Page 47 of Wonderstruck

I was proud of myself, for now. But I knew I’d feel badabout it later—I always did.

Three weeks back at Liberty, back in stuffy classes and no effort had been put intothem at all. Instead, I was forcing sleep to hang back while I speed-read the required reading the night before my 9AMs, while praying they’d get cancelled or that the subway would break down so I had a better excuse as to why I didn't have to go.

Pushing them to the back of my mind, giving upon them like that… it felt wrong in every way it could. Almost like I was losing another piece of Dad. Or better yet, like I was personally throwing it away, even when I had so little of him left to hold onto.

But this was never your path, Aurora. You knowthat.

The guilty truth nestled deep in my chest.

No matter how badly I tried to ignore it, it pulsed beneath my ribs, a quiet but persistent weight. The guilt of choosing myself—of finally putting my needs before anyone else’s—wrapped around me like chain mail. It didn’t just weigh me down; it wore me down, piece by piece, until I wondered if I would ever feel light again.

But do you feel guilty enough to turn back now?To skip the rink and bail on Aspen?

Before I could overthink myself into oblivion, Ifumbled for my phone and dialled, my fingers moving faster than my doubts. Talking about it would help. Probably. Hopefully. If nothing else, at least I wouldn’t be alone with my brain for much longer.

All three of them answered in a heartbeat.

“I can’t do it.”

The crackling from my phone’s speaker eruptedin the rink’s quiet parking lot. Cora tilted her head in one of the four boxes on my screen, her foundation brush poised mid-swipe. The other two squares showed Goldie, munching on what looked like last night’s pizza, and Daisy, barely visible under the fluorescent lights of a subway car.

“You’ll smash it, what are you talking about?”Cora said confidently, turning back to her vanity mirror as if this was all so obvious.

After Finn left the attic the girls weren't far behind, climbing up the stairs one by one to check that I was okay. And after holding them in for long enough I cracked, and let out an embarrasing amount of tears. Eventually, I talked, confessed about what I'd found and how maybe I'd stumbled acoss the answerI didn't know I was looking for, and all three of them held me tighter and cheered me on.

Just another reason why I was so happy our paths had crossed.

Cora cleared her throat. “Okay, so you’ve not skated in a while. But, isn’t it the same as the bike thing?”

“The bike thing?” Goldie repeated.

Cora waved her brush dramatically.“You know, the saying? When you learn to ride a bike, you never forget.”

“Right,” I sighed, leaning up against the railing ofthe rink’s steps, “but I’ve never done a triple lutz while riding a bike, Cor. The odds of me forgetting how to nail a landing are way higher than forgetting how to pedal.”

The screech of the subway car nearly drownedout Daisy’s sweet voice. “Isn’t muscle memory a thing? I mean, once you’re back out there, it’ll all come flooding back. Right?” Her head tilted. "And it's your first time out there, Ror. Don't be so hard on yourself."

Her words struck a chord, pulling up the memoryof the other day with Finn. She wasn’t entirely wrong—the basics had come back to me. The crossovers, the turns, the rhythm of the ice under my blades. It wasn’t perfect, but it felt familiar, like a whisper.

And then it hit me.

My breath caught, and my thoughts tripped overthemselves as I remembered.

The girls didn’t know. They didn’t know I’d already been back on the ice—orthat Finn had been there, too.

Thememory of that night surged forward. Thehockey game, the way Finn had looked at me like he already knew I’d say yes, the quiet, almost vulnerable way he’d proposed the idea of helping me. I hadn’t told them, not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. Not then. By the time I’d wrapped my head around it, too much had happened, and the words had slipped away.

“Oh, um…” My voice faltered as I stepped backfrom the rink door. “Yeah. So. About the whole ‘first time back on the ice’ thing…“ I trailed off, swallowing hard. “That may have already happened.”

For a second, I thought the call had dropped. But when another screech came from Daisy’s end and her phone shook a little, I realised that the connection was fine, and it was what I’d said that had turned them into statutes.

It was Cora who broke the silence. It always was.“I'm sorry, what?”

I cleared my throat again, tapping my temple. “Oh. Yeah. Another thing. Um… I was with Finn too, when I skated again.”

Another screech from Daisy’s end was like awarning siren for the chaos that followed.

“I’m sorry, did you just say Finn?” Goldie’s eyeswidened, pizza forgotten mid-bite.

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