Bittersweet (5 page)

I tighten my legs and propel backward, feet scissoring over the ice, mind drifting into my parallel life—the one where I didn’t throw that event, killing my reputation as a top competitor and losing Kara Shipley and my other skating friends. In my parallel life, I don’t live in Watonka anymore. I’m a real competitor, always on the road, sending Mom and Bug postcards from beautiful cities as I win medal after medal, title after title. I’m cool and confident, toughened by the difficulties of my childhood but still optimistic as I perform a perfect program for the World Figure
Skating Championships. One by one, the judges rise in applause. They’ve never seen anything like it. They shout to be heard over the cheers, and then a voice cuts sharply through the din …

“Hey! Look
out
!”

I’m cold and horizontal, helplessly pinned beneath a boy. A cute one. Our skates are all tangled up and our hearts are knocking against each other like they’re ready to take this outside. His fingers cradle the back of my head just over the cement-hard ice; with his free hand, he brushes the hair from my eyes and I blink.

Josh Blackthorn, co-captain of the Watonka Wolves varsity hockey team, stares down at me, breath mingling with mine in a thin white soup.

“Are you okay?” he asks. His touch across my forehead makes me shiver. I blink again, trying to piece together the evidence. My head hurts, Josh is holding me, and all I can think is …

I didn’t wash my hair this morning. I totally smell like last night’s bacon burger special.

“Can you hear me?” Josh waves his fingers in front of my eyes, his face twisted with worry. Perfect. First time I’m
this
close to a really cute guy in years—and by years I mean
ever
—and save for my adorable pink leg warmers and the lip balm I slicked on when I got here, I’m ninety-two percent hygienically unprepared. He probably thinks I’m a pig farmer or a pig wrestler or some other person who regularly interacts with pork products … and I probably have a concussion.

“I hear you.” I pull myself into a sitting position to put
some space between the co-captain’s nose and my bacon-infused hair. “I’m okay. Just … what happened?”

“We crashed.” Josh kneels on the ice in front of me. “I sort of … sorry. It’s my fault.” He manages a weak smile. I’ve never seen his eyes up close before, and when he looks at me full on, I notice all the color in them. Gray-blue with an outer ring of dark purple, flecks of gold near the center. Beneath the left one, there’s a tiny freckle hidden behind a row of soft, dark lashes.

I squeeze my eyes shut, breaking through the fog in my head. “How long have you been out here? How do you even know this place?”

Josh pulls off his knit hat and rubs his head, ears going red in the cold. His hair is short and dark, not quite black, and one side sticks out a little funny from the hat. There’s a scar near his temple, a tiny white V where the hair doesn’t grow. Probably some puck-diving, two-seconds-left-in-the-big-game, one-chance-to-save-it-all kind of injury from his last school.

“I come here to think sometimes. Skate,” he says, looking out over the lake. “Get away, you know? I’m Josh Blackthorn, by the way. Hudson, right?” He turns back to me and smiles, his lips an inch closer than they were a moment ago.

“Yeah,” I say as if I’m not totally shocked he knows my name and thinks I don’t know his. “Avery. I’ve never seen you out here, though. I never see
anyone
out here.”

“No? I’ve seen you once or twice. But I’m not, like, stalking you or anything. If you’re on the ice when I get here, I usually bail. Today I just thought I’d … I don’t know. Say hi or something.
Be less … um … creepy?” He raises his eyebrows and gives me another smile, tentative, like he’s waiting for confirmation.

No, dude. You’re not creepy. You’re, like, the opposite of creepy. In fact, you’re kind of …

My stomach fills with a swarm of bees. As far as stalkers go, Josh would definitely be a good one to have. But I don’t do spectators—not anymore. I don’t like to be spectated, inspected, spectacular, or even a spectacle. I just want to be a speck. A tiny, anonymous speck in an indiscernible sea of white.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod as another breeze unfurls over the ice. His jaw tightens, firm and strong as he braces against the chill. We laugh together when the cold hits again, harder this time, our mutual shivering enough to bond us in shared discomfort. In all this frigid whiteness, his mouth looks red and warm, and my eyes trace the curve of his lips as the laughter fades. He watches me, too. When the air stills, his eyes hold mine a millisecond too long.

And right before it becomes, like, I’m-about-to-kiss-you awkward, he looks away.

“I thought you saw me over there.” He nods toward the edge of the ice where he must’ve been standing earlier. Watching. Spectating. “I skated this way, but then you were just speeding up. I tried to warn you, but …
impact
.” He slams his hands together to demonstrate, startling a seagull out from behind a nearby snowbank.

“I didn’t see you,” I say.

“You sure you’re okay? No dizziness or anything?” He
gets to his feet and reaches down to help me.

“Don’t worry about it.” I stand and straighten my fleece, ignoring his outstretched hand. “Seriously. But I need to get back to work.” I smile a little, even though the mortification meter is exploding off the charts.

“You do? I mean, okay, that’s cool.” He looks at me straight on again, his crazy-beautiful blue-gray eyes bright and clear beneath the colorless sky, and Parallel Life Hudson goes off on another fantasy. I imagine her sitting at some cozy little café table with Josh, sipping hot chocolate with those irresistible baby marshmallows on top, laughing about their head-on collision. He smiles and tells her she’s got chocolate on the corner of her mouth, and she pretends to be embarrassed as he erases it gently with his thumb. There are sparks and laughs and flirty little jokes with lots of subtext, and later, after he walks her back to work, he pulls her into a passionate kiss in the parking lot. The word “bliss” appears in a cloud over her head, surrounded by red and pink hearts, and from that moment on, the frothy feel of hot chocolate against her lips will bring her back to the day they …

“So, yeah, I should head out,” I tell him, before my fantasyland mind starts naming our unborn children. “Storm’s coming, and I’m … I’ll be late.”

Josh’s smile fades. Despite the icy fingers of the lake, my neck is hot and itchy under the wool scarf. I lean forward on my toe pick and take a step toward the edge, but the wind hits me again, throwing me off balance. My feet skid, skates connecting with Josh’s in a clash of metal.

For the second time in five minutes, the two of us are laid out like a car wreck, that dumb seagull and his motley friends whooping it up on the ice around us.

Stupid birds. Don’t you know it’s winter?

“Okay, the first crash was my fault,” Josh says, standing and pulling me to my feet. “But this one was
all
you. Think you’re okay to work?”

“No choice. Time to frost the cupcakes.”
Time to frost the cupcakes?
Concussion confirmed. No way I’d say something like that to the hockey boy without some sort of head injury. I’ve
got
to get out of here.

“Cupcakes, huh?” Josh nods appreciatively. “Okay. But I’m walking you out.”

“You just got here. You should stay and skate.” I check out his scuffed black hockey skates. They’re not new, but they’re definitely good quality. Sturdy. Probably fast. “At least until the storm hits.”

“Nah. I’ve had enough crashing and burning for one day. Besides, someone has to look out for you, Avery. You’re dangerous.”

My breath catches in my chest and my heart speeds up again, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He just smiles and puts his arm around me, one hand on my elbow as he guides me off the ice. He trades his skates for boots and I follow suit, slipping rubber guards onto my blades and wrapping them safely in a plastic Fresh ’n’ Fast bag in my backpack.

We walk together over a stomped-down opening in the fence, past Fillmore’s infamous Graveyard of Signs, every one scrawled with blue graffiti and bent like a broken cornstalk.
FALLOUT SHELTER—IN CASE OF NUCLEAR EMERGENCY, USE BRYANT STREET ENTRANCE. HARD HAT AREA—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. COMPROMISED STRUCTURE—BEWARE OF FALLING DEBRIS. CONDEMNED PROPERTY—DO NOT ENTER. NO TRESPASSING—VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
When we reach the end near the parking lot, there’s a lone car parked under another sign:
LOT B—OVERNIGHT EMPLOYEES ONLY
.

“Need a ride?” Josh digs the keys from his pocket. His breath fogs as he waits for my response, soft and even like the plume of a distant train.

I don’t have my finger on the pulse of Watonka High’s gossip network, but I try to recall everything I’ve ever heard about him. Co-captain of the Watonka Wolves. Moved here last year from Ohio or Chicago or some other lake-effect place that ends in an
o
. Hangs out with the other guys on the team and their various rotating “hockey wives,” though I don’t think he has a girlfriend—at least not from our school.

“It’s not far,” I say. “I like the walk. Besides, if my mother sees me in a car with a strange boy … not that you’re strange or anything. And not that there’s anything wrong with riding in a car with you. It’s just …”
Brain to mouth! Must! Stop! Moving!

“Nah, I hear you.” Josh smiles and unlocks the car.

I sling my bag over my shoulder and press my hand against my jacket, the foundation letter crinkling softly inside, reminding me of its presence. “Sorry if I ruined your ice time today.”

“You didn’t. Actually, it was kind of cool … um … running into you.”

“I’m not usually so clumsy out there,” I say quickly. “I mean, I just didn’t see—”

“I know.” He’s still smiling at me, but not in a teasing way. It’s almost self-conscious, like he’s trying to be calm and collected, but he just can’t help that smile. Which, of course, makes it that much more adorable and—

“So, see you around?” he asks.

“Definitely. I mean, yes. Okay. Um, bye.” I turn away before any more stupid comes out of me.

Josh warms up his car as I jog up to the main road, skates bouncing lightly against my back. The sound reminds me of Lola on that first night, eyes dark and serious as she whacked her gloves against her hip, again and again and again.

You gotta want it, kiddo. Really want it.

I turn back toward the car. It’s close behind me now, tires crunching over the snow. Josh pulls up next to me and lowers the window.

“Watch your step, Avery,” he says, easing onto the road. “Slippery out there.”

I raise my eyebrows and give him a half smile. “That’s good advice, Blackthorn.”

“Winter in Watonka, right?” He waves and glides down the slick street, break lights flashing at the stop sign. I walk backward in the opposite direction and watch until his taillights disappear around the corner, my boots slipping in the slush only once, all the way back to Hurley’s.

Double-chocolate cupcakes served warm in a sugar-butter reduction; piped with icing braids of peanut butter, cream cheese, and fudge; and sprinkled with chocolate chips

Saturday breakfast is in full swing when I get back, bacon popping on Trick’s
grill like cholesterol was just recategorized as an essential nutrient by the food pyramid people. If I don’t already smell, T minus ten minutes to maximum porkaliciousness.

“There’s my girl,” Trick says as I throw my stuff into the staff closet and change into my kitchen sneakers. “Thought you went out lookin’ for a new man.”

“Nah. You know you’re the only man in my life.” I laugh, but it’s basically true, and not in a dirty-old-man way, either.

Trick smiles from beneath his Buffalo Sabres cap, dark brown skin crinkling around his eyes. “Hey, take that box in the office for your brother tonight. I found a bunch of computer
parts for his school thing—he left before I could tell him.”

“It’s not for school.” I wash my hands and dig out my frosting gear. “He’s building a robot playmate. Says he—”

“Finally!” Dani pushes through the kitchen doors and sticks an order ticket into the strip over the grill. The top of her retro lavender Hurley Girl dress is splattered with the morning’s sludge. “You’re
never
that long on break. Where’ve you been?”

“Nowhere.” I tie a semi-clean apron around my waist and look at Trick. His back is turned for the moment, but his ears have multidirectional sonar capability and his mouth is even bigger than his heart.

“All right,” she says, taking the hint. “Get started on those cupcakes while I do a flyby on my tables. Smoke break in fifteen?”