Cover.html (27 page)

Fury burns in my lungs. “And
you’re
perfect?” I scream. “Oh, yeah—I guess you are. Gabe Ross, Mr. Perfect. Beautiful Gabe Ross. Smart Gabe Ross. Disgustingly romantic Gabe Ross, who
revels
in reminding his girlfriend she’s not a
star
anymore. I
get
it, Gabe.
You’re
the perfect one, not me.”

“Excuse me?” he bellows.

“Oh—and I almost forgot the best part. Gabe Ross sticks by his broken girlfriend
after
she stops shining.
After
she stops being such a catch. And he
loves
the fact that it also makes him a good guy—look at me, I’m with her even now, even after she’s not everything I’d wanted in the beginning.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me,” Gabe mutters. “After I
stayed with you.
I even decided to go to MSU because that’s where you could afford to go after you lost any hope at a basketball scholarship.”

“There!”
I screech. “You admit it. I’m holding you back.”

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“That’s not what I said—”

“It’s
absolutely
what you said
.
I’m probably holding you back from all that
ass
you could have been scoring, too. With me, you’ve become some freaking born-again virgin,” I taunt.

“You were
hurt,
Chelsea.”

“It was more than that,” I yell at him. “Everybody knows about you and that journalism geek at summer camp. But with me … ?”

“Sex isn’t love,” Gabe says. “I never once thought we weren’t a real couple because we hadn’t had sex yet.”

“It’s part of love,” I insist. “Romantic love.”

“Romantic love,” Gabe spits. “Like you’re the expert. Getting you to tell me you loved me while you were gone was like pulling teeth. Now I know why—he probably was listening in.”

“Is that all that’s important to you?” I bite back. “Me professing my undying love all the time? There’s a difference between being romantic and being completely
stifling,
you know. God—forget Clint. You would have been upset with me anyway, even if he hadn’t been in the picture!

Was I supposed to be a good little girl and call you at five o’clock on the dot every single night? You were
jealous
, Gabe, and not because of some guy. You were actually getting upset because I wasn’t fawning all over you all the time.” I stop to get my breath, but the words keep coming. “Did the thought ever cross your mind that maybe I never needed you to rescue me, Gabe? Maybe I’m
still
pretty strong, even after the accident. Maybe I’m not some fragile little thing. Maybe
you
were holding
me
back.”

“Don’t you dare put this off on me,” Gabe yells. “
You
did this, Chelsea. You destroyed us!” He grabs the cider bottle and throws it, letting it shatter against the far wall. I yelp and race into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.

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Never live timidly
, my mind screams out.
Face this, Chelse
. But I can’t; not yet; I don’t know how. Did I really mean all those awful things I’d just said?

I put one hand on the marble counter and cover my mouth with the other. When a knock comes to the suite door, I hear Gabe answer, saying, “I dropped a bottle. I’ll clean it up. Sorry to have disturbed the other guests.”

I listen as he picks up all the broken pieces. And maybe, I tell myself a little desperately, there are a few other broken pieces we can start to gather—together. I’m not a hundred percent sure, in that moment, exactly what I want from Gabe—I only know that I don’t want to completely trash the last two years. And that I don’t want him to hate me. After splashing cool water on my tear-soaked face, I open the bathroom door. But when I step into the room, Gabe’s already changed back into his jeans. He’s shoving his tie into his overnight case. A cold electric shock travels through my body. “Gabe—where are you going?”

He doesn’t answer, so I put my hand on his arm. He shakes it away.

“You can’t have it both ways, Chelse.”

“But, Gabe, I—”

“Get the hell away from me, you selfish bitch,” he says. He zips his case and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Clint

back in the game

Istep inside Baudette Sporting Goods—and for the first time in two years, I let myself glance past the fishing gear that’s just inside the entrance. I let myself look toward the shoes in the back. Cleats and basketball shoes and …

“Hey, man,” Todd says. “How’d it go the other night? With Kenzie?”

Pulling my eyes from the shoe display is a little like trying to wrench myself out of a dream. I mumble “Hmm?” as Greg pops up out of nowhere, a new fly rod in his hand.

“Sorry. Got the last one,” he tells me.

“Last one,” I repeat, feeling completely disoriented.

“Rod. On sale. That’s why you came, isn’t it? When I saw you walk in, I assumed—”

I shake my head. “No—not today.”

“So?” Todd presses, adjusting his ball cap by tugging on the bill.

“How’d it go? With Kenzie?”

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I shake my head. “I think—I’ve just—known her too long. Takes a little of the mystery out of it, right?”

Greg squints at me. “Known her too long,” he repeats, because he knows it’s bull. But I don’t exactly want to spill everything in the middle of a sporting goods store, of all places. Or even really spill it to the guys, period.

How am I supposed to talk about it without looking like a complete moron? Now that I think about it, the night with Kenzie proved what I’d suspected all along—that the void Rosie left in my life wasn’t ever going to get filled by just anybody. I needed Chelsea. Just wish I didn’t have to embarrass Kenzie in the process.

If I say anything like that, they’ll both swear I’ve lost it. I push past the guys toward the shoe display.

“So, you’re not interested? In Kenzie? Right?” Todd asks as he follows me. I’m only half-listening as I scour the shelves for a size twelve. It doesn’t seem possible, but the box is already standing out a little from all the rest, like the ghost of the old me’s already tugged it out, left it waiting for me.

My heart’s practically on fire as I open the box and take out the hockey skate. Just touching it, I can already hear the slice of the blades on a rink.

When I look up, Greg and Todd are staring at me with wide-eyed, shocked faces.

“Are you serious?” Greg asks, nodding once at the skates.

“I kind of promised somebody,” I say, and turn toward the checkout counter.

Chelsea

advance step

Onedown!”BrandonannouncesasheboundsthroughWhiteSugar holding the keys to the Explorer.

“We haven’t made the delivery yet,” Mom reminds him. “The deal is, you show me you can
deliver
twenty multi-tiered cakes in one piece—no skidding, no speeding, no careening—and we’ll
start
to talk about buying you a car.”

“Piece of cake, Ma,” Brandon insists. “Pun intended.” He grins at me and rolls his eyes.

I smile back at him, just like I’ve been smiling ever since he lied through his overbite (something about Gabe’s ’Stang getting stalled on the highway to Springfield) in order to get his hands on the keys to the Explorer and come rescue me in my hour of need, the night Gabe left me deserted at the Carlyle.

My thumbs fly over the keypad on my phone, finishing up the three-thousandth text I’ve sent to Gabe these past few weeks:
u hate me
u have evry rite im so sorry
.

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“You going to be all right here by yourself, Chelse?” Mom asks, knocking on the front counter to get my attention.

“She’s not alone,” Dad corrects her. “I’m here.”

“You’ll disappear back into the office,” Mom pouts.

“Not necessarily,” Dad says, winking at me.

Mom tilts her head at us, a smile of relief washing over her face.

“Aw, don’t shove me into the middle of your schmaltz-fest,” Brandon moans.

“Hey, mister,” Mom snaps at him. “You’re responsible for getting
two
of these layers into the Explorer. You drop one, no car.”

“The way you keep adding on to our agreement makes me think I should have gotten you to put it in
writing
,” he mutters. I think she’s nuts for trusting Brandon with one of her precious cakes. But I guess she figures he wants a car so badly that he’d rather lose a foot than dent a single icing rose.

“You’d do just fine without a car,” Mom reminds him. “After all, our house is walking distance from school.”

“I’m on the up-and-up, Mom. I gotta have wheels, period.”

“Then stick to my rules, buster,” Mom says. “Or else you’ll be toting your Marshall amp around on your old Schwinn.”

“Man,” Brandon moans. After kicking at the tiles a few times, he takes a deep breath and eases one of the boxed layers off the counter.

“Comin’ through!” he screams. “Watch out! Coconut cake walkin’!”

I shove the phone in the pocket of my White Sugar apron, lean my elbows on the counter. Let my eyes go bleary as my mind drifts into a daydream like the Explorer drifts into a stream of summer traffic—or, at least, what qualifies as traffic in Fair Grove.

“Chelsea, I’ll take over the front counter,” Dad tells me.

“I’m fine,” I try to insist, but Dad nods toward the front window, telling me to look.

Gabe.

255/262

I clench my jaw, gritting my teeth as I watch him approach the post office with a handful of letters. I’m frozen as he disappears through the post office door. But when he reappears, heading straight for his ’Stang, I finally dislodge myself and rush out into the early August heat.

“Gabe,” I shout. “Gabe, talk to me.”

He shakes his head. “Just mailing Mom’s bills.”

“I tried to text you,” I tell him.

“I wish you’d quit that,” he says, through a mouth drawn tight.

“Please,” I say, lurching in front of him, blocking him from opening the driver side door. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and I just—I wanted to tell you that I believe what you said that night we graduated. Remember? About the heart being like a compass. And it leads you either closer to a person, or it shows you another way. And if we were meant to be, our hearts would have led each other straight back here, to us. Not in different directions.”

“
That’s
what you’ve been thinking?” Gabe says. “That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard. I didn’t go anywhere, Chelsea.
You
did. You don’t get to feel good about it. You’re not forgiven. Move.”

He pushes me aside, leaves me standing stupidly in his old parking space. Watching him drive away.

As I turn toward the front walk, my prickling eyes hit a vine of purple flowers curling up an old trellis in the corner of the White Sugar building. The same flowers that grow in the field around the Fair Grove mill. The same flowers that filled the field behind cabin number four back in Minnesota. As tears threaten to roll, I close my eyes; I can still feel the itch of grass beneath my legs, Clint’s breath on my cheek. Even now, I’m thinking of Clint.

My eyes are tingling as I step back inside. I hope Dad really will disappear into the office. At least then I won’t have to be a blubbering idiot in front of an audience.

“Haven’t seen Gabe around in a long time,” Dad says. 256/262

Great. This is
exactly
the heart-to-heart I want to have right now.

“Not since the night of the MSU game,” he goes on. I nod.

“From the looks of what just went on out there,” he says, nodding once toward the window, “it doesn’t seem like he’s coming back.”

I clench my jaw and shake my head.

Dad pours an iced latte and puts an éclair on a plate, slides it toward me. Like he thinks a little Bavarian cream might cut the bitter taste of losing my first real boyfriend. “I’ve seen you when you’re passionate about something,” he says. “I know what it does to you. Basketball, for instance. It was all-encompassing. But Gabe … ” He frowns, shakes his head. “I never thought you and Gabe—you just didn’t have that same look on your face. That look you got when you were still playing ball. That—passion. You had it over vacation, though.”

My eyes widen.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. I know love … it has different shades. Sometimes, it’s passion. Sometimes, though, it’s just—”

“More like friendship,” I finish.

Dad starts mopping the front counter.

“The heart is a compass,” I say. “Steers us back to the thing we love the most.”

I reach into my back pocket, pulling out the confirmation letter from MSU that I’ve been carrying around for a week. I’ve figured it out, just like Dad said the Chelsea of old would. I’ve figured out how to keep basketball in my life. But after the year we’ve had, it’s been hard to find the right time to show it to him.
To not living timidly
, I think, as I toss the letter in front of his towel.

“You’re already declaring a major?” he asks as he reads the letter.

“Psychology?”

257/262

“
Sports
psychology,” I say, and when Dad’s eyes start to get all glittery on me, I cut the éclair in half, take my portion, and push the plate across the counter toward him.

Clint

second half

Isign the postcard and slip it into the mail drop at the lodge. I stare at the darkened slot a minute, a goofy grin plastered on my face.

“Another summer coming to an end,” Earl sighs from the check-in counter.

I nod as I turn to attack my boot camp poster, ripping it from the wall. Little white pieces of paper stay speared under thumbtacks at each of the four corners.

“I hear you stopped in at a certain sporting goods store a while back,” he says as he leans against the counter. A smile ekes out from under the blanket of his steel wool beard.

I shrug and nod, wadding the poster. “Never do know when a good pond game might break out.”

“Just a pond game?”

“Oh, I think the dream of me playing college hockey’s over, especially after all the time I’ve been away from it. But love is love—and you 259/262

should never turn away from it completely. And I love hockey. Always have, really.”