Adrien #2
Minutes pass before I glance at her at the next red light. Her eyes drift from my hands wrapped around the steering wheel to the side of my face, lingering there for so long I have to bite back a laugh.
“What is it?” I ask gently.
A long exhale slips past her lips before she turns back toward the window, thoroughly ignoring me.
But that’s okay. She’s here. She trusted this enough to get into the car with me.
That has to mean something.
My hand hovers over the gear stick, far too aware of how close she is. Her left hand rests beside her on the passenger seat, so near I could almost convince myself the molecules between us are already colliding.
I exhale through my nose, reminding myself that’s probably complete bullshit. I don’t even know how molecules work, or what they actually are.
“Music?” I ask.
She simply shakes her head, still giving me the silent treatment, yet somehow even that tiny piece of communication feels precious enough to make me smile.
“Okay,” I nod.
As time passes, we arrive at the parking lot of an ice arena and I pull to a stop, shutting the engine down.
“Let’s go,” I announce, climbing out of the car.
She follows without a word.
The building is dark, strangely abandoned-looking at this hour, and our footsteps echo through the empty corridors as I lead her deeper inside until we reach a small electrical closet tucked beside the rink.
Lighting up my phone, I sweep the flashlight over rows of dusty electrical panels until I find the right one.
“Give me a second,” I mumble, silently praying she hasn’t decided to leave yet.
I flip the first switch, but nothing happens. The second one sends a distant hum rolling through the building, followed by another and another until the entire arena slowly begins to wake around us.
One strip of lights flickers to life above the rink, then another, until the white surface glows beneath them, throwing its brightness back into the empty stands.
“Almost,” I mutter, quickly scanning the labels before switching a few of the little buttons off until only half the lights remain, leaving the arena wrapped in a softer, dimmer glow that feels infinitely more romantic.
She might have no idea, but this is a date.
A grin spreads across my face as I step back to admire my work. As I turn around, I realize she hasn’t moved an inch.
She’s still standing exactly where I left her, completely silent, staring out at the rink as though she’s trying to decide whether she’s been here before.
Which she has, thousands of times. I just don’t say it. Instead, I lift the pair of skates dangling from my fingers.
“They’re yours.”
Her eyes lower to them, but no reaction comes. No smile, but no anger either. Just that same unreadable expression she’s been wearing all evening.
“Come here,” I say, thinking she’ll flip me off or something, but surprisingly, she comes closer.
“There.” I gesture toward one of the wooden benches lining the boards.
She hesitantly sits down, placing both hands on either side of herself while continuing to watch every move I make. I lower myself to one knee before she has the chance to change her mind.
Before doing anything else, I steal one brief glance up at her, making sure she’s actually allowing me to do this.
She is.
The corner of my mouth lifts into a small smile as I unzip one of her boots and slide it off, pretending my hands aren’t trembling from something as embarrassingly simple as happiness.
I’ve spent six years imagining what it would feel like just to be close to her again, and now I’m kneeling at her feet, tying her freaking skates.
The first skate slips onto her foot, and I begin threading the laces through my fingers while she continues watching me in complete silence. I can feel it.
Every few seconds my eyes wander upward only to find her gaze already fixed on me, studying every movement with that same impossible intensity she had in the car, as though she’s trying to memorize every line on my face before deciding whether I belong in her reality at all.
I pull the laces tighter, then stop.
“Like this?”
She doesn’t answer, so I loosen them a little.
“Like that?”
Nothing. I sigh through a smile.
“You’re really committed to this whole silent treatment thing.”
I finish tying the skate and move on to the other one. Her eyes never leave me, and for some reason that only makes me happier.
When I tighten the final knot, my hand lingers against the side of the boot for just a second longer than necessary before I give it a light pat.
“Done.”
She rises, testing her balance before taking a slow, tentative step. Then, without a single word, she pushes herself onto the ice, gliding away with the quiet grace of an animal released back into the wild.
“One more thing,” I call, making my way over to the sound system by the boards.
After connecting my phone, my thumb scrolls through the playlist until it lands on the song I’ve been searching for.
The opening notes of War of Hearts spill into the empty arena—her favorite routine.
She freezes. For the briefest moment, hope swells inside my chest and I think it worked. Then she whirls around so abruptly I almost flinch.
“I’m sick of this,” she says, her voice cutting cleanly through the music. “I’m sick of everyone watching me. I’m sick of feeling like some fucking experiment.”
The excitement drains out of me in an instant.
But I can’t give up now.
“Right,” I mumble, pulling my hood over my head.
I make my way to the nearest bench, sit down, lower my head toward my phone and deliberately keep my eyes away from her.
“I won’t watch then,” I announce.
The music continues to spill through the arena, and a few seconds later the scrape of blades against the ice reaches my ears.
One circle, then another, and I don’t look up. Hell, I barely even breathe, afraid she’ll think I’m cheating.
But the sound of skating suddenly stops and a frustrated exhale follows.
“I don’t remember it.” Her voice is so quiet it nearly disappears beneath the music. “I don’t remember the routine.”
I hesitantly lift my gaze, pulling the hood down from my head while she doesn’t move from the center of the rink.
Her eyes drift over the ice, the empty stands, the glass surrounding us, as though the missing pieces of her memory might be hidden somewhere out there, waiting for her to stumble across them.
“I don’t remember it,” she repeats, the words a bit louder now, carrying more disappointment than frustration.
I pause the music and push myself off the bench, walking onto the ice toward her at an unhurried pace.
“That’s okay,” I say.
“It isn’t.”
“It is.”
“No, it’s not.” She looks down at her skates. “I should know it.”
The quiet defeat behind those four words twists something painfully inside my chest, making me wonder whether bringing her here was a terrible idea.
I stop just a small distance away from her, close enough that I could reach her if I wanted to, but far enough that she never has to wonder whether I’m about to invade her space.
“Good thing I remember it,” I say through a hesitant smile.
Her brows lift ever so slightly, making it perfectly obvious she doesn’t believe me, while her shoulders remain tense.
“Hold my hand for a second.”
Her gaze drops to the hand I’ve awkwardly offered between us. She studies it for so long that I begin regretting asking in the first place. Then, after what feels like an eternity, she gives the smallest nod.
“Okay.”
I lace my fingers with hers, leaving her every opportunity to pull away if she changes her mind.
But she doesn’t. Her hand stays exactly where it is, cool against mine, while I have to consciously remind myself to keep breathing.
I think I’ve killed people with less adrenaline running through my veins than I’m experiencing right now.
“So,” I clear my throat, “the routine started with something like this.”
Keeping hold of her hand, I lift it between us and make what I’m personally convinced is a graceful movement.
“And then you did this… flowy thing.”
Using her other hand, I demonstrate a series of vague motions through the air. She watches the performance with perfect seriousness.
“Artistic,” I add. “Then you spun.”
Still holding onto her, I gently guide her into a slow turn without letting go.
“Close enough.”
For the first time since we stepped onto the ice, something shifts in her expression. It’s tiny, nearly imperceptible, but it’s there, and that’s enough encouragement for me to keep going.
“And then there was another spin,” I say.
“I don’t think there was.”
“There absolutely was.”
“There absolutely wasn’t.”
“I watched it at least fifty times,” I insist, lifting her hand.
She proceeds to make another spin with my guidance.
“Then you did that bird thing,” I add.
“Bird thing?” she says it with a hint of offense.
“The one where your leg goes somewhere it definitely shouldn’t.”
Her eyes squint on me. “There are several of those.”
“The one where I was convinced you’d snap in half.”
She stares at me. “That doesn’t narrow it down.”
“And after that,” I continue confidently, “you glided across the rink looking very emotionally unavailable.”
Determined not to waste the momentum, I point toward the opposite end of the arena.
“And then you did that rockstar glide,” I add.
The corner of her mouth twitches, so I stop talking altogether. She presses her lips together as though physically trying to keep them from moving, but a tiny laugh escapes anyway, followed by another one just a little louder than the first.
“You’re talking complete nonsense,” she says, a reluctant grin breaking through.
The sound bounces off the empty stands, and for one impossible second I forget where we are, because she sounds exactly like she used to.
The joy spreading across my face grows wider with every second she laughs, and I make absolutely no attempt to hide it.
“I am?”
“Yes.”
Another laugh slips free as she shakes her head, and I swear I’d happily make an idiot of myself every single day for the rest of my life if it meant hearing that sound one more time.
But it disappears almost as quickly as it arrived.