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I push forward, gliding across the ice. Excitement thrums inside me as I skate with pre-jump form. I place my skates perfectly and take off.
I’m only in the air for a fraction of a second. But while I am, my heart is soaring. I feel the freedom that hooked me from the very first jump I made as a little girl. It’s like I’m floating—no, like I’m flying.
A split second later, I’m back on the ice. I stick the landing, perfect form—and a sharp pain blasts through my right knee.
I try to find my footing with my left leg to pick up the slack as my right leg I landed on buckles, but I don’t manage. I fall forward onto the cold surface.
“Shit,” I grumble.
I roll over and sit up, holding my right knee. The pain is subsiding already, and even though it’s sore when I do so, I can bend it with full range of motion.
I’m okay. No further injury.
But I still couldn’t handle a freaking half Waltz jump.
My stomach sinks. I feel a slight prickling of warmth at the back of my eyeballs, and a pressure in my chest that feels like a sob struggling to come out.
But I take a deep breath, blink my eyes tightly a couple times, and push back the tears.
It sucks. It really, really sucks that I can’t even do that jump anymore.
But I keep breathing slowly, inhaling deeply, and letting it out in long, measured exhales. I keep myself from spiraling.
I know I can’t do what I used to be able to.
I’ve done a lot of work to make peace with that. I haven’t totally succeeded yet, but I’m working towards it. I was dumb to try to do something I know my body isn’t ready for.
Even physically, the healing process isn’t totally complete yet. I know I’ll never heal to the point that I can skate competitively again, but I may very well heal to the point where I can do a simple, controlled jump like the one I just attempted, and pull it off with all the form and finesse I used to be able to.
That day just isn’t today.
I get back up to my feet and skate over to one of the dasher boards to rest. When I get there, I hear a chatter coming from the entrance of the building.
Boisterous male voices. Young sounding.
As the voices get closer, my ears seem to zero-in on one voice in particular that’s mingled among them. A familiar voice; familiar enough to spark a feeling in my stomach that’s just a grade below nausea.
When the guys appear from the hallway leading from the front door, that feeling in my stomach gets upgraded to full-on nausea.
It’s him.
He stands about a head taller than the other guys he’s with, except for one other who’s just a couple inches shorter than him. The same thick, curly blonde hair he’s had for as long as I can remember spills from underneath a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey cap.
His shoulders are even broader than I remember, his arms more stacked with muscle, his chest wider, the muscular column of his neck thicker—but those bright, baby blue eyes are the same as ever.
The same as that time we first met at a hockey rink eerily similar to this one, twelve long years ago.
He’s laughing, his deep voice booming through the room. Then, he turns his head, and his eyes lock with mine.
His laughter stops, and a stunned look flashes across his face, his eyes going wide. Slowly, his brow inches up his forehead as his blue eyes gleam with recognition.
“Holy shit. Pheebs?”
2
HUNTER
My eyes are wide, my jaw slack, and I feel like I’m frozen in place as shock washes over me.
