AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I came here to apologize, Claire. But screw this. I can’t be worried about you when you don’t even care about yourself. I can’t… You make me scared…” he choked out.
I felt my tough facade soften a bit, but not by much. Why was he coming here making me feel guilty when he was the one who cut me loose? We had no loyalty toward each other. I had no responsibility to protect his feelings. He made sure of that.
“Duke,youbroke it off withme,” I yelled back at him. “You clearly don’t want to be with me, so why do you care so much?!”
That lit a fire in him. The veins in his neck bulged out as he yelled, “Because I do! I do want to be with you! I care because Ilove you, Claire! And I always will.”
A painful longing hit me in my chest with those words, and it took all of me to ignore them. Because that’s just it— they were just words to him. They didn’t carry any weight anymore because I knew he’d probably just contradict them in another hour.
I forced myself to laugh dryly at him. “Just stop. I’ve heard this before. How am I supposed to ever believe you?” I shook my head and skated to the boards to grab my water bottle, then gilded back toward him in the doorway to exit the rink.
He didn’t back away from where he stood, and I had to force myself past him. Being so close to him made my heart practically stop. Because I still wanted more than anything for him to pull me into a tight hug…
But that wasn’t going to happen.
I forced myself to hold onto my anger toward him. He was the one yanking my chain and destroying my mental peace, and I couldn’t do it anymore.
“You happy now? You got in my head,” I spat at him as I walked to the lobby entrance. “I only fall if I’m worried about falling, so thanks a lot.”
I wanted to walk away sassily with my hips sashaying, but my abdomen was still feeling tight and sore.
As soon as I pushed through the door to the lobby, I heard his voice murmur, “You’re welcome.”
I froze. Of course he needed the last word. Of fucking course. It was so tempting to turn around and lay into him, but what good would it do?
I pushed open the door and stalked into the lobby, leaving him behind.
I spent the rest of the day sitting in the front office grumpily punching skater’s timecards, thanks to Duke. Because he told my dad that I skated, and my dad went nuclear yelling at me.
I expected Duke to have a smug look on his face as my dad chewed me out in front of everyone, but he didn’t. He sat in the lobby with his hoodie pulled up over his buzz cut and he eyed me with a pained expression.
And then he wouldn't look at me the rest of the day.
______
The next morning, Duke was nowhere to be found. I inconspicuously searched for him through the day, but my pride stopped me from asking anyone where he was. I really should have worked up the courage to ask though, because secretly searching around for him gave me a twisted sense of deja-vu.
By the afternoon, I snooped on my dad’s master schedule, which detailed all his employee’s work hours. His name was still on the schedule for another three weeks, so I shouldn’t have been so weirded out by his sudden absence. But in my defense, I felt like he’d given my heart some sort of whiplash. The entire summer he was always around. He was always there to walk out of the rink with me– whether I wanted him to or not, really. And now his absence felt jarring, maddening even.
I had to repeat to myself a stupid mantra that I was overreacting as I powered through the most mundane work tasks, which I was given thanks to Duke. My dad was still pissed at me for skating, but it’s not like he could ground me or anything. Seeing as he was my boss too, he punished me in this way instead.
My problem though, was that every time I tried to complete one of these mundane tasks, kids kept stopping me… And it continued to happen all day long.
When I went to take out the lobby trash, a couple of U18 players grabbed it from me and started walking it back toward the dumpster for me.
“Uh… thanks?” I called out. They just nodded and kept moving.
When I started trying to re-rack the lighter weights in the workout room, a couple U16 players grabbed them from me and boxed me out so I couldn’t even reach the rack.
“Uh… excuse me,” I said with an edge to my voice.
But they wouldn't even make eye-contact with me, they just continued doing my job for me.
When I went to take the trash out of the weight room, another teen boy came up behind me and gently side-stepped me to take the trash bag away from my hand. He threw the bag over his shoulder and trotted off.
“That’s it!” I called out, making all the kids standing around look at me like I had a second head. “What the hell is going on?” I put my hands on my hips, waiting for an answer, but everyone kept their mouths shut and wouldn't make eye contact with me.
Until I spotted Canyon. He was goofing off with Troy in the corner.
