Chapter 18 #2
“This is new, Grace. You’re not supposed to know everything about me.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me.” Grace shivered, her teeth rattling as she spoke. Once again, I pulled her into my chest and wrapped my arms around her to share some warmth.
“How old were you when he died?” she asked.
“I was nine. He died in an ice fishing accident.”
“I get it now,” she said, her breath warm against my neck as she spoke. “I can see how much you love hockey, how hard you work for it, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?”
It was a rhetorical question. We both already knew the truth.
I loved hockey more than anything, but it was more than just a passion for the sport that drove me to be the best. Every time I was out on that ice, it brought me closer to my father and the dream that he gave up to raise me.
All of this was for him—maybe even more than it was for me.
>> <<
Grace
“Don’t beat yourself up. We all have bad days.”
Coach Riley hovered behind me as I pulled my equipment off of the travel bus.
I knew she was trying to be nice, but that didn’t make me feel better about my performance against Ohio State.
I’d been all over the place tonight. The only reason we’d scraped by with a win was because Lydia had picked up my slack.
“Thanks, Coach.”
I followed after the stream of my teammates funneling inside DuLane. Everyone chatted about their plans for the night as we dropped our things off in the locker room.
“I’m going to stay here for a bit,” I said, glancing over at Lydia as she tossed her warm-up jersey into her locker.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, but I wasn’t buying the clueless act, not after she’d spent all game making up for my mistakes.
“Other than the fact that I tripped over my own skates tonight?”
“Come on, it happens to the best of us. You can’t be perfect all the time.”
“Don’t let Caroline hear you say that,” I muttered.
After assuring her that I just needed a night to myself, I packed up my locker and headed into the empty arena.
The chilled air was an instant relief against the heat of my skin.
I settled onto the bench, took out my wireless headphones, and selected one of my playlists at random.
But after several songs, I realized the music wouldn’t be enough to drown out the world.
Learning about Sebastian’s dad had sent me into a bit of a spiral.
After he’d opened up to me, all I could think about was the possibility of losing Gabby.
Sebastian’s dad had been gone in the blink of an eye.
I might have lived a version of that, but knowing someone left versus knowing they were taken from you were two completely different things.
When it became apparent that my headphones were useless, I pulled them off and took in the eerie silence of the empty arena.
It felt strange to witness the vast space so empty and quiet.
Even during my occasional morning training sessions, there were always staff milling about, preparing for new day.
DuLane had been well and truly abandoned for the night, the rink only illuminated by a flickering light from the tunnel behind the bench.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Sebastian’s voice was a welcome comfort.
The sound glided over my skin and left raised goose bumps in its wake.
He slid onto the bench beside me, close enough that our legs were touching, and I found myself shifting even closer to absorb the heat of his body.
Sebastian lowered a hand to his thigh palm up, an open invitation for me to touch him.
I reached down and traced the tip of my finger over the creases etched into his palm.
They were like the lines carved across the rink after practice, right before the Zamboni came through to smooth out the ice.
“You’re supposed to hold my hand, not read my palm,” Sebastian teased.
I slowly intertwined our fingers, marveling at the sheer expanse of his hand in comparison to mine.“Do you believe in that stuff?” I asked. “Palm reading and fortune telling?”
“Not really. I like to think we pave our own path, not that it’s already written.”
Sebastian glanced over at me in amusement, as if he’d just discovered something strangely fascinating about me. Was there something on my face, or had my question taken him by surprise? I resisted the urge to brush away a nonexistent crumb from the corner of my mouth.
“If our lives were fated by some predetermined factor, at least we’d have the chance to know how things would play out.”
He chuckled. “That would make life very boring.”
“I hate not knowing. It drives me crazy.”
“I can understand that more than anybody,” Sebastian said in a low, pained voice. “But what if you knew how things were going to end and couldn’t do anything about it?”
That, I thought, was a very good point. “Why couldn’t we have the best of both worlds? A little peek into the future to see what’s coming, but the power to change things you don’t like.”
“You’re quite introspective tonight. Any particular reason?”
I was preparing to shrug my shoulders and change the subject when he squeezed my hand, as if to convey something that couldn’t be said. I could see it in his eyes. You can trust me, just like I trust you.
“I played like shit tonight.” Sure, it wasn’t a heartfelt confession, but it was a start. Sebastian didn’t say anything; I could tell he was waiting for the real answer. “There’s nothing you can do to help. I don’t even know how to help.”
“Help what?”
I could hear Caroline’s voice in the back of my mind. Why are you so scared to talk about him? Or anything related to your feelings for that matter . . .
“My sister. She hasn’t been herself lately,” I admitted, biting my bottom lip out of nervous habit. “At first, I thought she was just being a teenager—moody, and stubborn, and a little bit sassy. But it’s more serious than that.”
“How so?”
“I—well—it’s not easy for me to talk about.
The only person who knows about my family is Sam,” I confessed.
Sebastian waited patiently for me to work up the nerve to finish my thoughts.
“Gabby is clinically depressed, most likely, or she’s in a depressive episode, one that might eventually shift into a manic episode.
That’s how bipolar disorder works. Both illnesses run in the family—my mother’s side—so we’ve seen this before. ”
“What can be done?” he asked in a soft, calming voice.
“There’s therapy, and medication, of course. But my dad has a hard time trusting mental health professionals. We talked about her seeing a therapist over winter break, but he hasn’t followed through. Not yet, at least. I’m just worried he’s going to keep putting it off.”
“And your mom?”
This time, opening up about my past felt a little easier, as if speaking with my roommates had prepared me to be more vulnerable with Sebastian.
Rather than blurting things out in a moment of panic, I spoke softly; each word felt like an unburdening.
I recounted my mother’s struggles, skimming over the grim details and focusing on the main event: her departure.
“That couldn’t have been easy,” Sebastian said. “Having someone there one day and not the next is, well . . .”
“It’s not the same as your dad. I can’t imagine the pain of losing someone that you know loved you with every fiber of their being.
My mom wanted nothing to do with me. She wouldn’t even let me visit during her hospitalization.
I was only twelve, and my parents probably wanted to shield me, but it was too late for that.
I was with her during the manic episodes.
I heard her and my father fight every night for weeks.
I saw her sit in the same chair for over three months and rot. It’s hard to hide something like that.”
Every time they’d turned me away, I’d felt the knife lodged in my chest slide a little bit deeper. I couldn’t fathom why my own mother didn’t want to see me. Even to this day, I felt partly to blame. Was it something I’d done? Or was I just not worth fighting for?
“Do you keep in touch with her?”
“She sends me letters sometimes, but I don’t read them. She really fucked us up, you know? My dad still hasn’t moved on. He’ll likely blame himself for her leaving for the rest of his life.”
“Why haven’t you read the letters?” he asked.
“I’m not interested in hearing excuses for why she left, and I don’t want to dredge up those memories. It’s painful.”
“How often does she write you?”
I frowned, feeling slightly overwhelmed by his barrage of questions. “Every year on my birthday since I turned thirteen. Why?”
Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck in a rare show of nervousness. “I wish I had letters from my dad. I know it’s not the same, but I’d do just about anything to hear from him.”
Great, now I feel like an asshole.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t think—”
Sebastian seized me by the waist and pulled me into his lap, my legs settling on either side of him. Our faces were mere inches away from each other, the tips of our noses almost touching.
“You don’t need to apologize. Thank you for sharing that with me,” he said, his eyes roaming over my face in a look of awe.
“It can’t be easy feeling responsible for your little sister and feeling abandoned by your mother.
” He paused, a small smile flickering across his face. “You take it with grace.”
A laugh deep from my belly burst forth at the same time Sebastian caught my lips in a kiss.
I leaned eagerly into his touch, keen to lose myself in the taste of his mouth and the fresh pine scent that clung to his skin.
The sensation of our lips moving in tandem brought me to a place of simplicity, one where nothing else mattered but the hunger of our kiss and the urgent touch of his tongue against mine.
His warmth fell over me in an embrace. It melted away the frigid grip of fear that had taken hold of my body.
Sebastian pulled away from me with a gasp, as if it had taken everything in him to stop kissing me. “Will you do me a favor?” he asked.
I was already nodding my head before he finished the sentence.
“Put on your skates, will you?” A shred of unease penetrated the blissful haze I’d found myself submerged within.
“Trust me, okay? You can’t leave the ice tonight on a bad note.”
Trust me. For the first time, hearing those words didn’t cause me to tense up. With a leap of faith, I nodded my head in agreement.
“Any other requests?”
He shook his head and said, “Come on, get your skates on and meet me back here.”
We departed for our designated locker rooms and emerged a few minutes later, laced up and ready to skate. Sebastian and I met in the middle of the rink, stopping within the line marking the blue circle.
“Here,” Sebastian said, shrugging out of his jacket and handing it over to me.
“So chivalrous.”
Despite my teasing, I pulled on the coat and took a deep breath of his familiar scent.
“What now?”
He shrugged. “We skate, of course.”
Sebastian pushed off and glided in a leisurely circle around me. “Every time we’re out here, we’re skating with an objective: get the puck, stop the pass, make the hit. Sometimes, it’s nice to skate without one.”
With gentle nod of agreement, I dug in my edge and pushed off.
Sebastian followed close behind me as I swept over the rink without purpose, hands at my side, head tilted back ever so slightly.
The only sound to be heard was the whoosh of our blades cutting through the ice.
It was familiar and comforting and helped me feel centered after a long day of drifting off course.
I closed my eyes and focused on the noise.
I let it rush over me until all I could sense was the air against my face and the ice underfoot.
The connection that I had with the ice—that we both had—was more than just a skill or a hobby.
Skating kept me grounded. Breathed life back into me.
Reminded me that no matter how poorly I played, or how fucked up things got, I still belonged here.
If all else failed and nothing made sense, I could always return to the rink and find a little bit of myself on the ice.
At that realization, I slowed to a stop and opened my eyes.
Sebastian stood just a few feet away from me, the same truth written across his face.
I didn’t need to thank him for reminding me why this mattered. He knew.
Later that night, after what felt like hours of skating around DuLane Arena with only a dull, flickering light to illuminate the rink, Sebastian and I walked back to my apartment and slipped into my bedroom unnoticed by my roommates.
I didn’t consider the potential consequences or overanalyze how fast things were moving between us.
After he stripped down to his boxers and I changed into an oversized shirt, he pulled me into the tiny bed.
We barely fit, but that didn’t matter. I lay with my back against his chest, our bodies molded together in a perfect fit.
Exhaustion swept over me almost instantly.
The last thing I remembered was Sebastian’s smooth voice wishing me sweet dreams.