“Noah, please. I don’t wanna talk to you. I don’t wanna see you, and I definitely don’t want to hear all the excuses I am sure you have already prepared so that I would talk to you again. Hell, maybe I would talk to you. Maybe we could be acquaintances, if nothing else, but we could never be friends again.”

  Her words hurt. They felt like a sledgehammer to my chest, but I didn’t want to show it to her. I couldn’t lose my cool this time. I knew I would have to be patient.

  “Why not?”

  “Are you fucking serious right now?” She raised her voice, suddenly stopping.

  I whirled around, looking at her. “Dead serious, Soph.”

  “Well, where would you like me to start, Noah? Huh? Maybe I should start with the fact that for the past two years, I felt as if I was the only one trying to keep this friendship alive. Or maybe I should fucking start with that night at the carnival when you called me an attention-seeking whore?”

  “I never said that,” I gritted out.

  “No, but you meant it. What was it you said?” She was fuming. “Oh yeah. ‘You are so hungry for attention, Sophie, you would go with the first guy that showed you even a little bit of affection.’ Did I get it right, Noah? Or would you like me to repeat it?”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. I wanted to rip my own hair out, because she was right. I hadn’t been thinking. I had felt desperate, jealous, fucking angry because she wouldn’t even spare me a glance since that guy had introduced himself to her.

  He was Eric’s cousin, only visiting during the winter, but none of it mattered to me. The only thing I saw was that I was losing her.

  “Soph—”

  “I’m right, am I not, Noah? So no, you don’t get to barge back into my life just because you realized that you still wanted to be friends with me.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You know what’s the worst of all, Noah?” Her eyes filled with tears, playing with my sanity. “I loved you so much. I would’ve gone up to the sky and back again if you’d asked me to. I would’ve done anything for you, because you were one of the most important people to me.”

  “Sophie,” I choked out, unable to say anything else.

  Tears fell freely down her cheeks, her pale skin luminescent from where they passed.

  “But you didn’t want me or my love. You obviously felt differently than I did, because our friendship was important to me. You were important to me.”

  “And now?” I managed to utter, asking the dreaded question.

  “Now… Now you’re just a boy wearing the face of a person I used to know. Now you’re just a painful reminder that people we love, more often than not, don’t love us in the same way. And that’s okay, you know?” She sniffed. “Not everybody you meet will be worthy of your love, but I know better now. I know that I shouldn’t be wasting my time on friends who want nothing to do with me, and on boys who could bring nothing but a broken heart and years filled with pain.”

  If she shot me, it would’ve hurt less than her words.

  “So what you’re saying is—”

  “What I’m saying is that you can keep your words, and you can keep your apologies, because I don’t want them. I don’t want to be there at that place again where I wondered where I went wrong. I don’t want to spend another sleepless night, trying to understand what was so wrong with me talking to that guy, what made you say those things. And the worst part, Noah… The worst part is that you humiliated me. All our friends heard what you said. All your groupies snickered while I cried. I waited for you to talk to me. I waited for you to tell me what happened, but you never did. I spent an entire month waiting for you, and you never came. You forgot about me. You don’t get to just waltz back into my life as if what you said didn’t rip my heart out.”

  “Please, Sophie. I’m begging you. I would—”

  “No. You do know what that word means, Noah? Or did some other things change as well since we stopped talking? After all, you are the star athlete of our school, and I’m just an annoying little girl who isn’t worth it.”

  Fuck. Me.

  She saw that message. She saw that fucking message I sent in the moment when I missed her more than anything else, when the guys were talking about asking her out.

  “I’m late for practice, Noah, but I truly hope you have a nice life.”

  She didn’t wait for me to say anything else. She didn’t look back. She just walked away, leaving me behind like I always feared she would.

  5

  SOPHIE

  I was as familiar with physical pain as a kid was with their favorite toy. I knew how much a sprained ankle would hurt. I knew that the bruises on my thighs, my arms, and my stomach would slowly fade from that ugly purple color to the slightly red, until they finally blended with the color of my skin, leaving behind just a slightly darker patch until they completely disappeared.

  I knew pain because I couldn’t even remember how many times I fell and got up during my practices, and even my competitions. I could tell you that breaking my tibia a couple of years ago felt like I was dying, but even that pain was nothing compared to the one taking over my entire body.

  Most of the days, the pain of missing Noah was more of a hum deep in my stomach, just a reminder. Today that pain felt like a hurricane set on a path of destruction throughout my body, and I wasn’t sure if the urge to puke came from the pills I took earlier to suppress my headache, or because Noah managed to rip my heart apart all over again.

  No matter how many times I promised myself I wouldn’t go there, he still managed to make me feel so little, so irrelevant. All these feelings I’d been trying to push down and lock in a tiny box, suddenly escaped, coming up to the surface, reminding me every second of every hour how much it hurt losing your soulmate.

  Hearts were fragile things. Easily lovable, but easily breakable as well. To make matters worse, they were trusting, forgiving, keen to open their doors again for the person that hurt them, that made them bleed.

  I believed I stitched the wounds on my own heart when he stopped responding, when I decided to continue living my life as if he never existed, but in just one day, in just a couple of words, he managed to rip those stitches, and I was bleeding all over again.

  I saw how sincere he was. I saw how much he wanted to talk to me, but how could I go back to what we used to be when I wanted so much more? A lot more than he was willing to give. I would rather live without him, than have just one-half of him, while some other girl, that maybe didn’t even know him the way I did, got all of him.

  I knew it was selfish, thinking like this. Maybe it was childish, but there was only so much I could take, and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my own happiness. Not anymore.

  I knew my heart would survive. I just had to learn how to breathe again, how to live again, how to be happy without him.

  I bent down and laced my skates, breathing through my mouth, my stomach cramping, fighting the nausea swirling in my stomach. I should’ve eaten something before coming here, but the food in the cafeteria didn’t look appealing, and after the altercation with Noah, I just didn’t feel like eating anything.

  I’d spent that half an hour before my practice crying in an empty parking lot, hating myself, hating him, hating my own destiny. I kept myself together in front of Andrew because I knew he would go back and kick Noah’s ass if I told him what truly happened.

  Coach Liudmila would most probably ban me from entering the rink today if I told her that I didn’t eat and that my head threatened to burst open from the pain that went from being dull to a full-blown force.

  I placed my palms on top of my knees, squeezing my kneecaps, replacing the pain of my heart and soul with the bite of my nails into the skin over the leggings I wore. I couldn’t stay here much longer and considering that my shitty performance in the first half of practice didn’t make anyone happy, least of all me, I at least had to try to be better now.

  I had a competition next week—one of my last ones—and I’d be damned if I allowed Noah to take this away from me as well.

  I stumbled through the empty hallway, holding on to a wall, because whoever thought that walking in skates even with the blade covers was easy, was absolutely wrong. It felt like a mini earthquake with every step I took, but thankfully the entrance to the arena wasn’t too far away from the changing rooms.

  I could still remember the first day my mom brought me to the sports center. The Regional Championship was being held here, and for a five-year-old who dreamed of skating one day, seeing all those girls in their outfits, the music, the lights, and the crowd going crazy, was everything I ever wanted to have.

  The first time I stepped on the ice, shaking, insecure, and a little bit scared because I had no idea what I was doing, it was like coming home after a long vacation. Everything was new, yet it was as if my soul knew it would always come here.

  Mom thought I would get bored, that my fascination would die after a month or maybe a year, but here I was, thirteen years later, still in love with this place. There were days where I thought that it would be best to quit, because my mind waged a battle against my body, and no matter what I tried to do, it wouldn’t look how it was supposed to.

  But nothing good ever came without a little bit of blood, and a lot of sweat and tears. The talent I had could get me only so far. Practice, practice, and practice. I could almost hear my first coach, Ksenia, yelling at us from the sidelines with her harsh accent, hair tied up on top of her head in a neat bun, and facial features rivaling those of a princess.

  I could remember it all—every step, every win and loss, tears and laughter, days and nights spent here while my mom waited outside. And among those memories, Noah was in almost every single one of them. He was my biggest fan, my biggest supporter, and without him, I wasn’t sure if I would’ve kept trying to reach the title of Regional Champion three years ago.

  And now… Not only was he not here, but this, my second love, would soon be out of my reach.

  “Sophie!” Coach Liudmila thundered from her spot on the ice, standing right next to a girl who couldn’t have been more than eight years old. “You went all the way to Russia for the toilet or what?”

  “No.” I snickered slowly as I approached the rink. “I went to China but then they told me that they didn’t have any toilets available, so I had to jump all the way to Australia.”

  “Smartass,” she yelled out. “Come, come.” She waved at me. “Maggie here wanted to see you do the triple axel.”

  I almost choked as I reached the rink.

  “You’re feeling okay to do it, no?”

  No, I wasn’t feeling well enough to do it at all but refusing to do the move I’d been doing for the last four years would be a clear indication that something wasn’t right. Coach Liudmila has been with me for the last five years, and I had a feeling that this little presentation she wanted me to do had much deeper meaning than I wanted to think about.

  I was never one to miss practices, except that one time when I landed myself with pneumonia, confined to my house for almost a month. But with this new… revelation, I’d been missing a lot more practices. She knew that something was wrong.

  I was too much of a coward to tell her the truth, because telling her what was really going on would mean admitting that there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  “Sure.” I nodded, praying and hoping that I wouldn’t land on my ass, especially not in front of a little girl whom I’d seen around the rink, and who was always extremely nice to me.

  I’d been having difficulty with balance, even while walking, which was why I tried not to do any of my usual jumps during the first half of my practice today. It led to Liudmila yelling at top of her lungs, asking me if I actually came to do a fashion show or to do some skating today.

  Looking at this moment later, I wished I’d actually told her that I wasn’t feeling well enough. I wished I hadn’t tried to prove myself, because if I stepped back to reevaluate the situation, I wouldn’t have landed on my ass, bruising my ego more than my skin.

  The look on Liudmila’s face told me everything I needed to know—she knew I was full of shit.

  It wasn’t until I went out of the complex, waiting for Andrew to pick me up, that an all-too familiar black Camaro caught my attention. Its door opened, followed by a body I knew.

  He really couldn’t take a hint, could he?

  “I thought we both agreed to stay away from each other,” I yelled out, stopping a few feet away from his car.

  “No, Sophie. You talked, I listened. I’ve decided that you can pretend we would never be more than acquaintances for a little longer, but it doesn’t mean I would stop trying, or that I would stop being there for you.”

  Damn him.

  “I could always get a restraining order, you know?”

  “You could.” The bastard smirked. “But we both know you won’t. You wanna know why?” The audacity of this guy.

  “Why?” I rolled my eyes, dropping the bag on the floor.

  “Because you miss me as much as I miss you. I know you’re angry with me. I know you don’t want to talk to me, but we don’t have to talk in order to spend time together.”

  “That’s bullshit, Noah.” I hated that he actually had a point.

  “Maybe, but it’s the only option I have right now.”

  “You couldn’t have waited until we were at school so that you could, I don’t know, stand next to me or some shit like that?”

  “Oh no, because Bianca would most probably kill me if I even looked at you there.” He did have a point. “Besides, this way you won’t be able to escape.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Andy is picking—”

  “He’s not.” I could see him fighting the smug grin that was threatening to overtake his face, but he was failing.

  “What do you mean?” My eye was already twitching, knowing where this conversation would lead. “Andy isn’t coming?”

  “Nope.” He closed the door of his car and slowly came closer to me. God, even at this distance he towered over me, making me much smaller than I was. “You’re stuck with me, Soph, whether you like it or not.”

  I was going to kill Andy, or my mom, or both of them. Suffocate them during the night, something, anything, because I knew what this meant.

  Noah wasn’t giving up, and I secretly loved it.

  “Fine.” I huffed, too tired to fight with him. “But no talking, Noah. I swear to God, I don’t have enough power left in my body to talk to you.”

  “Okay. That’s okay. I just wanna take you home.” And I wanted to rip out my own heart, because it suddenly remembered how much we loved him.

  Stupid, stupid heart.

  Didn’t it know that he almost destroyed us once? Didn’t it know that no matter how much I loved the cerulean color of his eyes, I would never be able to call him mine?

  And I shouldn’t, especially not now. Maybe it was for the best what happened three months ago. Maybe this way I could save him from the heartache later.

  I picked up my bag and walked toward the car, ignoring the burning on the back of my neck from his stare. As soon as I slid inside, the smell of him enveloped me in the familiar hug—like cinnamon, coffee, and late autumn nights. I hated that my eyes immediately sought him, still standing there in front of the car, looking at the sky.

  I hated that I actually wanted to tell him all about my day, and about what was happening lately.

  I hated and loved that he was trying to fix this thing between us, when I would’ve been glad to know that he moved on with his life, forgetting everything about me. Because this, whatever he’d been trying to do, had an expiration date. I didn’t want him to be yet another person with tears in his eyes where stars used to be.

  After a minute, or maybe even longer, he slid inside, while I leaned to the side, pressing my forehead against the cold glass of the window, ignoring the fact that the tips of my fingers tingled from the need to touch him. I crossed my arms across my chest and closed my eyes, pushing myself to think about anything else but him.

  “Soph,” he started softly, almost apologetically. “I really am sorry, you know?”

  “I do, Noah. I do.”

  “Do you think that you would ever be able to forgive me?”

  A question with a million possible answers, yet only one bounced back and forth inside my head. I forgave him a long time ago, but it didn’t matter anymore. It was best to keep things on the down-low with him. It was much better for him.

  “Just drive, Noah. I wanna go home,” I murmured instead, avoiding his question.

  But that was what I did the best, wasn’t it? Avoiding things I didn’t want to think about.

  6

  SOPHIE

  I wished I could tell you the exact moment I fell in love with Noah Kincaid, but I guess that it was much like everything else in my life—sudden and out of my control.

  One day, he was just Noah, just my best friend, and the next one, I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, and his lips were the only thing I could think about. I could talk about a thousand other things I loved about him, but the one that was starting to make me really pissed was his determination to get things he wanted.

  No one would ever say that he was a quitter, and as I exited my house two days after that day from hell, he stood there on our front porch, leaning against the fence.

  “What in the fucking fuck are you doing here?”

  He wasn’t at school for the last two days, or at least I didn’t see him. I thought that the whole “I miss you speech” was just a way for him to sleep better at night.

  Apparently, I was wrong.

  “I’m taking you to school.” He said it matter-of-factly as if we did this every day.

  We used to, I wouldn’t lie, but it felt as if that happened in a previous life and not this one. On those days when he would take me to school, I would allow myself to pretend that the way he looked at me meant more than just friends. I allowed myself to daydream for those ten minutes we drove all the way from our home to reality, because I knew, somewhere deep in my heart, he would never be mine.

 

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