Chapter 33

Primrose

Ifell. Hit the ice hard, landing badly on my knee, and I winced, gripping my hands into fists on the ice and just trying to gather myself to stand back up. The rink was pretty quiet right now, and I’d expected everyone to just skate around me, but I definitely didn’t expect the person who vaulted over the barrier and came towards me—Jordan, skating over to my side and kneeling next to me.

“Are you all right?” she said. “That looked like a bad fall.”

“Oh—I’m fine. Just stings a bit. I’ll be okay. What are you doing here? Are you actually here to practice?”

“Oh, yeah… I just broke up with my boyfriend and I’m full of angry energy.”

Breakups were—not what I wanted to think about right now. “I’m so sorry.”

She laughed drily. “It’s whatever. We already did this last week. Then he texted me at midnight one night and asked if I was up, and, well, you know the rest.”

“Ah…” I did not know how to respond to that. “Well, I hope releasing the angry energy is productive.”

“I still don’t wanna practice, though. I was mostly just chilling watching you practice. You’re still trying to pull off an axel, huh?”

“Oh.” I looked away. “Um… just practicing this and that.”

Jordan stood up, a hand on her hip. “I know there’s something between you and Giselle in that axel thing. So does that mean you and Giselle worked out whatever happened?”

I sighed, standing up, and I fumbled a little—Jordan offered me a hand, and I took it, letting her help me up to a wobbly balance on my feet. My knee was still stinging… maybe I had hit it too hard. “Nah,” I said, looking past her. “We broke up. I’m moving away. It kinda sucks.”

“What?” Jordan dropped her arms by her sides. “Oh my god, why? We’re never going to win anything if you’re not super-powering Giselle to skate for us.”

“You know, you could just practice more yourself.” I let my shoulders fall, my gaze dropping to the ice, my tacky rental skates and Jordan’s nice, clean white skates. “Stuff came up… don’t really have the opportunity to continue studying here anymore. But it’s all right.” I put on a smile. “I’ll figure things out. It’s not my first time.”

Jordan scrunched up her face. “What kind of stuff? I bet Giselle and I can put our heads together and find out a way to help.”

I laughed awkwardly. “You really would not need to—”

“Shut up. You’re my friend. And Giselle really likes you.”

Ah, what the hell. I raked my hand back through my hair. “I was part of a shady organization on campus and I was just getting close to Giselle to get intel on her family business, but then I blew it by developing actual feelings for her and couldn’t go through with the job, so now they’re chasing me off campus. That’d be the long and short of it.”

Jordan blinked, twice, slowly, before she cocked her head. “For real?”

“I know it doesn’t sound very real, but yeah. For real.”

She put a hand to her chest. “Oh my god, but that’s so romantic.”

“Romantic—it’s not romantic.” I put my hands up. “It got out to Giselle and she’s not… there’s no way she’ll talk to me again after she found out how much I was hiding, how much I was lying about. I know that. I know that, I just…”

Jordan folded her arms. “You’re just still trying to do an axel because you promised her you would and you think it’ll make her come back.”

I put a hand to my forehead, looking away. “I don’t think it’ll make her come back, just… I just want to…”

“Just want to make her come back.”

I swallowed, and I found my eyes burning—I tried to speak in a cool level voice, but the tremble came through. “It feels a little bit like she’s still… here… when I’m doing this.”

Jordan dropped her arms, giving me a sad look. I couldn’t bear to look at her, turning away and pushing on ahead, but a jolt of pain shot up from my knee, and I wobbled, falling against the barrier. Jordan glided over to my side, sighing.

“You need to get off the ice. You hurt yourself.”

“I’m really all right…”

“You are not. It’s going to delay your progress if you injure your knee. Those things are fragile as fuck. C’mon, off the ice.”

My knees weren’t the only parts of me that were fragile. I let Jordan escort me off the ice, and she sat with me as I took my skates off, a deep, inconsolable sadness that didn’t make any sense as I was setting them aside—too emotional for just saying goodbye to a rental skate for a day.

“How much of the truth does she know?” Jordan said, and I sighed.

“She knows our relationship was just an… assignment. Knows I was with that organization. Well—probably thinks I still am. I doubt she’s aware I’m getting kicked out. Didn’t tell her that I actually have feelings for her… don’t feel like there’s a big chance of her believing me.”

“Don’t you think she deserves to know?”

I focused on cleaning the skates, eyes down, rhythmic motions for a while before I responded coolly, “Wish she did. I don’t want her to go feeling like she can’t be loved, and I bet that’s what she’s thinking… especially after finding out Andrea had also been assigned to her.”

“Andrea—her ex? She was also a part of this whole scheme?”

Guess that was also me now. Giselle’s ex. I wished I could get over this, already. “That’d be why she was secretive about it, yeah. But Andrea also fell for her.” I shoved the laces into the skates, setting them aside and pulling on my own shoes. “If anything, Giselle is just so impossible not to like that it’s torn the organization apart. I wish she could know that… but she’d never believe me if I told her.”

“And you? Don’t you think you deserve for her to know?”

I snorted. “I don’t deserve much right now.” I finished pulling on my shoes, standing up slowly, easing myself lightly on my bad knee. Practicing axels was a bad idea. I didn’t need to injure myself right before I went out to start working. I’d already known that before I came in to practice, though. “Friend offered me a place to stay, but I don’t really think it’s fair…”

Jordan scowled. “Self-sacrifice is so annoying.”

“What?”

“What, like being sad makes you more noble? Like suffering makes you a better person?” She rolled her eyes. “Get real. Your friend’s offering because they want to.”

I looked away, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “Doubt that. It’s kind of just the thing you have to do, right? Someone’s losing everything right before your eyes, you kind of have to offer them help even if it’s not something you want to give.”

Jordan stood up with me. “I guess,” she said. “I mean, if you assume people don’t care about you. But you seem like a smart woman. I think you can tell when someone is just being polite and when people care about you. And you already know the answer, don’t you? You just want to throw yourself onto the sword and suffer nobly for what you’ve done.”

I gave her a look, a nervous tangle in my chest. Jordan scowled.

“It’s a lot easier to make yourself sad and think that’s penance than it is to actually make changes, make amends. But that’s not actually making up for it, and you’ll know that, so you’ll never feel better and always keep beating yourself up, forever. You and Giselle both deserve for you to address things and make it better instead of you just running away and kicking yourself forever.”

I swallowed, a nervous feeling turning in the pit of my stomach. “I, uh…”

She softened, giving me a lopsided smile. “Giselle’s my friend. And this whole thing really tore her up. So I want things to be better for her. You’re my friend, too. So I want things to be better for you. And look, usually things have to get worse before they get better! I know confronting this stuff sucks!” She put her hands up. “But it’s going to be better than running away forever and always making yourself miserable on purpose.”

Christ, I hated that she was right. I looked down, a heavy feeling in my limbs, like I was just so… damn… tired. Running away forever sounded nice. And maybe that was what I’d always been doing.

What would it even look like if I did the opposite? If I took everything that this nameless panic lacing through me was telling me to do, and I went in the exact other direction. I wasn’t na?ve enough to think it would lead to me and Giselle in each other’s arms again, but… but maybe Jordan knew what she was talking about. If I tried to stay, tried to set right what went wrong in my wake—maybe it wouldn’t work, but at least then I’d know that I tried.

I sighed. “You’re surprisingly mature sometimes.”

Jordan dropped her arms by her sides. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you taking shots right now?”

“Nah. You’re just… carefree. Don’t seem like the type to be carrying these big, heavy feelings yourself.”

Jordan scowled. “That just sounds like you’re trying to make it sound less like an insult.”

I laughed. “Maybe it’s just that you never practice.”

“Okay, that one I’ll give you. Maybe I should get on the ice just to make a point.”

“Your coach is going to be making a point out of you if you don’t.”

“I know,” she whined. “Okay, fine, I’m doing, like… fifteen minutes of practice. You be easy on your knee. I don’t want it to look like it’s my fault if you break something.”

Slowly, I sank back down onto the bench. “Yeah,” I said. “You know? I will. Take it easy on myself when it’s hurting, I mean.”

“You better,” she said, turning and taking off towards the rink. I stretched my leg out, feeling around my knee.

Tender. But nothing that wouldn’t heal.