Page 116 of Summer Love

“So? Me neither. Just vote, who cares!”

“Okay. Anything but the skating one for me.”

Harper frowns.

“You used to be a pro skater, yeah? Maya mentioned it.”

“Championships, the Olympics, Team USA—yeah.”

“So what was it like? Because from the outside it looks…”

“Glamorous?”

“I was thinking more ‘brutal.’”

I nod. Harper’s an athlete. She gets it.

“It’s getting up at four thirty to be on the ice by five. Technique, programs, off-ice sessions, back to back. College classes crammed between practices. Homework on planes. And starting over the next day.”

I look down and go on.

“It’s Christmas at the rink. Vacations that don’t exist. Ankles that swell, a back that gives out… and you keep going, because the next competition is in three weeks and you’re not allowed to be tired.”

The side conversations die down. I feel everyone’s eyes on me.

“And even when you’re off the ice, you’re not free. You eat what you’re told. You sleep when you’re told. Your body’s a tool. And when the tool hurts, you keep quiet.”

Ruby unscrews her flask, takes a sip, says nothing.

“Your coach was your mom, right?” Sierra asks softly.

“My manager too. The one who decided everything.”

“That’s… a lot for one person,” Maya says.

“My parents divorced when I was four. My dad’s a literature professor. Gentle, loving… but always buried in his books. So my mom took over. She saw I had talent. She built my whole life around skating.”

I look at my hands. These fingers that laced skates, took the falls, hundreds of hours of it.

“All year, I did what she wanted. The schedules, the competitions, the diets, the extra coaches. And in exchange… I got Coral Bay. The deal was simple: ‘If you want to come back next summer, you do what I say.’”

Chiara winces.

“And it worked,” I say. “Because Coral Bay was the only place I had friends. The only place where no one asked me to jump, to spin, to weigh in, to perform. When I was little, I spent two months here, at my grandparents’. When skating got more serious, a month. Then three weeks. The last year, I got two weeks. And I had to leave a few days before the end.”

It was the only place I ever felt at home in my whole life.

No one in the circle moves. The only sound is Noah’s wrench.

“You lived to come here,” Sierra says, her brown eyes locked on mine.

It’s not a question.

“Yes. All year long.”

“And that’s where you learned to surf,” Harper guesses.

I smile. I remember the burning sand under my bare feet, the smell of salt air and sunscreen.