CHAPTER 91
Troy
IT’S A MIRACLE I got out of bed today; it’s a miracle I got myself to the rink in one piece.
But if there’s one thing I see through is a deal.
I made that girl a deal, and she’s going to get her win.
Get everything she’s always wanted. And I’ll deal with the numbness that’ll fill this pain that was caused by me and only me.
She just wanted sex, and I’m the idiot who couldn’t tell love apart from lust, a consequence my chest is now paying for big time.
Moving through the locker room with record turtle speed, the Hummingbirds flock in moments later, Xavier—who hadn’t heard the half of what Ana and I were, but from how well he knows me and my feelings toward her, his knowing look after seeing her kiss me so brazenly last night—knows something’s up.
Luckily, he also detects that I’m not exactly in a talking mood today, resting his gym bag onto the bench, getting ready in silence.
“Last night I fucked Ana and holy shit, she’s hot.”
My heart crumbles inside my chest.
“I never knew she was such a slut,” Carter Reid continues to brag to the rest of the team. Anger shoots through every nerve in my body at how he’s talking about her. Slamming my locker shut, I freeze when he adds, “I even got a picture.”
From the corner of my eye, I can feel Xavier watch me, anxious, while I shift around and start to approach Carter.
“Let me see,” I request.
“Please,” the guy snorts out. “I know you’ve seen her naked, Larsson.”
I shrug. “I don’t sleep with my skating partners.”
He hands me his phone.
“This the only photo you got?”
“Yeah, she was asleep, so I just have one of her ass. Still worth it, though.”
“Yeah, I bet. Mind if I send this to myself?”
“Go ahead, I was gonna send it to the rest of the team after.”
“You didn’t send it to anyone yet?”
“Nope, not yet. Wanted to show the guys in person, first,” he adds slyly.
“Well, you’re not gonna be sending it to anyone.”
I hurl his phone back into his stomach, not caring if it leaves a bruise.
Carter scrambles through his device, his brows pulled together with rage. “What the fuck, Troy?! You deleted the photo?”
“Did she know about the photo?”
“No.”
“Which means you took a naked picture of her without her permission. And that makes you a disgusting piece of shit.”
“Relax, you big pussy, it was just of her ass. It’s not like it was of her whole body.”
“That doesn’t fucking matter! You took a photo of her when she was naked without her knowing it,” I say, holding in the violence that wants to erupt from my fists. “But you’re such an asshole that you don’t even think what you did was wrong, do you?!”
A sleazy grin carves out his whole cheeks.
“Ohhh, shit,” he says. “You like her.”
“What?”
“You have a little crush on your skating partner. And it bothers you that she slept with me. Must suck knowing they all come to me after. First, Tiffany, now Ana.”
“Keep shit-talking, Carter,” I say, turning to walk away, “you’re a waste of my time.”
“It’s fine,” he says, “I’ll just call Ana up later tonight for a round two. Her sex drive seemed pretty high.”
With an explosive kind of vengeance, I dart right back toward him, and with one slam, I knock Carter against a locker, feeling the rest of the team huddle around us like we’re their entertainment.
“Impressive.” Carter marvels at my clenched fists around his burgundy jersey. “I’d also be disappointed if I was your dad. We could’ve really used a grip like that on the team.”
“If you ever try and touch her again, I’ll make sure you never play hockey again.”
“Relax, bro. Her pussy wasn’t even worth it.”
My vision blocks out for a second. Because I punch him.
Hard.
“Nice hit.” Carter flicks a drop of blood off the corner of his mouth, flashing me a slanted grin. “Too bad your talent’s wasted on that pussy sport of yours.”
Lunging forward for a second punch, I feel an arm stop me; it’s Xavier.
He hooks an arm over my shoulder, insisting, “He’s not worth it.”
And when I picture her. Ana under this guy, her over him, him touching her, I forget.
Forget that I did this all to myself.
_________
Stepping onto the ice with an arrow sticking out from my chest, every nerve in my body shakes when I spot Ana already standing on the ice, her gaze lifted in a small smile—like the gesture could somehow be seen as a truce.
Baby, you got exactly what you wanted. How does it feel?
“Here,” she says once I’ve reached her, pointing a white envelope toward my pitted stomach.
My eyes barely manage to flick themselves up to look at her, because I still can hardly bear that the girl I knew isn’t the same one that’s standing before me.
My hands still tucked inside the pockets of my sweater, I keep them there to cover the bruised skin from the force of my punch.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“The amount I calculated I’d owe you if you were charging me,” she explains.
“I told you I wasn’t going to charge you for a place to stay.”
“I’d feel better if you would just take the money.” She pokes the sleeve toward me, but I don’t budge, not accepting it.
“I wouldn’t,” I grind out.
“It’s not fair to you. You did so much for me. And I owe you this.”
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“Bull-shit.” It’s the first moment I can bring myself to look into her eyes, the move burning my own, not fathoming how bad this would sting.
“You’re only giving me this because you think this was some sort of transaction.
That I’m that pathetic to hold this over you for doing you a favor.
Did it ever cross your mind that I wanted to be around you?
No, right. I’m not taking your money, Ana. ”
“Well, I’m leaving it here.” She skates off toward the gate to drop it off on the ledge.
“You can leave it wherever you fucking want,” I say. “But I’m not taking it.”
She snaps back around, frustrated. “Everything is fucked. Can we please go back to how things were before?”
“Before what? Before you admitted to Violet how you used me?”
Or before you slept with Carter the same night you left the apartment without saying as much as a goodbye?
I leave that out. Shit’s still fucking stabbing at me.
“I didn’t use you,” she insists, her tone desperate. “I told you I made that up to finally put Violet in her place.”
“Whatever. I don’t care.”
I wish I didn’t care.
_________
While scanning through my menu at the small restaurant by the boardwalk Conrad suggested we come to for lunch, I flat out get a migraine from the insane selections on it.
Strawberry shortcake.
Strawberry milkshake.
Strawberry tart.
Strawberry jam with butter and toast.
Strawberry my ass, why has this menu suddenly joined forces with the universe to ruin my already horrific day?
“Since when is everything strawberry flavored, huh?!” I speak up. “Can we have a bit more variety, Jesus.”
“Uh, you good?” Andre quips.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“So your sudden hatred for the berry was just small talk?”
“I’m just saying there are way more fruits that should be getting more attention. What about watermelon, mangos, peaches? Heck, even dragon fruit? We don’t have enough dragon fruit dessert options, like where’s dragon fruit pie?”
“Okay. He’s officially lost it,” Brennan concludes.
“I dunno,” Louis chimes in, “I think there could be dragon fruit pie probably somewhere by the Mediterranean.”
“Dragon fruit is tropical, idiot,” Conrad scoffs.
When everyone leaves the booth after lunch, moving toward the parking lot, Xavier turns to me like he’s about to scold me. “You’re never going to give her the necklace, are you?”
“It’s useless,” I reply. “She doesn’t care about me.” I try and bite my tongue but the words slip out. “For a second it felt like she did. But she doesn’t.”
When I return home, toss my keys onto the sofa and drag myself up the stairs, toward my cold room—cold, like every corner of this apartment has felt since she left—I return to an empty hallway, empty guest room, empty bed, pulling the small drawer beneath my nightstand out to the box that was always meant to be hers.
Running my fingers along the thin gold chain, a haunting trace of strawberry still lingers from my pillowcase, forcing me to shut the black velvet box so quick it nearly cuts the edge of my finger, an overwhelming sadness tearing along my chest.
_________
Two weeks later and the pain hasn’t dimmed.
It’s actually—fucking somehow—worse.
Fiddled with the truth, the reality of the whole situation, then skated a shit ton to forget about it all but instead remembered everything.
Turns out it’s not easy to see someone every day after they ripped your heart right out. Or have to hold them while you skate close, intimate, while your mind still can’t process their betrayal.
Still can’t process the distance, not during yesterday’s practice, not during today’s, when our coaches leave, and—to Ana’s surprise—I still stick around for our extra sessions, still somehow not pleasing her.
“You won’t even look at me,” Ana snaps at me when we stop to take a water break.
“If I wasn’t,” I say dryly, “we’d both be injured right now on the ice.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Okay, fine, I’m looking at you.” I dart my gaze to her face, my eyes wide in exaggeration. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic.” Her nostrils flare but then she sighs. “I want to talk about what happened.”
“So do I.” I lean toward her. “Why Carter?”
Ana’s features sink, like she wasn’t expecting me to know, like she didn’t want me to know, and somehow that punches through my gut even deeper.
“How did you find out?” she says quietly.
“That’s really your best response?” I scoff in frustration.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” Hearing her voice grow shaky, water brimming her irises, I push my face away from hers in agony. I don’t need that shit. “Please look at me, Troy. I love—”
“Don’t you dare say it, Ana.”
I didn’t know my heart hadn’t fully broken yet, not until she was about to utter the words that I know she doesn’t mean.
_________
Ana
“I didn’t mean to sleep with him,” I defend. “It just happened.”
God, look at how I sound.
I quickly start over. “I was drunk. I went to Bailey’s, and he came up to me and started talking, and I—”
“Stop,” Troy rasps. “I don’t wanna know.”
“Troy, it meant nothing.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“I said okay to him, I know I’m to blame, but I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking properly and when I woke up the next day, I felt sick. I’ve never been so ashamed at myself.”
“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.” My brows furrow in confusion. “You weren’t my girlfriend; I wasn’t your boyfriend. It was just sex.”
“That’s how you really feel?”
He shrugs.
“Okay. If that’s how you feel.” My own anger starts to set in.
I’m telling him the truth. It meant nothing to me.
What I can’t tell him is why I did it. To prove that he’s just some other guy. That he isn’t as special as I’ve learned him to be.
That I needed to know I could be fine without him.
I’m not the girl who’d choose a guy over her dreams.
I never did before.
Then why was I about to choose you over skating now?
Pathetic.
“I hate Carter,” Troy says after a torturous beat of silence. “He’s the one my ex cheated on me with.”
“What?” My stomach drops. “I didn’t know that. You have to believe me.”
“I hate Carter,” he repeats, ignoring me, “and when I found out my ex did that, I hated him even more. When I found out about you and Carter, I didn’t even care that it was with him. All I heard was you slept with someone else.”
If Troy doesn’t mean anything to me, then why are my eyes filling up again?
“You must really hate me now,” I say, my shame eating me alive.
“Hate you? That’s what you got from all that, Ana? I love you so much that I’d die for you before I could ever hate you.” He meets my gaze with the saddest eyes. “So what does that say about me?”
He gives me a small, defeated smile, ripping my heart right out with his confession as he skates away.
Unable to process the words, even after repeating them an inexplainable numbers of times, I leave the ice to move onto a bench in the lobby, pain sticking from every nerve ending at the realization that I have no one to talk to about any of this. Not anymore.
Not Naomi.
Not Donya.
Not Eloise.
And certainly not Troy.
“You!” My heart grows with panic at the stranger’s voice screeching from my left.
Dropping my hands from under the laces of my skates, I lift my gaze up to find Mrs. Rossi glaring at me, her daughter Alice standing behind her with an apologetic expression.
“You told my daughter to start running?!” she screams at me, her wretched pitch feeling like a grenade to the face.
“What made you think you had the right to do that?!”
“I was just trying to help,” I stutter, my heart pumping terribly fast, still in shock by the unexpected encounter. “She was hurt, and she looked stressed.”
“Her muscles will get bulkier if she stress runs. And I’m her mother. I get to decide what she needs to deal with her stress. Not you.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interfere.”
From the corner of her mom’s side, I spot Alice mouth to me, I didn’t know.
“If I wanted her to end up like you,” Mrs. Rossi spits out, “I would’ve gotten her a coach that costs thousands less. Alice, let’s go.”
Alice gives me a look brimmed with the kind of chilling nerves I get before a skating competition—the one that only another figure skater who’s cracking under an unreasonable amount of pressure would understand.
And between the horrendous mistake that I made two nights ago with a guy I’ve never heard a good word about, destroying Troy’s trust in the process and then losing him in the same night—every single other damage I’ve caused or has poured over me these past few years—knocks me right onto the cold charcoal floor.
With a single thought,
Whatever you do, you will always do something wrong.