Page 62 of At the Edge with You

And I hope it’s because of me.

My eyes fall to her lips as she talks about one girl who skates up in Gatlinburg during Christmas. I love how plump her top lip is compared to her bottom. Her teeth are so straight, white, and it drives me wild how her tongue peeks out practically every other word to wet her lips. She talks so animatedly, and that is unique to her. She doesn’t talk with her hands, but her entire face is involved with each word she speaks. Her eyes spark, and her grin takes up her whole mouth. It’s refreshing to see her like this, when, before, it was only on the ice where I saw the real Fable.

Now, she’s sitting beside me.

Before I know it, we’re done with dinner. After cleaning up, we end up on the couch with our phones in our hands. I already made a playlist of songs I want to do, and from the looks of it, Fable also tried to make her own. I watch as she goes through all the playlists she’s made, naming them with numbers, and it cracks me up to see over twenty.

“Are we doing this on her birthday?”

She doesn’t look up from her phone as she nods. “It’s on a Friday.” Her eyes then meet mine, a little shyness in them. “I thought we could make it a whole thing.”

“I thought we were.”

“No, I wanted it to be like a showcase. The rink will be done by then, and I thought we could let my classes do a new little number and then my solo skaters. Then, as a surprise, we skate.”

“Sneaky. I love it,” I say with a smirk. “She won’t see it coming.”

“Not at all.” She gives a little wiggle. “I already have Noelle designing a cake.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Me either, but I need to stop being so sore.”

“Same,” I say, then rub my chest. “I need more Tums.”

She agrees with sympathy in her eyes. “Can you grab me some?”

I chuckle lightly as I get up to grab the bottle, and I take in her space. She changed the sheets on her bed to a soft pink. She’s also hung a photo of Kitty, Phillip, and her. When I see the photo of the two of us when we were at Worlds, in the middle of a jump series, I grin. I like that she has a photo of us in her home. I can tell she tried to clean, but she just stuffed things in places she didn’t think I’d notice. She’s messy on the best of days, and I find it so endearing. I can’t help the smile that sits on my lips as I come back to the couch, handing her Tums.

“So I’m thinking, ‘My Heart Will Go On’ by Celine Dion.”

She starts the song, and I stop it with ease. “I know the song and abso-fucking-lutely not.”

“Jett!” she scolds as I sit down. “She would love it.”

“Listen, we can skate to ‘Reading Rainbow,’ and she’d love it. I want to skate to something that’s us. They picked last time. Let us pick this time.”

“This isn’t for us.”

“I don’t care. I’m not skating to Celine Dion.”

She glares. “She is the queen of ’90s pop.”

“And she can stay there,” I throw back, and her eyes darken as I hit play on “Until the Day I Die” by Story of the Year.

The music fills the space, and when I look over at her for approval, she makes a face. “We can’t skate to this.”

“It’s a classic.”

“No way,” she says, playing some boring piano jam. “We should do slow and pretty so we don’t break anything.”

I scoff before hitting the next song, and “My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit starts to blare.

“Jett! We can’t. Everyone would start singing and not give a damn about us.” On cue, the chorus hits, and we both belt it out, just as any good ’90s kids would.

We dissolve in laughter, but we don’t change the song. I watch as she sings, her eyes squeezing shut when she hits notes she shouldn’t while banging her head to the beat.

It makes me grin, in awe of her. I remember when she got the first iPod when it was released. She loaded it up with all the songs we liked, a bunch of pop-punk hits we enjoyed. We’d sit with one earbud in each of our ears and just sing. Neither of us cared that we couldn’t sing or even that it drove her parents crazy that we sat so close. I don’t think she noticed, but I did.

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