don’t have any time.
My sports bags in tow, we rush into the building.
It takes ages for us to figure out where we need to go and feels like we’ve gone through a hundred hallways.
I’ve never been here before and have no idea where the backstage area is.
At some point, we reach a door behind which we can hear a large babble of voices.
Knox rips it open, shoos me through, and when I see all the skaters in their various outfits, an enormous weight falls from my shoulders.
We’re in the right place: the green room.
Several of them are going through their programs on the dry ground, while others are sitting on stationary bikes to warm up, but I don’t have time left for any of that.
Knox and I storm through until we reach the black curtains that are blocking off the rink.
Panicking I look for Polina and the others, but then I hear the audience, hear the commentator’s voice calling my name over and over.
I freeze, right in the middle of the green room, everyone staring at me. My boots are dug into the ground and Knox bumps into me.
“I’m too late,” I whisper. “I won’t make it.”
“Stop saying that. Stop. Get changed. Hurry up, get going.”
We dump the contents of my sports bag onto the ground until I find my dress, the one Gwen gave me.
My pulse is thundering in double and triple time as I climb into my tights and Knox pulls the dress over my head.
I quickly make the ugliest bun ever, though, at the same time, it’s the most beautiful bun ever as I’ll never forget it.
“I think I’m going to puke.”
Knox pins up my loose strands of hair. “Good. But not right now. Now you’ve got to skate, Paisley, okay?”
“Okay.”
He takes my face in both hands, looks deep into my eyes, and says, “Show them what you can do, Snow Queen.”
My name booms from the speakers. I feel hot and cold, cold and hot.
I take my skates and run through the lobby, run like I’ve never run before, past the black curtains, and am suddenly blinded by light, so much light and so many people.
I’m in the area right off the ice that allows skaters into the rink.
It’s overflowing with press, and they look up from their cameras to stare at me.
I wave my arms furiously so that the commentator at the long table next to the jury sees that I’m here and doesn’t disqualify me.
I have no idea where Polina is—no idea where Gwen, Levi, Aaron, and Harper are—but I know they’re somewhere here backstage, watching and smiling as I lace up my skates and glide out onto the ice, right into the center, right on top of the giant Skate America logo.
I move into position. Everything is as quiet as a mouse. I take a deep breath but no one can hear me because the rink is huge, and I mean huge. And as I hold my starting position, legs crossed, arms outstretched, head lowered, I think: This here is my moment.
The music starts. Ed Sheeran’s voice drifts out over hundreds of heads. My veins are tingling. I have never felt as ready as I do now, taking the first step of my program. At this very moment, I know it’s going to be flawless. I simply know it because my head is free. I am free.
I am skating.
I am dancing.
I am in love, and I am alive.