Page 70 of My Rival for Christmas

Pain radiates inside me. Now knowing what I stand to lose.

Tell her. Tell her right the fuck now.

But before I can, Paige turns back to the album, flipping the page. And freezes.

The smile she’s been wearing drops instantly, replaced with a look of wonder and shock and pain as she sucks in a sharp breath.

My heart sinks with it. Following her gaze, I see a photo of us from one of our many competitions back when we were still partners.

With an almost wounded expression, Paige runs a gentle thumb over us.

We look so young, bundled up in matching tracksuits, pressed cheek-to-cheek with smiles so wide the corner of our mouths practically touch. My toque is pulled so far down Paige’shead, the black fabric swallows her eyebrows, while my hair sticks up in wild strands.

Moments before this photo was taken, Paige was complaining about how her ears were cold. Not being able to stand the idea of her being even in a little discomfort, I yanked my hat off and tried to wrestle it onto her head. As I struggled, Paige couldn’t stop laughing, squirming against me without really pulling away.

The arena we were competing at that weekend is prominent behind us. I can’t tell you where we were, what city—let alone country—we were even in, just that we couldn’t stop laughing that day. It had nothing to do with how we were dominating our program, and everything to do with each other.

Not liking the look on her face, I turn the page. Only to see more photos from competitions past. Different backgrounds, sometimes different costumes, but in every single photo we have that same exploding happiness.

Paige looks at all of them quietly, slowly drinking them in. Her blueish-green eyes getting sadder and sadder with each one.

I turn the page again and curse. Jesus Christ, how many competitions did my dad go to?

I start to flip the page once more when Paige stops me. Honing in on a picture of us when we won our medals. She’s in my arms, and we’re laser focused on each other. No one else is even on our radar, locked away in our own little world.

Our smiles feel like a gut punch for what would happen just a few weeks later.

I can’t look at these pictures without a wash of regret pulling me under. Even now, my chest feels heavy. Palms clammy. I go to turn the page, when she stops me with a delicate hand around my wrist. “I haven’t seen these pictures in a really long time.”

Paige sounds so far away, even though she’s right next to me. As if she’s been transported back to that time.

I struggle to breathe, knowing I’m the reason she’s haunted by this day.

“We look so happy,” she says softly, her finger methodically tracing over our features, with a longing on her face that makes my heart stutter. Almost like she forgot it could be this way. “In all these pictures, we’re so happy.”

We haven’t talked about skating or her ex-partner or anything since we’ve been here. And between our exploration of each other’s bodies yesterday and the weather being too cold to venture outside today, we haven’t gone skating either.

Normally, that would drive Paige up a wall. Making her get antsy and temperamental. But she hasn’t even attempted to go out on the ice.

“We were always happy.” I swallow thickly. Each word weighing more than the last. “Not just when we were skating together.”

The room is quiet, save for Snowball as he scampers from branch to branch in the Christmas tree, knocking ornaments against each other as he does. But I barely hear him. Sucked into a vortex of Paige’s sad, sad eyes. I see the question in them before she can ask, but it doesn’t stop my heart from turning to lead when she does. “If we were so happy, why did you leave?”

My throat feels thick with words unsaid, as they fight to get out all at once. But I don’t know how to tell her any other way than the brutal truth. “Because it was killing me to stay.”

Paige sucks in a sharp breath, pain covering every part of her face. Devastation shaking her voice as she asks, “Was I really that horrible of a partner?”

I start to shake my head before she’s even done with the question. “No, Paige. No.” My hand cups her cheek as she tries to look away from me.

I see our history play out behind her eyes, shifting through memory after memory, conversation after conversation. Butshe’ll never find an answer that way, because the reasons have always existed inside me. “You were the best partner I’ve ever had.”

Cole better hope I never get out of here. Because if I do? He’s a dead man for planting these seeds of doubt in her head, for making her question everything. Even the partnership we had.

But I guess I’m to blame for that, too.

“Then why did you leave me?” She pushes again, trying to keep the pain out of her words, but she looks so lost, searching for answers to our past.

This is it. This is my moment.

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