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He doesn’t stop to put on the skates he has strung over his shoulder. Instead, he walks up to the rink and carefully takes steps out onto the ice.
Finally, I can make out the flowers in his hands.
Pink peonies.
It’s Win.
Each step he takes brings him closer to me and I’m surprised at how well he’s doing walking on the ice. Most trained ice skaters can but Win never mentioned what kind of experience he has in a rink. I guess I never asked, and he never offered.
The rain beats down even harder with every minute that passes by.
Win surprises me by pulling back his hood and that’s the moment when I realize it’s not Win… it’s Slade.
“What are you doing here? And why do you have pink peonies flowers in your hand?” I ask, my eyebrows furrowed, watching the rain soak Slade’s hair, water dripping off his slightly crooked nose.
“Pen…”
There it is again. The nickname that only Win ever uses for me.
“Why do you keep calling me Pen? You’ve done it twice. And why are you here? Win is going to be here any minute,” I say.
What if Win sees Slade and bolts?
“I don’t even know how to say this,” he says, swallowing hard. “Pen… I am Win, and I should have told you sooner than this. I’m sorry. I didn't mean to lie to you or lead you on… it just sort of happened and then I didn't know how to stop it.”
He’s Win?
That’s impossible. Why would he say that?
“What are you talking about? You can’t be Win. Win is a 2.5 average GPA student who needed my tutoring help. You were a pre-med honor student. It couldn’t have been you,” I argue.
Why would he come out here and make this up?
Doesn’t he know that Win will be here soon? Then I’ll know he’s lying. But how did he know to bring the same flowers?
Slade takes a step closer, and I take a step back. He recognizes my retreat to his advance.
“I lied to you. I didn’t need your help with my classes. I just wanted an excuse to get close to you after that night at the frat house when I found out that you were Sam's daughter. I knew Sam wouldn’t allow me to date you so I found out that you were tutoring students in one of my professors' classes and I asked him for your email.”
He went to my professor?
“You mean that you knew my father would bench you, so you thought the next best thing to do was to trick me into thinking you were someone else?”
I think about any clues he could have given me. And then I consider the timeline of everything.
Win reached out after the night at the frat house, and his “Dear John” email came the day before Slade left. Win reappeared in my inbox a little while after Slade showed up in Seattle.
I feel stupid for not knowing it was him. And how quickly I fell for Win… but I did.
“Why would you do this to me?” I cry out over the loud rain that beats against the ice and the metal roofs around us.
Yet again, Slade found another way to hurt me.
He fabricated the perfect man, and the moment I fall for him, he rips it out of my grasp.
“Pen, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear—”
“Don’t call me Pen,” I bark.
