Breaking the Ice, page 8
I can’t say.
“Hunter, I love you,” I tell my brother, “but I can’t talk about this anymore. And unless you want to deal with a crying little sister, I suggest you go inside.”
Hunter gently places his big hand on my back. “I don’t care about seeing you cry. It’s better than you crying alone. But you need to forgive yourself for the accident. The coach said it wasn’t your fault. Bea forgave you a long time ago. Even Bea’s parents said it wasn’t on you.”
“Not her brother,” I mutter, but I assume Hunter hasn’t heard me because he doesn’t react. “Not the other coach.”
“Please, Harper,” he says softly. I never thought it was possible to feel your heart breaking, but now I feel like my insides are splintering apart, and I’m too exhausted to keep the tears in.
And so I cry on Hunter’s shoulder until I have no more tears, until he brings me inside to make me a cup of tea and cover me in warm blankets.
And yet, I know I’m still not going back on the ice.
* * *
The next day at school, I avoid Jason, Bea, Brian, and really everyone else. I eat lunch in the stairway. I spend my free period in the quiet room of the library. When school is over, I wait until everyone leaves before I head home. And I keep my phone off so I’m not tempted to check for messages. By now they’ve probably heard that I quit the program, but hopefully I can give them a few days and they won’t be mad at me.
It’s unlikely, but possible.
Once at home, I get in my comfiest clothing and then bury myself under blankets and turn on the TV. I know I’ll have homework to do soon, but in the meantime, I’m just going to watch the screen and pretend I’m not here.
I’m finally, totally peaced out on the couch when I hear someone knocking on the door of the TV room. I roll my eyes. Mom would never knock on the door, but I can totally see one of my brothers doing it just to be annoying.
“Get out or I’ll be forced to give you a noogie,” I warn without looking up.
“Uh, sorry?” a voice says. It’s a voice that definitely does not belong to one of my brothers.
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.
“Uh, come in,” I say, sitting up and trying to make my voice sound friendly.
I’m trying to figure out what I’m most freaked out by: that Jason is in my house, or that I just threatened to give him a noogie.
Honestly? It’s a close tie.
“Hey,” Jason says, and his voice is kind of squeaky, like maybe he’s just as nervous about this as I am?
“How did you get . . .” I pause because I can’t figure out how to make that not sound rude. I mean, I know he didn’t just walk in the door and make himself at home.
“Your brother? Or rather, brothers? I asked if they wanted to tell you I was here, but they said you were in here and that I should just come on in.”
I’m totally going to kill them in their sleep. Though that might be too nice.
“I guess I should have known better.” He laughs and it’s a million kinds of cute, but oh my god, I can’t be thinking that.
I’m not interested in Jason like that.
I’m not.
And I look and feel like a dumpster fire.
This is not good.
“Um, I can come back another time,” Jason says, probably seeing my hesitation. “Or see you at the rink another day. Or—”
“No, no.” Suddenly, the one thing I’m sure about is that Jason is in my house and I don’t want him to leave. It doesn’t make sense. He knows that I’ve screwed up and yet . . . “I can get you some cookies. Or water? Or . . .”
Isn’t Mom or Dad supposed to be doing this? They’re always the ones who offer guests food and drinks. And plus, there’s a boy, in this room with me? Isn’t Mom supposed to be all worried and start showing up to check on us?
“I’m not hungry,” he says. “But I’ll have some water?”
“Sure!” My voice is too happy, but who cares, because I’m pulling myself out of the couch (brothers were right: Too much sitting on the couch does make one become part of the couch) and trying to ignore what I must look like after hours of vegging in front of the TV. Luckily, I’m wearing yoga pants and a long-sleeve shirt, which would be totally appropriate outside the house as well.
Okay, fine. Mostly appropriate.
Five minutes later, Jason and I are sitting at the kitchen table, munching on cookies and drinking tea. All courtesy of Mom, who finally realized what was going on and swooped down to help. Her presence also gave me a chance to duck into my room to pull on some warm socks and an extra-large sweatshirt.
“I like your house,” Jason says, just as I say, “Were you at the rink today?”
And then we both say, “No, you,” when trying to figure out who should be speaking.
We’re like characters in a bad rom-com movie, and there’s so much tension that it’s painful.
Except, we’re friends. We’ve spent time together at the rink or at school and never had a hard time talking. We shouldn’t feel like this now.
“Yeah, I stopped by the rink after school,” Jason finally says. “I heard you’re not coming back to the mentorship program. What happened?”
The cookie I’m chewing gets lodged in my throat, and I don’t want to do that coughing and sputtering thing, so I try to swallow hard a few times and gulp some water down.
“Um, yes.” Excellent response, Harper. Way to answer the question.
I struggle and then give up trying to make the story into something cohesive. “I should never have been a mentor. I say the wrong things and I showed Bronte this warm-up routine but I might have forgotten to tell her that she should only do it once and now she’s limping—”
Jason shakes his head. “Bronte was at the rink today, too. I heard her tell Mr. Robertson that you did tell her to do the warm-up only once. And that she’d tripped on the way home, and that’s why she was limping. She said she was hoping that her dad wouldn’t notice her limping because he might not let her go to her session with you. She didn’t realize that he’d think it was because of you.”
There’s all this stuff swirling around in my belly, and I can’t think straight. “I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or trying to cover for me,” I blurt. “But it’s so typical: I jump in like I know everything. And that’s a bad thing in a mentor. But I wanted to do it. Even though I didn’t say yes at first, deep down, I wanted this. There was some stuff that happened last season. I used to be part of the team and then . . . well, then I decided I didn’t want to play hockey anymore, and it’s hard. Because I’ve always played hockey, that’s who I was. My brothers play hockey. All three of them dream of playing for the NHL, and my dream was to play hockey in the Olympics, but . . .”
Jason is looking at me intently. I’m wondering if he’s going to interrupt, say something, but his lips are staying closed.
I really shouldn’t be paying that much attention to his lips.
I keep talking. “I used to be the captain of the team. But there was an accident a couple of months ago.” I pause, but he’s still listening. Most people I know would be asking questions, trying to get the scoop, hear the details. But Jason is just patiently listening. And so, I go on. “The accident was my fault. All I wanted to do was score on the net and I wasn’t paying attention to who was around me. I don’t know if you know, but in girls’ hockey, you can’t check someone into the boards. And it’s always been something that has annoyed me because checking someone in hockey is, like, part of the game. Even in women’s professional hockey, you can’t. But we’d try to get away with it sometimes, when the referee wasn’t looking.”
This is the part I hate. I could just tell him what I told everyone else, what everyone else thinks. But now that the words are coming out, I can’t seem to mold them into the ones they should be. I don’t have the strength to lie.
“I could feel someone gaining on me and I swung my stick to hit the puck out of her way, and with my other hand I shoved her away. And this is the worst part. When I did it, it felt good. Like, I remember thinking, if I get a penalty for this, it’ll be worth it because this is what hockey is supposed to feel like. And then I kept skating but something felt different. When you’re playing, between the sound of the skates on the ice and the stick hitting the puck and everyone yelling, it’s so noisy, you almost have to zone out. But suddenly, it was quiet. Like someone turned down the volume. And I took the shot but the goalie wasn’t paying attention and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. It didn’t make sense. And that’s when I turned around and saw that it had been my own teammate that I’d shoved away. And now she was lying on the ice.”
I realize my face is all wet, but I don’t care. I’ve been trying so hard to keep this story from Jason, but it was a lost cause. He was always going to find out. At least now I don’t need to hide it anymore.
“But Bea was okay,” he says softly.
I look up at him, confused. “How did you know it was Bea?”
“Because I’d heard about the accident.”
“Then why . . . why did you let me tell you all this stuff?” My voice is getting higher and higher, but I don’t care. Was this fun for him? Watching me cry? Seeing me dredge up all the old memories? I try to get up, but Jason puts his hand on my arm to stop me. I could shake it off with no problem. I could storm out. But I don’t.
“There are always going to be accidents,” he says, and I shake my head wildly.
“She had a concussion. She spent a month in her room, basically in the dark.”
“You know that hockey can be dangerous—”
“Hey!” I hate the hockey is dangerous argument. It’s often why parents stop their kids from playing. And yes, being in the NHL is dangerous. But kids’ hockey shouldn’t be more dangerous than playing soccer or basketball or anything else.
Jason holds up his hands, as though that could placate me. “Let me try again. Sports can be dangerous. Being on the ice can be dangerous, whether you’re playing hockey or speed skating or figure skating! Of all people, I should know that.”
I take a few deep breaths. “What do you mean that you of all people should know?”
There’s a long pause, and Jason turns his face away. For a moment, it feels like neither of us is breathing, like maybe there isn’t enough oxygen in the room.
“I’m a pairs skater,” he says. “One day, I’ll need to be able to spin my partner around, throw her in the air, balance her in these complicated poses.”
There’s a flat quality to his voice, a bitterness that I’ve never heard in his tone.
“Did something happen?” The words come out of my mouth before I have a chance to look at them carefully, to examine whether they’re the right ones, whether they’re the ones I want to be using.
He shakes his head, but it’s a movement so tight, it’s possible I just see what I want to see.
And so, using superhero strength on my part, I don’t say a word. I let him speak.
“There are all kinds of ways to become a pairs skating team,” he says slowly. “Some people start off knowing they want to be pairs skaters, others start off thinking they want to be solo and then get the bug. Sometimes you’re paired by your coach, other times it just kind of happens naturally. For me and Carly, we always knew we wanted to be pairs skaters. We were kind of like you and Bea: best friends who’d been skating together since we were little. Our parents actually enrolled us in skating together. According to Carly’s mom, the first day of class, Carly was too terrified to even get on the ice, so I took her hand, and even when the teacher tried to separate us, I wouldn’t move from beside her.”
His voice is wistful, and I feel an irrational amount of jealousy toward this Carly person. But I brush it off and focus on Jason.
“When you start training as a pair,” he says, “you do really simple things. It takes a while, years often, to get to the point that you’re doing any holds or jumps together. You need to wait until the guy is strong enough to lift and maintain his hold on his partner. It’s only around our age that you really start doing the special stuff. And that’s not so much because of the female skater, but rather the male skater.”
He stares at me as if this should make perfect sense, and I want it to. I don’t want him to have to spell it all out for me, but I’m a hockey player and . . . I know nothing about his sport.
“To do lifts and spins and throws and all those things, the guy needs to be strong enough. Pairs skating is hard on both skaters, it’s equal in that respect. But the guy needs to have a lot of strength.”
I nod, still not getting it.
“And his partner needs to believe in that strength.”
I’m starting to get a small sense of what this might be about, but I don’t want to interrupt, don’t want to get it wrong.
He sighs and shakes his head. “I thought Carly and I were fine. But apparently, she wasn’t. She’d seen my arms shake when I held her, and—”
“Wait, that’s normal, though.” This time I can’t stop myself. “Your arms shake when you exert yourself. It doesn’t mean you aren’t strong; it means that you’re human.”
There’s the tiniest hint of a smile that ghosts his lips.
“I appreciate your faith,” he says quietly. “Frankly, if Carly didn’t trust my strength, or my commitment to be strong enough, that would have been okay.”
“Nuh-uh,” I grumble.
“It would. The problem was that she mentioned it to a few people who weren’t the best people to confide in.”
“This Carly is the worst,” I mutter under my breath.
“It’s okay,” he says, and I can hear in his voice that it is. “At the time, it totally sucked. We’d always trained together, and suddenly, she was looking for a new partner, and who was going to want to partner with me when my partner didn’t trust me to keep her safe?”
“But that’s not your fault!” I’m so frustrated that I get to my feet. Our cups of tea have cooled by now, and I’d rather drink something else, anyway. “I’m going to make some hot cocoa,” I tell Jason. “Do you want some?”
He nods, and I get the carton of milk from the fridge. No doubt: Today is a Mexican hot chocolate day.
“It’s not a question of whose fault it is,” Jason says from where he sits at the table. “It’s a question of being safe. And as soon as I heard that Carly didn’t think I was really strong enough, I started making dumb mistakes. I was trying so hard to prove to her that I was a good partner that I was getting cocky in my decisions. And that’s how people get hurt.”
“Did she get hurt?”
“I did,” he says, standing up and coming over to join me at the stove. “We were on the ice and I was trying to prove to her that I could do a hold that I really couldn’t do, and I fell down on the ice. Neither of us was seriously hurt, and looking back now, it was a totally normal fall. But we both freaked out and we both said some things.”
The milk is almost at the point of boiling and I have to focus on the saucepan so I don’t ruin the hot chocolate. I carefully mix in some baking chocolate and my go-to spices, and then stir in the sugar.
“But you know you’re a great skater,” I tell Jason.
He shrugs. “Just like you know you’re a great hockey player, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that when you think you messed up. Or people tell you that you did.” He pauses. “My nana always says that falling isn’t the problem. It’s getting back up that is the hard part.” He looks at me and says, “When you’re ready to get up, I’m happy to be there to help.”
I carefully pour the spicy drink into my favorite heavy earthenware mugs. I should tell him I’ll think about it. I should tell him I’m really not interested. But he’s right, and so is his nana.
“Your nana is really smart,” I say instead, handing Jason a mug.
He raises his eyebrows. “What do you mean by that?”
I take a sip of hot cocoa. “I told Mr. Robertson I quit because I wasn’t good at being a mentor. But he wanted me to be on the ice and I told him I couldn’t do it. And the truth is, I’m not sure I can. I now have nightmares about getting on the ice, and for the first time in my life, I’m actually terrified of skating.”
“Will you let me help?” Jason asks, sipping his own cocoa.
I let out a nervous laugh. “I’d much, much rather just sit on my couch and try to figure it out without ever getting on the ice, and then put my skates on and skate perfectly. But I have a feeling that’s not how things work.”
He shakes his head. “Probably not.”
“I think we might need more help.”
There’s barely an hour between Jason’s visit and the doorbell ringing again. I’m back in the den with my second cup of Mexican hot chocolate.
“Jason didn’t tell me that you were watching Cat Got Your Tongue. If he had, I would have known things were bad and raced over sooner,” Bea yells from the kitchen.
When Bea and I were little, we were obsessed with Cat Got Your Tongue. The series, which only lasted two seasons (much to our dismay), was part reality show starring kids our own age and part animation, with a talking cat who directed their efforts.
“I wasn’t watching it when he was here,” I tell Bea as she walks in and plops down beside me.
We don’t talk. We just sit together and watch. We sing along during the musical numbers. We repeat the silly jokes and the canned laughter and revel in the familiarity of it all.
It doesn’t matter that we know that it will be the Blue Team to win, solving the math puzzles that Trixie the Cat gives them in order to move to the next round. Or that we know who will break down under pressure until a teammate comes to rescue them. We even now know that these aren’t real contestants, that they are child actors with a script.
I can’t help but think of how many times we’ve watched this show, how many different people we’ve been as we watched it. The people we were at age five when it was first on TV. At age seven, when we first really realized that it was an educational show. At nine, when the math finally made sense to us. At ten and eleven and twelve, when we were much more focused on the relationships between the kids: the subtle flirting and teasing and jokes.
