Page 75 of Crack the Ice

I nod my head at Cade, who’s sitting across from me. The right corner of his lip ticks up into a partial smile, a move I’ve realized happens when he’s grateful for something. “Hawaiian chicken and pineapple. I found it on the internet. Pin something.”

“Pinterest?” Lettie asks.

He nods, shoveling another bite into his own mouth.

“He’s got a whole cookbook he wants to work through. He made most of it. I just helped with the sauce,” I add.

“It’s delicious.” Lucas’ blond hair is down today and out of his usual man bun. “If your hockey career doesn’t work out, which it will, you could be a chef. Maybe a team chef.”

Cade snorts, rolling his eyes like a typical teen. I watch as he and Lucas verbally spar back and forth. Mav’s hand finds my knee under the table, softly squeezing before he pulls it back. Something sparks to life in my chest, like a long-forgotten memory.

When we’re done, Lily wants to show Kait and Lettie her new room, and Mav and Lucas go play some new video game with Cade in his room, leaving my brother and me to do the dishes.

“Are you okay with all this?” he asks as he takes a dish from me to dry and puts it in the rack.

“It’s more than I thought I could ever have, Markus.”

He’s silent for a moment, but then grabs my shoulders and turns me toward him. “What does that mean? Why couldn’t you have had this?”

Tingles pinch at my throat, his entire face softening when my eyes meet his. “We planned this whole big life together before you got traded to the Hawks.”

His brows furrow. “You weren’t together because of me?”

My head slowly shakes. I don’t want him to think that. I left before he officially got traded, though I knew it was coming. “No. A few months before you came down here, I found out I had cervical cancer.”

He gasps, his hands immediately circle my wrists as his eyes beg me to tell him something good.

“It’s gone, I had surgery, but...”

His eyes bounce all over my face before I see him come to the realization on his own. “You can’t have kids.”

I shake my head, a tear trailing down my cheek, and he reaches up and swipes it away.

“He wanted them so bad. I wanted them so bad.” I pause, swallowing hard enough to try to move the rock sitting in my throat. “There was no chance for me to have them anymore. He’d already lost enough, so had you and our parents.”

My brother shakes his head, his hands balling into fists at his side.

“So I had the surgery while he was out of town, you weren’t here yet, and Mami and Papi were busy with New York Fashion Week. I hired a nurse. Her name was Ashley, and she took care of me until I could walk without bending over, and then I left. I needed to leave. I couldn’t put that on any of you.”

“Bloody hell, Cecy.” His voice shakes as tears build in his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I wish you would’ve come to me, told Mamí and Papi, anyone, so you didn’t have to go through that alone.” His arms wrap around me, pulling me into him, squeezing tight enough that a squeak escapes me. “I can’t imagine how devastated you were.”

We stay like that for a beat, wrapped in a comfort that only comes from letting your sibling in on your deepest source of pain. It’s freeing in a way that makes me wish I would have done it years ago. But Mav deserved to know before anyone, and I had no intention of telling him.

“Cecy, I’m sorry you went through that, but I’m honestly real bloody pissed at you right now.” His hand pushes through his hair, pulling at the bit on the nape of his neck. “I get what you were trying to do, but you may have hurt him more by taking away his ability to ask you to stay. And I know you hurt yourself more than you needed to.”

His laugh is soft, a mix of self-deprecating yet hopeful as he follows up with, “Have you not learned anything from watching me punish myself all these years?”

I stare up at him, seeing it in real time, the way his eyes shine a little brighter, his demeanor softer than it’s been since we moved here from Spain. He finally did it. He let go of the guilt from his past. He’s happier, better, stronger.

I hope that I get to that point one day, because some days I still do hate myself more than I let on. For my body's failure and for the way I let it dictate my life after.

“I need to make sure that you’re doing this for you. Not him, not them. You.”

Taking a deep breath, I hold it, letting it burn the inside of my chest before I blow it out. “It was for them at first, I won’t lie. I didn’t want them to suffer too.”

“They wouldn’t have, Cecy. They can’t get taken from him unless there’s some big extenuating circumstance or they’re being abused.”

Logically, I know that. My brain, however, runs on lists of worst-case scenarios and tries to figure out an answer before a single one of them can even happen. Somehow, every answer it comes up with is at my expense. “But they could say they were if they had to keep being shuffled around. That’s no way for them to live, bouncing from one place to the next.”