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“Ok… I won’t. Just please…” he says, taking a small step forward again. “Let me explain what happened.”
“I see what happened. You didn’t have the balls to challenge my father and ask me out on a date, so you took the coward's way out and pretended to be someone else who I learned to trust. I told you things, Slade… things that I wouldn’t have said if I had known it was you,” I say, my arms gripping around each other as the wind blows harder against my wet pants. “I told Win things in confidence about you, and you used that to manipulate my thoughts and feelings to your advantage.”
He shakes his head.
“I never used Win to make me look better or to manipulate you into trusting me. Win was there to comfort you when I kept fucking up. And I know I fucked up Pen… Penelope.” He corrects himself quickly. “And you're right, I was a coward. I didn’t want to risk your father’s good opinion of me, but not because he might bench me. He’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a father and I was afraid to lose it. But I didn't realize that losing you was far worse. And I’ve lived with that decision for the last four years. And maybe if I had asked you out, you would have never agreed to that date with Sean and none of the next set of mistakes would have happened.”
He's blaming not dating him as the reason why I ended up without a skating partner.
Really?
“Right, because if you had been dating me, then you wouldn’t have acted like an asshole and threatened to beat Sean to a pulp just for asking me out. You couldn’t handle the jealousy? Is that what it was?” I ask, throwing up my hands.
I don’t want to listen to any more of his excuses. There are always excuses when it comes to him.
“That’s not what happened with Sean. That punk kid had to be dealt with.”
Of course, he’s not going to take responsibility for his actions.
“Then tell me what happened,” I demand.
“I can’t tell you, but I promise it was in defense of you. You deserve better than Sean Klein or any of those fucking jocks that thought they were going to come anywhere near you as long as I was around.”
So, he didn’t cock block me as my father’s class pet, he did it because he was mad he couldn’t date me. That might almost be worse.
All I know now is that I’m freezing cold, and there’s no emoji I could send Tessa to explain how I feel right now.
“You know what, Slade? Don’t come near me anymore. Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Don’t make up a fake email and weasel your way in again. I’m done with you… officially. You can’t be trusted.”
I start to skate around him and he reaches for my wrist to stop me. His fingers slide around my wrist, and I hate how well I know his touch and how, for a moment in time, I felt safe in them.
I whip a glare at him.
“I promise you that Sean’s intentions are not what you thought they were, and they weren’t meant for your benefit.”
“Then tell me what they were,” I challenge him because I know he’s full of it, and he’ll say anything at this point.
“It’s better that you don’t know.”
“Goodbye, Slade… for good this time.”
He releases me, and I skate off the rink, slipping on my blade covers. I don't bother to change into my shoes that I left under the bench. They’re soaked anyway, and the parking garage is only across the street.
I keep walking until I make it across the crosswalk and head under the cover of the parking garage.
I send off a text to Tessa with the steaming red face emoji and a broken heart emoji. This interaction deserves two.
“Sending Autumn up with cookies. Sending Lake and his lucky pregame pillow down to Briggs’s. Isla is dropping off Berkeley at Sunny’s. We’re here for you. See you soon.”
I look back to find Slade still watching me from the center ice. He hasn’t moved an inch since I left him. And that’s exactly where I want him to stay.
As far away from me as possible.
Slade
I watch as Penelope makes it safely across the crosswalk.
I wasn’t expecting a better outcome than that, but I was hoping for it nonetheless.
