AllFreeNovel
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Idream of sunshine. A glittering, outdoor ice rink, completely smooth. Ready to be carved up by skates.
Aurora.
She’s standing on the ice in hockey gear, a stick in her hand and pucks spread out around her bare feet. Her toenails are painted pink, the skin around them turning blue. She doesn’t look the least bit cold, though.
“Come on,” she goads. “You wanna go?”
“Your bedroom or mine?”
Her cheeks flame. Pretty little thing. Her red hair just makes her flush stand out more. The cold is creating a beautiful dichotomy on her skin. Pale and cherry red. She adjusts her stick and steps to the side, sliding on the ice like she was born for it. Even barefoot.
I step out onto the rink after her. The bite of cold travels up from the soles of my bare feet, zinging straight up my legs.
“It’s not that bad,” she whispers, suddenly in front of me. “It’s like an elephant sitting on your chest.”
I blink at her. “What is?”
“The ice. If you get used to breathing with the elephant, it just helps life go on. Instead of thinking you’re abnormal, or…” She laces her fingers with mine. “Orcold.”
“I’m not cold.”
She cracks a smile. “I thought I was the liar.”
The sunshine fades. The sky grows dark around us. “You are the liar.”
She slips away from me, taking a puck and shooting toward the far side. There’s a goal I hadn’t noticed there before. And a boy in the goal. He’s younger than both of us, closer to how I remember leaving him when I went to college.
He blocks her shot and takes off his helmet, shaking out his hair.
“Nice try, Sunny.”
That’s what I call her.
Nice try, Sunny. It echoes in my brother’s voice, coming at me from all sides. Even as Aurora drifts closer to him, shooting again. And again. And again.
He doesn’t stop them all, but he tries.
She can skate circles around us.
I follow her. There’s a stick on the ice, and I pick it up. It’s got her style of tape on the handle, something I used to hate but now can’t skate without. It freezes my fingertips. “Is this what you feel?”
“No,” she calls back. “I feel the elephant.”
I don’t know what that means.
Not until something knocks me flat on my back and a heavy weight lands on my chest. I can’t breathe. I lose the stick, flailing helplessly on the ice. I gasp, but no air comes to my burning lungs.
“Like that,” she says, stopping over me.
Miles looks down at me from her other side. “He can’t breathe.”
His tone is clinical but not alarmed.
“I know,” Aurora answers. “But he’ll get used to it.”
I wake up in a sweat, gasping for air.
“You’re okay.” She brushes my hair off my forehead. “Breathe, Knox.”
