That made him smile. “I had to be good at something.Nathan was always the insanely smart one. I had to have my thing, too, or I would have felt completely inferior instead of just slightly not good enough.”
“Your brother sounds like your opposite, huh?” I asked carefully.
The last time I’d tried to bring up his family, he’d changed the topic abruptly. But I was desperate to learn more about him other than the cheery, charming guy he was on the surface.
His eyes met mine before he looked away. He spun around so that he was skating in the same direction as me and held out his arm so I could thread mine through it for balance. He kept his pace slow so that I wouldn’t be left behind or forced to go faster than I was comfortable with.
“Nathan and I have never been anything alike. I’m not sure if we were born that way or if it was the product of how our parents raised us…” His voice trailed off. “But you have a sister. I probably don’t need to tell you about sibling rivalry.”
Something about the pain in his voice told me that his childhood was likely far from the typical sibling rivalry. I decided to tread carefully so that I wouldn’t scare him off.
“Mattie and I were competitive, sure. She was two grades above me and we’d compete over friends or sports. We were both on student government, but she would always be above me. I felt like I had to work twice as hard to get where she was, even though I should have recognized that she was older and it wasn’t a competition.” I licked my lips, glancing over to see him looking lost in thought, staring straight ahead. “But my parents always nipped any real rivalries right in the bud. They didn’t want us fighting or competing. They always told us they were proud no matter what and that we should be celebrating each other instead of challenging. Of course, we were still sisters so we didn’t always listen. I would still steal her clothes,and Mattie still always acted like she knew best, but at the end of the day, we knew we had each other’s backs. My parents too.”
I was oversharing, especially considering this was technically a first date. But this was Oliver. He’d already seen more of me than I’d let anyone see in a long time. I was desperate for him to feel comfortable enough with me to share something—anything—real.
“They sound great,” Oliver said softly. His voice was more cautious than it normally was. I wanted to push, but I also felt like I was two questions away from him snapping out of whatever this was, cracking a joke, and skating away from me.
“Were your parents…not great?” I asked, tired of dancing around the question I was dying to know the answer to.
“Let’s just say while your parents nurtured your relationship with Mattie, my parents pitted Nathan and me against each other.” Oliver’s eyes looked glassy.
My heart twisted at his admittance. “That’s awful,” I said.
Oliver blew out a pained breath. “It was just the way that they were. My dad is kind of an ass. He always only cared about work, and he saw Nathan as his prodigy or something. Nathan was basically a genius. Like, I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that he’s the most logical person you’ll ever meet. My dad always pushed the hell out of him.”
“And you?” I choked out.
Oliver shook his head. “I never had much of a relationship with my dad.”
The sounds of our skates scraping up the ice filled the air as I waited for him to continue.
“He’s just… He never cared about me. Never cared what I did. My grades were never all that good, and that was all he seemed to care about. My mom was always the one cheering me on. I was grateful for it, but it made me feel…weird. She wasmore standoffish with Nathan and my dad. It was like it was her and me against them. I don’t know. I didn’t realize how not normal that was until I moved out.”
“At least she supported you,” I said quietly, although it seemed like they’d had some kind of unhealthy codependent thing going on when he was younger.
He rubbed his free hand along his jaw and sighed. Our pace had picked up a little. Skating was even easier when I wasn’t thinking about it and was instead completely invested in whatever bits Oliver was willing to share with me.
“I don’t know if she supported me or just wanted me on her side. The whole thing makes me feel weird, and now our relationship is a little tense.”
“But you’re close with Nathan now, right?” I asked.
“I am. I didn’t know how to connect with him for years, but after he moved out here, we were finally able to talk and get to know each other without our parents breathing down our necks. I haven’t really figured things out with my mom, but at least I feel like Nathan and I are in it together now. And I might just have to be okay with who she is. Maybe she isn’t a perfect parent, but at least she still calls us, ya know? And it’s clear she’s trying harder with Nathan.”
“Your dad doesn’t try?” I guessed.
“He calls Nathan sometimes, but I think all of Nathan’s success almost irritates him. Like he wanted him to do well, but not significantly better than him. He divorced my mom a while back—honestly, we were shocked it took them so long, but I don’t think either of them wanted to deal with custody arrangements when we were younger. Anyway, I haven’t talked to my dad in over a year and I couldn’t care less.”
“That’s hard, Oliver,” I said, unable to keep the thickness out of my voice.
Something about my words seemed to snap Oliver out ofhis daze because he immediately shook his dark waves and threw a smile on his face. “Not as hard as ice-skating is, apparently. You look like a drunk baby giraffe out here.”
My cheeks flushed instantly. Not because I was offended—I knew I sucked at this—but because of the way he so smoothly returned to his lighthearted self. It was if I had imagined him opening up a moment ago.
“I’m doing fine,” I insisted. “Look.” I let go of his hand for a few glides. “See?”
He tossed his head back and chuckled. “You’re basically skating circles around me.”
“Now back to the conversation,” I continued.
