I just won’t put her through it again.
She swallows, voice shaky with tears. “Are you sure? If you just explained, she’d understand. She loved—”
“Enough.”
I sound harsher than I mean to because it’s a plea, really.
I don’t want to be reminded of the fact I had the heart of this spectacular, wonderful, effervescent, brilliant person in my hands—this person who never really felt worthy of love because their brain was so cruel—took the edge of a dull skate blade, and systematically carved it up until there was nothing left of either of us.
That I’m the villain in her story, and I should be. I’m the villain in mine.
But every time I made Sloan bleed, I bled, too.
Bohdan
Then - College
“One, two, three, four, five, six,” Sloan whispers softly with each step of her feet on the library staircase, before she starts again. “One, two, three, four, five, six.”
“Are you counting?” I cut her a sideways look, laughing, and she stops, startled almost, left foot poised above the final step—six, according to her.
She does these funny things sometimes without realizing it—counting, tracing certain patterns, and tapping with her fingers.
I usually think it’s cute, but I get a good look at her in the low light of the library stairwell, and today, it seems like it might be bothering her.
Sloan blinks, column of her throat moving with a slow swallow, full lips parting at the Cupid’s bow. She shakes her head, hair tumbling around her shoulders. “No.”
“Sloan.” I start to laugh again and tip my chin towards her mouth. “I heard you.”
“It’s just a pattern,” she says quietly, hand fidgeting with the strap of her backpack before she turns away and starts up the rest of the stairs.
“There’s more than six steps,” I call after her, louder than I should because it’s early and we’re on a quiet floor.
I take two steps at a time, my quads still twinging from morning skate. I should have stayed and rolled out my muscles, but Sloan on a Saturday morning, the sunlight streaming in on her through the old paned windows of the library, isn’t something I like to miss.
We’ve spent almost every Saturday morning here after practice, unless I have an away game, for the last three months.
I’m supposed to study the way she does, nose wrinkled in concentration, eyes tracking the pages of her notes, different colours of pens and highlighters all strewn about beside her—different colours for different things—but I usually just watch her.
She always catches me with a roll of her eyes, cheeks turning pink, and she walks around the table, flips open my textbooks before pulling up my notes on my computer, because she has my passwords for everything—they’re all something to do with her—and reminds me how much I allegedly love the rocks I’m studying about.
We make deals some days.
A certain number of uninterrupted minutes of studying and she’ll let me kiss her in public.
If I’m really lucky, it’s a day her roommate’s gone, we go back to her dorm, and she lets me do all sorts of things that I can’t in a library.
“There’s more than six steps,” I repeat when I catch up to her. She’s sitting in her favourite chair, making a big show of straightening her pens. “Sloan, what were you counting?”
“I know.”
It’s all she says.
“Sloan—” I start, pulling out my chair and dropping my backpack on the floor beside the table.
She doesn’t look back up at me, and her voice wavers. “Study, Bohdan.”
“Will you let me come back to your room if I do?” I try grinning at her, dropping my voice the way she likes and leaning forward on the table.
