Chapter One Daphne
“ I ’m tired of this, Daph,” Maeve groans, carrying another overly stuffed box inside through the front door.
“Well, that’s too fucking bad!” I tease her, laughing at a quote we’ve adapted from an infamous movie as I watch her set down the box in the living room. “We’ve only got a few more left though. It’ll be okay.”
She huffs out a breath, both in frustration and to blow a few blonde strands off of her face. “I’m pretty sure there’s fifty more on that truck.” She groans. “Remind me why we didn’t coordinate with my brother so he and his teammates could do all the manual labor.”
Glaring at her with a you know damn well why look on my face, I stroll out of the kitchen. “He’s dead to me.” I scoff, walking into the living room through the open floor layout. “And besides, we are strong, independent women who don’t need anyone else but each other.”
She collapses onto the couch, her body going limp as she sighs. “Right now, my arms aggressively disagree with you.”
Maeve is well aware that Mason broke my heart.
She was the one who held me while I cried on her shoulder, swearing off dating for the rest of my life.
She then proceeded to tell me that Mason was an asshole and always would be and that I deserved so much better than her cocky brother.
Something she had spent years warning me about before my inevitable downfall.
Cocky is certainly a fitting way to describe him— in more than one way . Ugh, men who are that hot shouldn’t be allowed to be so well endowed. It’s just unfair to the rest of the population. Add that to the fact that he lives on the ice just as much as I used to, and I’m hopelessly in love.
But instead of living happily ever after, I’m left with a grudge against the boy who passionately kissed me, fucked me, and gave me damn butterflies the size of dragons before vanishing from my life.
“Come on, Mae.” I pat her leg, heading back outside to the moving truck. “Let’s finish this so we can order pizza already. I’m hungry.”
“And watch a movie?” she whines playfully.
“Of course. Anything for you.” I blow her air kisses, which she catches and pulls into her chest.
“Ugh, fine.” She drags herself to her feet and follows me.
She might have been right about there being nearly fifty left. Thirty-two boxes, to be exact. Which we begrudgingly carry inside, complaining the whole time until we’re officially done, sunken into the couch and sore.
After spending the last four hours unpacking, we drop the moving truck back off at the rental place before ordering pizza from my favorite pizzeria—Maddio’s Pizza. They’re the only place I trust to make me gluten-free pizza that won’t leave me wanting to curl up into a gluten coma afterward.
A lot of restaurants claim to be gluten-free, and if you’re choosing to avoid gluten for a diet, then it doesn’t really matter if there are traces of gluten or wheat. But for me, who has celiac disease, it matters a lot.
I haven’t had celiac disease my entire life.
I was diagnosed when I was fifteen years old.
It was a hell of a transition to go from eating whatever I wanted to starting a full-on investigation into what I was putting into my body.
It got easier over time, but it was most certainly not an easy path, and there are still hiccups along the way, even now.
Not everyone that has celiac has the same experience.
It’s actually crazy how unique each person’s journey can be.
Since it targets our digestive track, the transition during diagnosis can be brutal as our bodies struggle for nutrients.
I knew two twin girls who lost nearly all of their hair.
Eventually, it grew back, but not before they shaved their heads to start anew.
I might not have had such a drastic hardship, but my hair didn’t grow for years.
If anything, it got shorter by breaking off and thinning.
It’s crazy how much an unwanted change in my hair shot my confidence to the ground.
But over the next couple of years, as I got a hang on my new lifestyle and diet, my hair came back to life.
There are few places I can safely eat at—and by few, I mean, like, three in this entire town. But my favorite is definitely Maddio’s, which I haven’t had since last summer.
Biting into a slice of delicious cheese pizza, I groan happily. “Ugh, it’s the best. I’ve missed it.”
“It’s pretty good,” Maeve mutters between bites.
I freeze and look over at her in shock. “ Pretty good ? That’s it?”
She presses play on 27 Dresses , and the movie starts as she smiles and rolls her eyes before turning to me.
“Look, Daph, I’m going to hold your hand when I say this …
metaphorically because I’m so sore that I’m never getting off of this couch again.
And I don’t want to contaminate your hand with my gluteny one.
” She pauses, looking at me lounging in the leather recliner.
“It’s pretty good pizza. It’s not the best I’ve ever had, but it’s pizza. There’s only so much you can mess up.”
My jaw unhinges, and I act as if I’m going to cry. “I did not think our first fight would happen so quickly after moving in together.”
She grabs a throw pillow and chucks it at me, missing horribly as it lands at my feet. “Oh, shut it.”
Inhaling my next slice, I nestle under my blanket, watching Katherine Heigl change dresses in the back of a cab in New York.
This is a good one. A classic , although I say that about a lot of the movies on my list.
But James Marsden and his messy hair, paired with that damn smile of his, would make any girl who watches it swoon. His character, Kevin Doyle, turns from a cynic to someone who truly believes in love right before our very eyes.
“Have you thought about Mason at all?” Maeve asks, her question catching me by surprise.
I mean, yeah, sure, of course I have. I’m about to be on the same campus and in the same rink as him for the first time in a couple of years. He might have ghosted me, but he didn’t ghost his sister. We are bound to have countless run-ins with each other.
“A little bit,” I mutter, glancing back at the TV as my stomach twists.
“That was a lot of thinking for such a short answer.” She eyes me knowingly, calling me out.
I sink further into my seat. “ Of course I have. I’m about to see him again, and I don’t know whether to pretend he doesn’t exist, like he’s done to me, or straight-up punch him in the face.”
Her eyes soften. “You could always go for the balls instead. Maximum damage.”
A smile tugs at my lips. “Maybe I’ll do that. Get some anger out on the source.”
“I support you in anything you do.” She lifts her glass in the air, toasting to me.
I lift mine, and we both say, “Clink,” before taking a sip.
Happiness floods me that I somehow got lucky enough to have her as my best friend.
That’s another part of 2000s rom-coms that is just as, if not more, important than the main romance—the friendships. The friend you can rely on for anything and everything and who loves you unconditionally.
But I already checked that box from my life list years ago with the free spirit sitting across from me, shoving her face full of pizza. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for that girl. Which is why I need to stop sulking and avoiding fun like it’s the plague.
After Mason left, I put every second of my time into my skating. My mom used to have to drag me home from her rink, which was saying something for her.
But then a year after he left, my accident happened, and everything in my life changed. My goals, my dreams, my hobbies, and my spark were just gone in the blink of an eye.
It was like my life became measured in the before and after of the day of my accident. Before, I had been happy, optimistic, and dreaming with no limitations. And after? I was shattered into a million pieces … my ankle, my leg, my wrist, my heart, and my soul.
It wasn’t a dramatic accident, at least to an onlooker, but to me, it was the worst it could have possibly been. It was a freak slip, a miscalculation, and everything I’d dreamed about was over.
Thankfully, I had a big support system to keep an eye on me and help me get on my feet, literally and figuratively. But sometimes, hearing get well soon and I’m so sorry doesn’t fix someone’s problems.
For a little while, I was doing better, and then …
I wasn’t. I was a wreck and a shell of who I had been before.
I learned that no one else would be able to cure me, to rid the shadows that had settled into my mind and chest. With a few tools—my rom-coms, some antidepressant medication, and my best friend, who almost never left my side—I found a new normal. Finally .
Eventually, I got back on the ice, but it wasn’t the same. A panic attack here and there. Sometimes just from stepping on the ice, sometimes when I was trying to push my limits. But that was just the emotional aspect.
My leg healed perfectly fine, but my wrist and my ankle … that’s a different story.
Shifting my weight a certain way or jumping can hurt a lot . Not only does it cause me pain, but it can sometimes make me mentally spiral. I’ve had more panic attacks on the ice than I’d like to admit. But again, I’ve found a way to survive, and I’ll continue to do so.
I’ve gained a lot of strength and confidence on the ice over the last two years at our hometown college. Not skating for the school, but coaching with my mom.
She not only runs a rink known by some of the best skaters in the country, but she also coaches at the college on the side for fun. Money has never been her focus, but instead training skaters and giving back to her community. She coaches the college students while I work with the youth program.
It took a while for me to not break into tears, seeing my mom work with the college skaters, knowing that I should have been one of them. Knowing that I‘ll never fully skate the same is hard to accept some days. But if I didn’t have my new gig, I would be lost.
I didn’t know that I could find a passion that would rival my love for skating and performing, but, God, those kids make coaching easy to love.
Watching them blossom in their skills, nailing a jump for the first time, or simply watching their faces light up when they glide onto the ice—it brings me immeasurable joy.
We could’ve moved here right after high school and started college at Northern Minnesota University, but instead we decided to stay local for our first two years at home to save some money.
But I know that Maeve has been excited about this move.
She’s been desperate to get out from beneath her mom’s watchful and overprotective eye, moving somewhere she could do whatever she pleased.
We didn’t have to come here, we could’ve gone to any school we wanted, but this was the only one I ever dreamed of attending.
The same one as my mom. Having the chance to skate at the same rink she had was always my goal.
And it still is … but since my accident, it won’t be in quite the same capacity.
Regardless, Maeve and I have finally arrived at our last scholastic destination, and we’ll make the best out of it. We already have the perfect house which has everything we could want.
It’s near the campus, so we have a short commute to classes. It’s already furnished, so we didn’t have to bring beds or couches or anything else stupidly heavy. But best of all, it’s on the edge of the lake, complete with a hammock, firepit, cornhole, wraparound porch, and oversize porch swing.
It’s quiet and peaceful, slightly isolated, with our closest neighbor being a quarter mile around the lake.
Maeve is already itching to throw a party. I have no idea who she plans on inviting, but she can be really creative when she wants to be.
She’s always been the wild storm to my calm.
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to take a page from her book now that I’m here. Let loose and not overanalyze every single decision I make.
Maybe that’s how I’ll find the love I’m looking for. I’ve been avoiding guys altogether since Mason left me. He took my heart with him, and it’s high time I take it back.
I’m not totally against throwing a party, but I imagine I’ll spend more time in my room than out here with everyone else. But we have a lot to do before anyone is going to be allowed to step foot in this place.
We have to unpack everything, which sounds almost as horrible as packing everything up in the first place. Moving altogether is the worst, I swear. I’m never doing it again.
But unfortunately, that’s a truth I can’t hide from because we only have the house until the end of this school year, and then my mom is selling it. We’re lucky we were able to talk her into letting us keep it for another year so Maeve and I could stay here.
She’s the best mom in the world, who has always given more than she’s ever taken, in every aspect of her life.
But she wants us to be adults and learn responsibility, blah, blah.
I can appreciate the thought, but I’d rather not have to get another job if I don’t have to.
I’ll cross that hurdle when I get to it.