Chapter 84

Chapter 84

When he dropped to his knees like a horrible echo of the night he proposed to me five years earlier on the ice in Cleveland, once again all I could think was, No, please no.

We’d won, I was sure of it. This should have been the happiest moment of our lives. We should have been smiling and waving and skating to the kiss and cry, not sprawled across the ice. I should have been holding Heath’s hand, not clutching him to my chest as he coughed and spattered blood across the gleaming gold trim of my borrowed costume.

Not like this.

People rushed in around us—medics, officials, media, who knew. In all the chaos, Heath’s eyes never left me, like he wanted to make sure my face was the last thing he saw.

I refused to let go, even as hands emerged from the swarm around us to pry my fingers loose. I refused to believe this was really happening.

There was so much I hadn’t told him. I hadn’t told him how much I loved him, even when I hated him. I hadn’t told him that no matter how many changes I made to that old stone house where we grew up, where we fell apart, where we fell in love—I could never bring myself to touch the headboard where we’d carved our names.

We couldn’t end like this.