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Chapter fourteen
My limbs shook with exhaustion from the beating I was giving and I was barely listening to Eli’s instructions as my skates slid smoothly on the ice, my already blurry vision wavering even more.
Everything about today seemed to be going to shit and it was clearly showing in my skating.
After a less-than-amazing doctor’s appointment this morning which showed that the special eye drops they’d prescribed upon my arrival had done little to slow my vision loss, we were now discussing a potential surgery in the next few months.
Then Enzo and I had gotten into an argument in the car about skating yet again. The doctor warned me that any head trauma could not only speed up my already accelerated vision loss, but it could also potentially put the surgery to stave off the vision loss on hold.
He wanted me to stop completely until after the surgery and I’d refused outright. Enzo would never understand the feeling of skating in the same way I did—the itch that filled me whenever I went too long without stepping onto the ice. I tried to explain it to him, but my stubborn alpha’s first priority was always my eyes.
From the time that my parents put me on the ice at five, hoping to have a talented son that could make all of the hardships they went through when they left Ukraine for Britain, skating had been everything to me.
I’d skated nearly every day of my life since then and could probably count on one hand all of the times I had to take a break. I hadn’t even gone to a regular secondary school or made any friends until I made it to University because of how much time I dedicated to my sport.
I’d spent so much time on the ice that it had made me painfully shy. It had taken a very handsome, very extroverted alpha with a wonky American accent to finally pull me out of it.
“Up!” Eli barked and I lifted off of the ice, my brain stalling at the last minute as I came down awkwardly on one shoulder as Enzo’s sharp words from this morning came to mind.
‘Babe, you can’t just ignore the fact that you’re going blind! Why are you running headlong toward it instead of trying to figure out ways to keep your eyesight for as long as possible?’
His voice still rang in my head as my arms and legs smarted from connecting with the ice.
We’d left the car in a sour mood with Leith trying to soothe the tension, but even a few hours later I was still peeved off.
He wasn’t the one who was actually dealing with this. I was.
But even as I thought those angry thoughts, I felt myself softening up almost immediately when I thought of my stubborn alpha.
Arsehole, I thought bitterly as I got up. He’s lucky I love him so much.
“Try some step work,” Eli called, his voice cutting through my inner thoughts.
That was fine by me. Step work I could do all day. Step work I could do in my sleep.
As I moved through the motions, my ears picked up conversation that was happening in the stands of the ice rink.
I’d quickly learned that one of the funny side effects of losing one of your senses was that all of the others seemed to grow in order to compensate for it.
It meant that my sense of smell, taste, and hearing were all heightened, and that I could pick out the specific words of the women snapping at each other even over the sound of my skates on the ice.
“I understand accommodations, Callaghan. But aren’t they supposed to make things fair and not give someone else an advantage. We all have to skate with multiple other people on the ice. That’s fair.”
That was the voice of the snooty blonde who always seemed to show up when it was my solo ice time.
My stomach flipped at the pure vitriol in her voice.
I hadn’t explicitly asked to have the ice to myself when we were discussing potential accommodations I would need to be an athlete at the Seattle Sports Complex.
It had been a pleasant surprise and one I’d fully intended on using, but it also seemed to be pissing off the other figure skaters who had to skate three to the rink at a time.
A familiar voice responded to the woman before she squawked: “What? You can’t kick us out!”
There was another, more muffled exchange, and then nothing until I saw a blurred figure dressed in a purple spandex figure skater’s outfit skating toward me.
I knew who it was even before she was close enough for me to pick out more details about her.
Eli barked something at Ciara, but I was too busy looking away from her, my face burning with embarrassment over the fact that she’d seen me at my worst.
