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“For what?”
“Skating, Dad. She asked me to be her pairs partner for some events now that US Figure Skating allows that, I guess. I don’t know why she picked me. I haven’t skated competitively since I was a teenager. I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that I’m here, and to her, I look available. She knows I’ve kept up with it; I just don’t skate professionally.”
“What did you tell her?”
“No, obviously.” Belle stood up. “I should go and just tell her again if she’s going to ask a second time. I thought I gave a pretty strong hint when I very directly told her no.”
“Are you sure you want to say no?”
“What? Of course, I am. You know what happened back then.”
“I do. But you’re not teenagers anymore, Belle. I’m sure she regrets what she did.”
“Does she? I haven’t heard her apologize yet, and she’s had her chances.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know how.”
“How to say she’s sorry for making it look like I was some baby lesbian aggressor when she was the one who connected her lips to mine and then laughed at me repeatedly for weeks with the other girls while they all picked on me relentlessly? They took my clothes when I was in the shower, Dad. They put them in the toilet. She was there. Chandler participated in that. They told the coaches they didn’t want to change in the same locker room with me anymore. I was fourteen years old. I had no friends outside of skating. And after that, all of those were gone, too. Then, Mom–” Belle stopped herself. “It doesn’t matter. I’m over it.” She shook her head.
“Yeah, seems like it,” her dad said sarcastically.
“She’s technically a paying customer, so I’ll go out there and talk to her, but, hopefully, it’s just to say goodbye or something because we knew each other once. I’ll be right back, and we can go over the end-of-month stuff.”
“Take your time. I’ve got no place else to be.”
Belle nodded and walked out of her father’s office, grabbing her phone from her own on the way back out to where she expected Chandler to be by the concession stand. She found her in the arcade instead, playing a game of pinball and losing terribly from what her grunts and groans sounded like.
“Chandler,” she said. “You wanted to see me?”
“Oh,” Chandler uttered and turned just as the ball fell down, and she lost. “Shit.”
“You really love pinball, huh?”
“What?” She looked over at Belle in confusion. “No, I was just killing time until you came out here.”
“So, you’re that competitive in all things?” Belle asked.
“I used to play pinball in an arcade down the street from–”
“The High-Performance Skate rink?” Belle finished. “Yeah, I remember. The pizza place a few blocks away, right?”
“Yeah,” Chandler replied and looked over toward the ice. “It’s over.”
“The competition?”
“Yeah,” Chandler repeated softly.
“Are you okay?” Belle checked then. “You look a little dazed. Did you forget to eat today or something?”
“No, I ate,” the woman replied a little defensively. “Can we sit somewhere?”
“There are tables by the concession stand,” she suggested.
“Don’t you have an office? There are still a lot of people out here.”
“Sure. We can go back there. But you risk my dad walking in on us, and he is not your biggest fan.”
“Oh,” Chandler replied. “Wait. You told him?”
