Chapter 5
NOW
Paloma
“You’re the only one I haven’t placed for your practicum.”
Biting down on my lip, I nod. “I know.”
It’s warm inside the old wood-paneled office of the College of Business. My department head sighs, like he’s as irritated with me as I am with myself. I put this off for long enough, making spring semester almost ridiculously difficult.
“Paloma, I can’t just toss you anywhere. Most of the class has already chosen—even some juniors. Now, I’ll give you priority over their choices, but it has to be done now. Today.”
“Can’t you just count my freshman year experience? With the hockey team?”
“You were an equipment manager.”
I raise an eyebrow and shrug my shoulders. “Fine—then let me do an off-campus internship to replace it.”
“We tried that, remember?” he says, hands threading through his hair. “They rejected your application.”
After it became clear at the dinner that I wouldn’t be putting out in the office, which was the only reason they interviewed me at all.
“Football is taken—they barely took two people considering it’s off season. Figure skating has an opening, and hockey has a junior in there so if you want that—”
“No hockey.”
He shakes his head again. “You don’t have too much of a choice.
I was hoping you’d just say yes to figure skating.
You’ll have to split shifts. There’s a new coach, so they’ll only let you practice with one of them.
Besides, your sport of choice when you applied was left blank, but I’m gonna take a wild guess based on your work experience and say you might love hockey. ”
I don’t say a word about his guess, only asking, “What about an event team?”
“You specifically entered the coaching track.”
“Fine. Swimming?”
A deep sigh comes from his chest. “Off season.”
“They go ’til April—”
“No. They already filled the one spot they allow for. Try again.”
My stomach churns.
“Paloma, I’ve seen your résumé. You’ve excelled in all your classes. You’ve worked summers and part time for local hockey clubs—even the Providence Bruins last year. And they all have beautiful things to say about you. Why are you so adamant about not working with the hockey team here?”
His voice is still soft, kind, as he dips it even lower to ask, “Did something happen? Are you—”
“I’m fine,” I quickly cut him off. “Nothing happened.”
He breathes out quickly, a rush telling me he’s relieved. But his eyes scan me again, like they’re looking for deception.
“Okay. Fine,” I agree, head ducked.
“Wonderful. You’ll slot on and off as the ‘ice sports’ mentee.
So, with—” He pauses to glance down at a few papers in front of him, searching.
“Coach Moreau for pairs skating on Mondays. And Coach Harris for hockey on Thursdays. He can move you to shadow an assistant coach if he wants, but you’ll report to him as your supervisor. ”
I nod, fists tightening on my thighs. “Anything else?”
He sighs deeply. “No. That’s all.”
I excuse myself with a sarcastic salute to cover the nausea, opening the door and striding out into the ornate dark hallway, only to slam right into a girl trying to sprint through me.
She stumbles but stays upright. She’s short, her pale face red enough to match her auburn hair. Her attire almost looks like a movie-worthy prep academy uniform—nylon tights, a pleated navy skirt and a frilly blouse, complete with a thick headband that she fixes back into place.
“You, okay?” I ask, because she seems almost out of it.
“Mmhmm,” she says, while staring unabashedly at my cleavage. I almost laugh, but manage to hold it in. It doesn’t seem like she’s trying to blatantly check me out, but her gaze is focused.
“All right.” I eye her again. As I move away her gaze stays pinned to the wall behind where I once stood. So maybe she’s just a little weirdo and not a pervert. She’s so still that it makes me pause, watching to make sure she’s okay.
A man in a crisp navy suit steps past me toward her, arms crossed as he hovers over her small frame. She’s much shorter than me, and I’m a solid five-foot-five.
“Are you finished?”
She responds with the same humming sound she made at me and shakes her head a little, like drawing herself out of a daydream. He sighs, a frustrated, exhausted noise.
“And where is everything? Your schedule? Papers? Did he not give you anything?”
“Oh—” She sprints back to the door she busted out of earlier.
I turn and head out, tucking my own papers into my backpack as I walk the mostly empty hallway.
· · ·
My first day with the pair skating team is easy enough. Coach Moreau is a nice, albeit loud, French coach who mostly has me observe. I take notes when she speaks to me, but mostly I watch Luc Laroux with his new partner.
He’s the only one on the pairs team I know, because when Sadie and I were friends, we often partied with him. He’d blow insane money on overly expensive alcohol, hook up with some girl, and then cry in the bathroom or disassociate in the rideshare back to the dorms with us.
We got along great.
As they finish up, Luc skates right over to me with a wink.
“Since when did we get a hot new coach?” he asks with the same infuriatingly handsome smirk. People call him the Ice King, and he’s got the jet-black hair, pale skin, and icy blue eyes to make the nickname fit. And the annoyingly arrogant attitude to match.
Just as I open my mouth to respond, my eyes snag on a different vignette.
“Ah yes, the lovers,” Luc sighs beneath his breath, sitting on the bench next to me as we watch Rhys Koteskiy in his practice uniform, sans skates, lean over the other bench and kiss his little figure skater girlfriend.
Sadie smiles softly—something I’ve rarely seen from her—and lets him tuck a strand of hair back from her face. They’re intimate and warm in their bubble of bliss.
“Nauseating,” I sneer to Luc. He laughs and continues sliding on his guards before bidding me a quick goodbye on his way back to the locker rooms.
Sadie finally leaves the bench and heads over to our side to exit the ice. She stops by me, grabbing her own sparkly black guards and cloth, drying the blades carefully before sliding each one on.
“Got something to say?” She finally cracks, eyebrow arched.
“Seems like you’re doing great,” I say, my sarcasm a little heavy-handed. Sadie smiles, like I’ve told her I missed her and not tossed a sarcastic comment her way.
“Great to see you as always, Paloma.” She rolls her gray cat-like eyes. But then looks me over again more intentionally, and my stomach rolls with nausea. “How are you?”
Her question is genuine. I feel like a frayed nerve.
“I’d be doing better if you stayed out of my business.”
She smirks and shakes her head, standing next to where I’m still sitting on the bench—her only chance to be taller than me.
“Got it. Excuse me for even attempting to be nice to you,” she snips. There’s a niggle of regret clawing at my throat, but I manage to suffocate it back down into my usual numbness and anger.
· · ·
“You can’t be serious.”
“She is,” my roommate smarts off, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe by her side of the apartment-style dorms. They’re the smallest ones on campus: a tiny room each with a shared bathroom and tiny living space.
I’ve gone the random roommate route every year—and this year turned out worse than usual.
Taylor is about my height, but thin and objectively beautiful. She’s active on campus and nice to everyone, usually. But her annoying boyfriend has “accidentally” walked in on me in the bathroom multiple times. Enough that I keep my showers short and at odd hours.
“Felicity—”
Our RA holds her hand up, biting her lip as she avoids my eyes and hands me a paper that explicitly says I’m not allowed to live here anymore.
The reasons barely make sense, nor are any of them true: partying at all hours, presence of drugs and alcohol; anything it seems Taylor could think of.
I don’t try to argue, very aware of her connection with our RA.
“It’s January,” I snip. “The semester has already started. Where am I supposed to go?”
“Not our problem,” Taylor says, butting in again.
I head to my room before either of them can see the burning redness of my eyes. It only takes me a minute to pack everything into my large duffel bag.
Most of what I own in one bag. How pathetic.
Still, I’m careful to tuck my well-worn velveteen rabbit plush into my faded blue backpack.
The RA tries to stop me again as I step back into the common area.
“Paloma, you have until the end of the week—”
“Consider me moved out,” I growl, shoving past her and clipping her with my shoulder. It’s petty and rude, but I’m livid.
There’s no way I can find an apartment fast enough. I’ll be sleeping in my car tonight. I’m too poor to grab a hotel but too prideful to stay in that dorm room any longer than I have to. Another batch of angry tears threaten, but I smother them before they can fall.
I reach for my phone, tempted to no end to call him, the one person I know who will swoop in and save me—but stop myself immediately, banging my head on the steering wheel as I attempt to get my breathing under control amidst the torrent of anger and fear.
Three steps forward, one thousand steps back. The same path for me since I was six years old.
· · ·
“ . . . easy, Freddy.”
“Relax, I can . . .”
The voices blur in and out of my consciousness. I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids are too heavy. So is my head—am I resting on something?
“Was she alone?” The girl’s voice is low, recognizable. A little smile pulls at my lips. Sadie fucking Brown. This has to be a dream.
“ . . . you’ve been here before?” Sadie asks, voice quiet as she approaches me.
“Yeah. Not my proudest moment,” a male voice says, irritated and jumpy. I don’t recognize it. Is this a memory? I don’t know it, at least not enough to place it. “But you’re welcome.”
“Right,” Sadie sneers.
I finally blink my eyes open. This time, I do laugh—I have to be dreaming.
Sadie Brown and Matt Fredderic are standing over my corner barstool. There’s no way this is real.
My eyes flutter again, body slumping before someone catches me.
“All right, guess I’m carrying you,” Freddy says, lifting me into his arms in a bridal carry.
“Did someone bother her?” Sadie asks. She must be talking to the bartender, but I’m close enough to hear her. “How did you even find my number?”
“She gave it to me,” the man says, his voice calm and quiet. “I asked if there was anyone I could call to help her when I realized she wasn’t okay. I don’t know who was serving her, but clearly someone was sneaking her more to drink than I would have allowed.”
“And she asked you to call . . . me?” I blink my eyes open. Sadie looks over her delicate shoulder at me. “Damn, Paloma, you must’ve been desperate.”
It’s a joke, but I can almost see the worry present in her eyes. An emotion I’ve never seen there before. She always kept things locked down tightly.
Eyes closing again, I relax at the fact that reluctantly, I trust the two people around me to have my back. At least enough that I know they won’t hurt me.
I blink, losing time, and we’re in the car in front of the dorms. My head is pressed to the cold window, a relief to my overheated skin.
“I’m gonna get out and help you in, okay?” Sadie says, turned toward me in the passenger seat. Freddy’s driving her car.
“I’m . . . I’m not allowed,” I whisper, the words difficult to push through my tired lips. “I don’t live there anymore. I’m—” Embarrassment clogs my throat even with the alcohol running through my system. “Was gonna just sleep in my car. I don’t have anywhere else. I’m sorry.”
Sadie looks at Freddy and says something quietly to him. He nods and starts driving again, slow enough not to jostle me. I fall easily back to sleep with the movement.