Page 47 of On the Line

“Indeed, I would. You want a helmet?”

She looks back up at me. “If you’re not going to let me fall, I guess I don’t need one, right?”

“I’mnotgoing to let you fall.”

I step through the door onto the ice, and when I turn around, she’s standing there looking at the shiny white surface like it’s going to eat her alive. I put one hand on either side of that doorway and leave just enough room on the ice for her.

“Step right out here and hold on to me.”

I know she’s terrified of falling again. And in this moment, I’m fucking terrified of falling too. Not literally, but of falling for her. Because seeing her hurting like this is killing me, and I don’t know any other way to help her get to the other side of this fear except to walk through it with her. Kind of like I’ve been doing in the wake of Josh’s death.

She moves one hand to the top of the boards and tentatively steps over the threshold. When her blade hits the ice, she grabs my sweatshirt frantically, like she’s going down even though she’s completely steady on one foot.

“Wrap your arm around my waist.”

She does as I ask, then slowly steps her other skate onto the ice and her other arm wraps behind my back. We stand there for a moment, just breathing.

“How’s it feel to be back on the ice?”

“Give me a minute to get used to the idea,” she says, but she loosens her grip on me as she rests her forehead against my sternum.

I keep one arm firmly planted on top of the boards and wrap my other arm around her back, anchoring her to me. She’s taking deep breaths, and I can feel her heart pounding. I’m afraid she’s going to work herself up and talk herself out of this.

“Eyes on me.”

She tilts her head back until she’s gazing up at my face.

“What do you think about moving? I’ll go backward, slowly. You just hold on.”

She gives me a little nod, but the minute we move, her eyes fly shut.

“Look at me, Lauren,” I say, and when she opens her eyes, they’re the prettiest shade of Robin’s egg blue. “Breathe with me.” I take some slow, deep breaths as we move across the ice at the slowest pace I can possibly set. When we make it to the other side of the rink, she’s still looking up at me, and she’s breathing normally again.

“That wasn’t—” She twists her mouth as she thinks. “—as bad as it could have been.”

“A ringing endorsement for my skills.”

She gives me a small smile. “You sure this isn’t just one big plan to get me pressed up against you?”

“Trust me, Lauren. This is tame compared to the plans I have for you.”

Her cheeks heat with an almost instant flush and her eyes widen in surprise. She swats at my arm, but I keep her held tightly against me. “That’s not how friends talk to each other, Jameson.”

I know she doesn’t actually believe I just want to be her friend, but if it’s what she needs to tell herself for now, I’ll let it go.

“I suggest you don’t squirm like that while you’re pressed up against me.”

She instantly stills, one hand on my arm and one at my hip. “And why not?”

I turn us so her back is against the boards, then take her hands and place them so they’re resting along the top. “For exactly the reasons you’d think.” And then I skate away, taking a lap around the rink, because if I don’t get some distance from her my body’s going to try to take over, and I’ve promised myself, and her, that we’ll take this slow.

When I return, she looks remarkably comfortable compared to the woman who stepped out on the ice with me five minutes ago.

“So here’s the thing,” she says, sliding her skates backward and forward beneath her while she grips the wall. “Part of why I was so terrified to get back on the ice after my accident—beyond never wanting to experience another concussion or the lingering headaches—was because it was a perfect landing.”

This feels like a big admission, but I don’t understand why. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, that triple axel was textbook perfect. I landed it the same way I always did, the same way I’d landed it hundreds of times before. And in that moment at Nationals, the landingfeltperfect. I have no idea what happened, why my skate slipped out from under me, why my head crashed into the ice. None of that should have happened.”

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