Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
DYLAN
SIERRA LIKES TO punish herself. And not in the good kind of way that I can help with.
I noticed it in the way she never goes out, or how she never packs a snack to practice. Like she doesn’t deserve even the simple pleasure of a protein bar or a plain sandwich. Now, seeing her standing there, in the middle of my bathroom, makes me so inexplicably angry, I can barely look at her.
When I went to her dorm to check on her, Scarlett was already heading out to do the same thing. She thought Sierra was at the rink because she never misses dinner. My heart was in a vise until I found her.
“Here.” I hand her a towel, but she doesn’t take it.
Her gaze warms my face, but I don’t look.
I can’t. If I see her soaked, trembling frame, there is no guarantee I won’t find Justin Petrov and bash his fucking face in.
Everything she said to me while she stood on that ice made it clear that her mindset is a culmination of all the shitty things she learned while skating with him.
That she’s only as valuable as her performance on the ice. It’s bullshit.
And I know my anger is heightened because I watched the fucking video. I didn’t want to see her like that, but when Kian played it, I watched a few seconds before nearly breaking his phone.
Justin had dropped her. She shouldn’t have had to get hurt like that and spend months rectifying it when everyone else just gets to move on.
“Take it, Sierra. You need to shower, or you’ll get sick.”
“H-here?” Her voice is raspier than usual, frayed by the frustrated scream she let out on the ice.
“Yeah, in my shower.” I don’t wait for her to respond. Instead, I move toward it and turn the temperature high enough for her. The silence stretches between us, thick and tense.
“Why aren’t you looking at me?” Sierra’s voice trembles with an edge of hurt.
I swallow hard, keeping my gaze fixed on the faucet. “Because I don’t want to say the wrong thing and watch you retreat into your head. I want you here.”
What I don’t expect is Sierra grabbing my shoulder, yanking me to face her. Her eyes blaze with irritation. “Is that what you think of me? That I’m some head case?” she demands. “I didn’t ask for your help, Dylan.”
A sort of emptiness sweeps across her grass-colored eyes like toxic gas, choking the fire they usually hold.
“You should have,” I say roughly. “Because when I told you I’m here for you, Sierra, you chose to do it alone instead. You chose skating on crappy ice over me.”
She sighs, absently playing with the wet hem of her sweater, the weight of my words hanging in the air.
“I—I just—” She deflates, like she’s letting down a wall.
“If I’m not perfect, all of it will be for nothing,” she says quietly.
“All the medical bills, the years of training, the Olympics. It means every broken, crumbling, rotten part of me will be worth nothing.”
She breaks into a sob, her shoulders shaking from the force of it. I don’t ask this time. I pull her right into my arms, and she clutches my T-shirt. The wetness of her tears warms my shirt, and my chest splits wide open.
I rub her back. “Let it out. I’ve got you.”
She sniffles. “How do you go from having your health, your career, and your people, to losing it all within minutes? My body isn’t even there for me anymore.
I can’t even count on myself. I was at the peak of my career, and now I can’t step on that ice without feeling my body break. ” Her voice cracks on the last word.
“I’ve loved this sport for so long, Dylan, but I’m starting to hate it.
I hate what it’s done to my body, I hate what it’s done to my head, and I hate the person it’s made me.
I always thought winning gold would mean something.
And when it didn’t, I tried again. But when my head hit the ice, I lost everything.
Then I watched it replayed online, because no one had the decency to delete the videos.
All I am is a curse.” She can barely speak through her sobs.
“Sometimes, I feel like the old me is so far from who I am now, that if I ever got the chance to return, I wouldn’t recognize her. ”
I pull back to cup her face. “You didn’t deserve any of that, Sierra. I’m sorry you went through it alone.”
Sierra shakes her head. “But I wasn’t alone—”
“I’m sorry you thought the people closest to you wouldn’t understand,” I rectify.
Her lips tremble, and then her body shakes so uncontrollably my arms aren’t enough to stop it. I feel so fucking useless, desperate to make her laugh, to make her feel better. But when she slumps forward and leans on me, I know she trusts me to hold her together.
“You’re still here, Sierra,” I whisper. “Doing it all again with everything you have. And I know you’ve spent your career thinking it’s easier to bear it all yourself, but you don’t have to anymore. Not when I’m here.”
She doesn’t pull away as I gently wipe the tears from her face. “I hate crying.”
“You shouldn’t,” I say softly, my thumb brushing the wetness away, my heart aching for her. “You’re not supposed to have one emotion at all times. You can cry, it doesn’t make you weak. Took me a while to realize that letting it out isn’t a bad thing.”
“You thought it was a bad thing too?” She peers at me through wet lashes.
“When I was younger, my mom would hide her tears from me. So I thought it was a secret, something bad that wasn’t for others to see. But I know now that’s not true. You don’t need to hide from me.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m weak.”
It catches me off guard, because I can’t understand how she doesn’t see how brave she is. “I could never think that. You’re the strongest person I know.”
Her green eyes are a forest after rainfall.
Stormy. “I started to hate Justin, you know. I’d be on bed rest just thinking about how I wished it was him that fell.
And I know that’s terrible to think, but everything felt so unbearable, inside and out.
I wanted him to understand for one second what it felt like. ”
“I’ll happily make him understand what pain feels like. Just say the word.”
She lets out a watery laugh. I don’t think she realizes how serious I am. All she would need to say is yes, and everyone would know exactly how physical I can be.
“I can’t have my partner getting arrested. We still have another competition.”
“After that, then?”
Her smile falters as her gaze locks on mine, a devastating realization settling in. “We have to win, Dylan.”
There’s a lead weight in my throat. “We will.”
She nods like she’s trying to believe me over her head this time.
“So, the next time you want to skate like a crazy person, tell me, and I’ll join you.”
“It’s not like you were free,” she mutters, pulling back.
Shit. I should’ve told her about hockey. I’ve been allowed back with the team, but after placing third, I couldn’t celebrate that with her when I knew she was hurting.
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” she says quickly. “I know hockey is important to you.”
“You’re important to me.”
She studies me intently as though trying to detect a lie or figure out whether she’s heard me wrong. Neither of us speaks—her because she’s grappling with the meaning of those words, and me because I want them to sink in to her stubborn brain.
She smiles then. It nearly kills me. There she is again. The girl with the soft, bruised heart.
When another shiver racks through her, I let go so she can shower. But before I can head out, her hand catches my wrist.
The delicate column of her throat moves. “Don’t you need to shower?”
If my heart hadn’t already stopped, it would right now. Is she offering? Fuck. I don’t think I can refuse. But I try my hardest to think with my actual head, and not the one that stands to attention, blood rushing south, leaving me blinking.
“I do.” I decide not to mention the four other showers in the house.
“Take it with me?” Sierra steps closer to placing her head on my chest. “I don’t want to be alone.”
The words create painful fissures all over my heart, and I stop breathing for a moment. She’s been trying to figure it all out herself this entire time, but now she wants me.
“I need you, Dylan,” she whispers.
There’s a pang that lodges itself in my chest. No one has ever meant that the way she does—no one who has ever needed me for me. I’ve heard those words in moments of desperation, lost in the pleasure of an orgasm, but never like this. Never with such vulnerability and certainty.
With one swift move, Sierra yanks off her soaked sweater, letting it hit the floor with a wet thud. Her white tank clings to her as she peels off her leggings, leaving only her panties. She stands there, in the middle of my bathroom, half naked, as if daring me to look.
My throat feels like I’ve swallowed chalk. I’ve had naked girls in my bed before, but never here, in the solitude of my bathroom, where everything feels too real and intimate. And never Sierra.
Then her gaze drops to my jeans, and something takes over.
Something much smarter. I unbutton them, let them fall with my shirt, leaving me in a pair of boxers.
When I reach for her tank top, she stops me.
I know it’s because of her scars, and I wish I could make her see how beautiful she is, inside and out.
Instead, I guide her under the shower. She sighs in contentment when the warmth hits her skin.
I’m soaked, and her tank top and panties are too, but I don’t let myself look.
For long. Just seeing her here, in my shower, a place where no one else has been, leaves me raw.
When her hands press against my chest, it’s almost like she tries to soothe the burn that’s been living there.
Like she can see it without me telling her.
Sierra’s fingers trail down, testing the boundaries of where she can touch me. I’d let her touch me however she wants, with just one word. But that isn’t what she needs right now.
The water cascades over us, drumming softly against the tiles, but it feels distant compared to the thundering pulse in my ears. When I look at her, I can feel my heart trying to pry out of my chest.
“Why did you come find me?” she suddenly asks.
Because I’m incapable of leaving you alone, even though I probably should. “Because we’re partners.”
HOURS LATER, I let her change as I rummage through the fridge. The guys walk in with pizza just as Sierra emerges from my room, drowning in my shirt and sweats, the waistband rolled at least four times to fit.
Summer walks in, halting next to Kian just as Cole and Sebastian wave to Sierra and take a box to the dining table. Summer and Kian nudge each other, and I roll my eyes.
“Sierra,” they both say.
Kian’s staring at Sierra in my clothes, and Summer smiles like she’s figured it all out.
“You know, I have clothes upstairs. Let me know if you need to borrow anything,” Summer offers. Then she mouths, Tell me everything, before heading upstairs to Aiden’s room.
“I was just at your dorm,” Kian says to Sierra.
“You were?” we both ask. Why the hell was he there?
“I’m in Scarlett’s study group,” he says cryptically. “What were you two doing?”
Sierra glances at me, so I take the pizza boxes from Kian. “We were watching tapes.”
He hums in acknowledgment. “Isn’t it crazy that when I met Dylan, he’d scrape his knee in street hockey, and just lay there and cry until his mom came?”
Sierra pouts at me in fake sympathy.
“Isn’t it crazy that I met you when you still called our teachers ‘Mommy’?” I shoot back.
“Ms. Marple was hot. I meant to call her ‘Mommy.’” Kian shrugs, completely unfazed.
I nudge him out of the way and put the plates on the dining table. Summer and Aiden come downstairs too, finding their spots at the table. We’re still used to eating together ever since Eli ingrained it into us.
Sierra comes to sit beside me, and Kian sits on the opposite side of her. Even as he tells her another one of my embarrassing stories, I can only focus on her unrestrained laugh. And the fact that I’ll do anything to get her that win.