I was glad she went to him first.
32
REECE
“You did good, kid,” Lily said before she forced me into one of her rare hugs. “Was it strange to be back out there after such a long time?”
I sighed, nodding softly before I pulled away from our hug. “I feel kind of bad about it.”
“Why?” Her eyebrows drew together. “It’s normal to be nervous after?—”
“That’s the thing, I wasn’t nervous. I felt indifferent. Honestly, I thought I’d feel like dying because of my nerves but I was surprisingly calm about it all.”
“Because you don’t have anything to lose. You don’t care about figure skating,” she said.
“But Brooke cares. This is so important to her. She wants to go to nationals. I should feelsomething. If I’m not excited or nervous, how good can I really be for her?” I raked a hand through my hair in frustration. “I saw our points. We did pretty well, so I should be happy. I should be excited. If nothing goes wrong, we might even be in the top three today. But there’s nothing.”
Lily tilted her head at me. “Well, I’m sureyou’re excitedforBrooke. You’re just not excited for yourself because figure skating isn’tyourthing. It’s hers.”
I hadn’t considered that to be a possibility.
I was happy for Brooke. She did amazing, and I knew she was super relieved that we’d gotten such a high score. It just threw me off that I hadn’t felt a single ounce of accomplishment for myself. No pride. It felt more like a task I got done.
One of many tasks.
“Is Colin here?” I asked. Talking about how indifferent I felt was pointless. It wasn’t going to change and there was nothing I could do about it.
Lily shook her head. “He’s at practice. But I recorded everything so I can show him later.” She got up onto her tiptoes, laid her hand on my head, and started messing up my hair like she used to do when I was younger. “Ah, he’ll be so proud.”
I swatted her hand away. “Hey, I’m an adult now. My sister-in-law is no longer allowed to mess up my hair.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You lived in my house for seven years. I helped you hide your bad grades from your brother. If I want to mess up your hair, I’ll do that.”
Brooke had tears in her eyes, yet I still felt indifferent.
Even as we were sure we were in the top three, standing on the edge of the rink and waiting for the judges to announce the third place, I felt nothing. Sure, we could’ve placed way lower, so low that we weren’t even worth mentioning, but my gut feeling knew we were somewhere in the top three.
After a while, figure skaters could easily determine where they were ranked—if only an estimated rank. Multiple factors made it easy to figure it out.
Our performance and the crowd’s reaction were too good not to be ranked at all, so we had to have been in the top three. I wasn’t even really anticipating finding out what place we got.
I knew I was supposed to be excited and scared at the same time. I used to feel those once upon a time, but not anymore. My heart was with ice hockey, and no matter how hard I tried to be excited to have placed this high on the first try, I just couldn’t feel anything.
In the back of my mind, I was grieving my hockey career. When I offered to be Brooke’s partner, I knew what I was getting myself into, but it only just dawned on me.
I was missing our fifth game this season. And it was the second game I missed because of figure skating. I hadn’t even told Brooke because I knew she’d feel bad if she knew.
While I wasn’t planning on joining the draft next year, scouts’ eyes were still on me. Colin told me the teams were watching me, if only because of my last name. What if he was right and they now noticed how I was skipping out on games and being the worst teammateever?
What if that was why Pike thought it was better had I been single?
No distractions.
No putting hockey last.
I loved Brooke more than anything, but fuck, knowing I was voluntarily risking my career, something I’d been dreaming of since I was a kid, just to make her happy was sitting heavy in my stomach.
I’d be happy for her, I’d celebrate her victories with her, for her, but what about me? What about my dreams?
