I’m halfway joking, but Mollie glances up at me, her cheeks bright pink. What does she need, a favor or something?
“You know what?” She clears her throat. “Never mind. I… I was going to ask you to film something, but we can do it tomorrow. There’s no reason to work on Sunday.”
Giving her a puzzled expression, I shrug. “If you say so.”
“I do.” Her gaze darts away. “See you around, Thorne.”
She heads to the front door of her apartment, scans her card and slips inside. I watch her go.
Then I walk Gordie down the block and find a comfortable spot on the stoop of an abandoned building. From here, I can watch her building. I tell myself I'm just making sure she got in safely. Beck would want me to check, I’m sure.
I tell myself a lot of things while sitting outside her building. None of them are the real reason I'm still here.
Mollie wanted to ask me something and then talked herself out of it. What was it?
I turn the possibilities over in my mind. Whatever she was going to ask me, she decided I couldn't handle it. She's probably right. But I can't stop wondering, anyway.
Chapter Three
Mollie
Sitting on the exam table with my left shoe and sock off, I shiver against the cold in the room. It's always so damn cold in here.
When my orthopedic surgeon pushes a box of tissues my way, I know he’s going to give me bad news. My stomach sinks.
"I'm sorry, but there's no way I can clear you to train for a competition." Dr. Burke's expression remains impassive as he sits in front of me on a rolling chair in his exam room. "I know it's not what you want to hear, Mollie. When you broke three bones in your ankle last year, my first assessment was that you would be very lucky to skate at the championship level again. I warned that the whole process would be a wait-and-see situation. In my opinion, you've healed well, but I wouldn't trust this ankle to land a lutz. Not yet. Maybe not ever."
My eyes fill with tears. I press my fingers against my eyelids, take a deep breath, and blow it out slowly.
This isn't what I needed today.
"Sorry," I mumble. "I know you prepared me. It's just hard to hear."
Dr. Burke nods, smiling kindly, and nudges the tissues again. "Take your time. We're talking about big things here. It's perfectly natural to feel upset."
I sniff. "The window to compete is so short. I keep hoping that I'll come here and magically be able to get on the ice, but... I haven't even walked on the ice in cleats since the accident. It's too scary."
"It's a common fear after this type of fracture. Even if people are physically able to skate, there are often serious mental blocks. I can give you the name of several sports therapists if you're interested in talking to someone."
I need that about as badly as I need another compound fracture. But I smile and nod as Dr. Burke runs over the physical therapy I still need and wraps up the appointment. I wipe my eyes for a final time as I walk out the door of the office. Not that I had especially high hopes for the day or anything. But Dr. Burke ground what little hope I did have into a superfine dust.
I sit in my car for several minutes, staring off into space, feeling oddly numb. My job with the Seattle Havoc is great. It's just not the life I planned.
Back at my building, I climb the four flights to my apartment, unlock the three deadbolts and shoulder inside. It's tiny, and drafty, and the fridge runs warm, but it's mine.
Every single thing in it, I paid for myself. That still counts for something. It's four hundred square feet of proof that I exist independently. I love it more than I've loved most things.
You know what I need? A little pep. Sure, my coffee maker is every bit as thirdhand as everything else in my apartment, but it'll make a micro pot of coffee atany hour of the day. Once I pull off the Post-it note reminding me to CALL MOM, I brew a pot and look through my socials as it percolates.
As I scroll through my feed, my attention snags on a twelve-year-old girl in a skating dress, doing smooth figure eights on a seemingly endless loop. I click on the girl's profile and see her doing Choctaws and Mohawks, and even toe loops and camel spins. She's good. I think that if my parents had let me have an Instagram at her age, I would've gotten into competitions faster, or at the very least found a coach sooner.
My throat tightens at the sudden flash of memory. Coach Savard, guiding me through the first series of jumps when I was twelve. How proud he was. How he told me I could do anything.
The way he said my name when I landed a particularly tricky jump.Mollie, chérie, like I was the only person on the ice. He was the first coach who made me feel like skating was mine and I wasn't just executing someone else's vision.
Coach Savard had this way of paying attention that felt like being held up rather than held down.He was the first person who saw me, I used to tell people.
How well that turned out. I taste bile in the back of my throat and push the memory away.
