51. CALLUM
51
CALLUM
“Where are we going?” Chloe asks. “If you wanted to blindfold me, I would have told you I prefer it to be in the bedroom.”
“Noted.” She asks again, and I put a finger over her mouth. “Be quiet and you’ll find out.”
Chloe huffs.
Over breakfast and a new season of Survivor , Chloe told me that she quit skating. The competition following Aaron’s passing, she stormed off the ice three beats into her routine music. Untying her skates, she threw them on the ice, announcing her retirement. Her guilt had convinced her that she didn’t deserve to be out on the ice after what she did to her brother. Chloe hasn’t set foot on ice since.
We pull up outside the rink. I park, then guide her to the door.
She’s been to almost every one of Miller’s home games this season. Not once has she shown any sign of disinterest or hurt, her mask firmly in place.
Miller. How does he feel about Aaron and playing hockey still?
“I don’t know.” She shrugs when I ask. “We don’t talk about Aaron. We barely talked till recently.”
Pulling open the rink doors, the chill inside is cooler than outside. Chicago is warm today, an early taste of spring.
“Are we at the rink?”
I don’t answer her, earning myself another huff and probably an eye roll under the blindfold. Chloe is smart enough to use her senses to deduce where we are.
Sitting her down on the bench in the practice rink Miller instructed me to use, I remove the tie .
“Callum. . .” Her eyes flick from the room to me.
“I want you to skate.”
“No. I already told you I haven’t skated in—”
“Nine years.”
“Then why are we here? Why are you forcing me to do this?”
“I’m not forcing you to do anything, Chloe. You always have a choice in what you want and do.”
“I can’t. . .”
“You can.” I pull the gym bag off my shoulder, unzipping it to reveal two pairs of skates—one from Miller and the other from a box I found in her closet labeled COLLEGE.
“Are those my skates?” Her entire body is wearing her shock.
“Found them. Miller lent me the other.”
“He knows we're here?” Worry creeps up on her. “Does—did you tell him?”
“No.” I tug a hair tie off my wrist, moving to stand behind her. “Pony or braid?” My hand combs through her soft hair.
“Braid.”
I part the hair into three chunks and weave them together. It takes me only two minutes. The entire braid is short, with a few flyaways.
“When did you learn to braid?”
“The day after you said you wanted to grow your hair out so you could braid it.”
“Seriously?” she sighs, but it sounds more like a moan.
“Told you, Dais. I’ve been yours for longer than you know.” Kneeling in front of her, I level our gazes. “Put on the skates and try. If you still don’t want to, then we’ll leave. The choice is yours.”
“If I skate. . . Do I get anything from you?”
“What do you want?”
She’s smirking, and even this version of her smile, the playful, devious one, is beautiful. It’s her captured into a single look.
“Hmmm. A date. I want to go on a real date with my real boyfriend. ”
“Deal,” I say quickly before she can change her mind—not that she’d need to ask me twice to take her out and show her off. I’d buy a billboard in Time Square to tell everyone she’s my girlfriend if I’d know she wouldn’t castrate me.
“Give me the skates.” Handing her the skates, I also pass her the leg warmers I found with them. “These were the last pair Aaron bought me.” She rubs the lilac material between her fingers and takes a deep breath, eyes slipping closed.
***
“Are you ready?”
She swallows, then tilts her head when she spots me struggling to lace the skates. “That’s not how you lace them,” Chloe retorts. “Here, let me.”
Scooting off the bench, she kneels in front of me.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over the sight of her like this, but I’d prefer it the other way any day.
Taking my left foot, she undoes my work, adjusting the skate, then relacing and tying a knot and another knot. She’s focused. Not really speaking, but that’s okay, I can sense her mind spinning. Twisting my ankle, I’m assuming she’s checking to make sure the skates aren’t too tight and that my foot won’t fly out. I watch more carefully during my right, wanting to be able to help her next time.
Chloe stands, helping me balance as I stand in front of her.
“Are you ready?” I ask again, hoping that my smile and demeanor are steadying. Reassuring. Showing the belief and admiration I have for her.
Chloe bites her lip taking in the open door to the ice. “I can’t do this.”
“You can.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. I believe in you.”
“Well, if you believe in me,” she says sarcastically .
“I do.” I step onto the ice first—I should probably tell her I have zero clue how to ice skate. Reaching a hand out to her, she hesitates.
“You shouldn’t believe in me.”
“Give me one good reason.”
“What is the point of me skating?”
“Because it’s not your fault.”
“We’ve established that.”
“You need to believe it. You also need to know that skating didn’t take him from you, and there’s no reason you had to give it up. Do you miss it?” She nods. “If you would have said no, we would have turned around and left, but you didn’t.
“I think you’ve been scared these past nine years. Enjoying skating would mean you moved on, forgot about what happened. What happened will never leave you, Chloe, but that doesn’t mean you must suffer—especially at your own hand. I brought you here to help heal a part of your grief. I want you to be free of the shame, guilt, and pain you feel. You’ve held onto this burden all alone, but it’s no longer only yours to bear. I’m here to ride it alongside you and take this step with you.”
She licks her bottom lip. “Okay.”
Hand in hand, she steps onto the ice.
CHLOE
You can do this, Chloe.
I repeat the mantra, and on the tenth time, I swear it’s Aaron telling me I can. Almost as if he’s giving me permission to relinquish the guilt I’ve held onto.
Cal was right about one thing. . . Okay, a few things.
Grief isn’t linear, and neither is healing.
People move on. People forget.
It’s okay for me not to, and it’s okay for me to miss him .
For the second time since Aaron died, I don’t feel trapped by what happened, what I’ve allowed myself to believe was my fault.
For the second time it’s because of the man standing like a giraffe walking for the first time in front of me.
“You don’t know how to skate, do you?”
“No. I should have told you sooner.”
“Take me home at the end of the date, and I’ll teach you,” I proposition him, hand on my hip.
“Dais, you were already coming home with me.”
Suddenly, I’m second-guessing myself. “I might be rusty though. . .”
“Take a lap. I’ll be right here.”
You can do this, Chloe.
Dropping his hands, I turn–okay, we can still do that.
It’s like putting on pants, one leg at a time, but this time it’s one skate at a time. I push off on my right. Then the left. Repeat.
I stop.
Closing my eyes and breathing. Remembering how much I loved this: the feeling of fresh ice beneath my skate. Untouched. Possibilities.
Pushing off my right skate again, my left follows, repeating this process until I make it halfway around the lap. My muscle memory is coming back to me, fast and fluid.
Three-quarters of the way, I can’t fight off my smile anymore.
I let loose.
Pure joy takes over my mind and body.
“Rusty my ass!” Cal shouts as I pass by, speeding up on my second lap. My smile grows, taking up my entire face.
I pass him again, blue eyes glowing with admiration.
Five, then ten more laps. Cutting to a stop in front of him, he asks, “How does it feel?”
“Free,” I respond. Flipping my palms up, I offer him my hands. “Come see. ”
CALLUM
I take her hands, eager to experience this with her.
She pulls me, skating backward.
“It’s like rollerblading,” I tell her.
Audrey and I begged Dad for rollerblades for Christmas one year. She never caught the hang of them, hating every minute of me skating laps around her in Hyde Park.
“I guess,” she shrugs. “I only ever ice skated.”
My head locked on my feet, she guides me around the ice.
“Don’t watch your skates. You need to pick your head up to see where you’re going.”
When I do, I met with molten pewter eyes. Does it matter where I’m going if she’s the one leading? I’d follow her anywhere.
After fifteen minutes, I tell Chloe I’m taking a break.
Skating solo to the door, I sink into one of the practice arena seats, fumbling for my bag. Typing in my passcode to my phone, I get nervous about this next step. I went back and forth with myself while we skated about whether I should do this, but ultimately, I believe she’s ready. She can do it—she needs it.
On Spotify, I queue up the song.
Miller gave me access to the Bluetooth speakers in the practice rink. Chloe hasn’t noticed the playlist, a pop punk and alternative I curated of our favorite songs, the entire time, but I know the next one will stop her.
I locate Chloe as the current song fades out.
There’s a beat of silence before the next song starts.
Chloe halts. Spinning to me, she finally realizes music is playing. “Turn it off.”
“No.”
“Callum Jasper Sullivan.”
“Chloe Isabella Henry, no.” Her hands fist at her sides. “You’ve come this far. Skate. ”
“No.”
I pause the music. “What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing.”
“Then prove it. Skate your last routine. Close out this chapter of ‘This is my fault,’ and we can start a new one.”
Rolling her shoulder back, sheclenches her jaw before mumbling under her breath, “Screw you.”
“I’d like you to.”
Her eyes narrow, slits fit for a black cat. “Fine,” she says between gritted teeth.
I restart the song.
Her shoulders rise and fall, her movements tight at first. She’s moving with anger, rage, and every negative affirmation she’s told herself. Chloe says she’s empty, but I don’t see a girl who’s empty. I see a girl who feels everything.
Chloe starts completing a series of jumps. Each one is steadier and more beautiful than the next.
“Stunning,” I say to myself, completely taken aback by how she skates.
My eyes follow her, unable to look away.
Halfway through the song, she falls. I pause the music, lunging forward onto the wall. “Chloe!”
There’s silence coming from the ice.
“Chloe! Are you okay?” I ask again two more times, moving to her when crying filters into my ears.
When I reach her, I sit on the ice, picking her chin up with a finger. Streaming down her face are tears.
“Play. The. Song.”
I retrace my steps, hitting play on my phone. She rises and starts moving again. It’s different this time. That fall did something to her. Shattered something within her.
Chloe completes a triple-jump thing that I add to the running list of moves I need her to explain later .
We all have markers in our life. Moments that build us. Change us. Shape us. Some far larger than others. Some filled with light, some with darkness. But those markers are the ones that we look at as before and after.
Chloe’s is the accident.
She’s mine. There is now before her and after her.
I keep watching her. Watching as a new marker is taking its spot.
She moves with fire and sparks, an unshakable freedom. There is a ferocity to her that is being set loose. The girl she was before is on that ice.