With Love, from Cold World(66)

“Yeah,” she said. “Just my . . .”

A pair of skates came toward her so fast she flinched, but Asa came to an expert stop a foot away, sending little chips of ice flying into the air. He reached down a hand to pull her up, and she grasped his forearm, embarrassed when she had to cling to avoid falling again.

“Just your what?” Eddie prompted. “Your butt?”

“Ah, no,” Lauren said, although there was a dull ache in that region already. “My pride.”

“You got this,” Asa said. “Bend your knees a little. Stay low while you’re still starting out—it’ll help a lot with balance.”

“Like this?” Eddie crouched down slightly, gliding forward on the ice.

“Exactly,” Asa said. “This kid’s a ringer. Where’d you get him, a Russian hockey camp? His accent’s impeccable.”

“Miss Lauren is my guardian something,” Eddie said. “Not the one I live with. The one who’s supposed to help me get my mom back.”

“Well, that’s . . .” Lauren started, but Eddie was already shuffling farther ahead, and her voice trailed off. “. . . an oversimplification.” She gave Asa a rueful smile. “Sorry about this. You can let go.”

He lifted his hand from her elbow, and she instantly felt her arms start to windmill, her balance tilt. Asa reached for her again, keeping her so close she could feel his body heat. “I don’t know that you’re ready for the big leagues yet,” he said. “You sure you don’t want me to get you one of those skate helpers?”

So she could look like she was pushing a plastic high chair around the ice? No, thank you. “I know I dented my pride with that spill back there,” she said. “But I do still have some left.”

Asa cleared his throat. “Right.”

The way that one word came out, it was like they weren’t talking about ice skating at all. Lauren wished she could apologize for what had happened in his room, but she didn’t quite know what she would be apologizing for. For going in there and trying to seduce him in the first place? Because that was totally what she’d been doing, as terrible at it as she’d been. Or for freaking out afterward?

She’d tossed and turned all week, trying to make sense of the way she was feeling. All she knew was that somehow Asa had gone from someone she found vaguely irritating to the person she most looked forward to seeing. And then he went and did nice things like this, skating at a snail’s pace with her, and it got her all confused and messed up inside.

Somehow they managed to catch up to Eddie—Lauren suspected he’d stopped to wait for them. “You really do learn fast,” she said. “What’s the secret?”

“You gotta do your skates like this,” Eddie said, demonstrating slicing each of his skates out to the side, one and then the other, in a choppy motion that was nonetheless much better than any of her attempts. She’d seen ice skating before. Just for some reason, when she tried to mimic the movements, she got only a few inches on her own before she felt like she’d fall again.

“Maybe I should sit on the sidelines and watch,” she said. “I’m slowing you down.”

Asa raised his eyebrows at Eddie. “She doesn’t like to do something unless she’s good at it.”

“What? That’s not true.”

“It’s okay,” Eddie said. “I get it. When I missed my no-scope headshot today, I threw the controller. That’s why I was bad.”

It occurred to Lauren that this conversation, ever since they’d started skating, was the longest she’d heard Eddie ever speak. She didn’t know if it was having something to do to distract him, or if it was Asa’s neutral presence, but she was grateful for it.

“Well, it sounds like you made a bad choice,” Lauren said, deciding to table any shock she felt over the violent description from the game itself. “Not that you were bad.”

Eddie shrugged. “Same thing. I can’t play video games for a week.”

“That’s a consequence,” Lauren said. “If you’d broken the controller, think how much longer it might’ve been.”

“Yeah, but—” Eddie clenched his little hands into fists, and for a minute she saw the storm overtake his face, like he could revisit his rage right here in the middle of the ice rink. Before she could think about what she was doing, she let go of Asa and gave Eddie’s shoulder a quick, fierce squeeze.

“I know you’re angry,” she said, getting low not just to keep her balance, but also to better look Eddie in the eyes. “You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to be sad. You’re allowed to not even know what you feel. I was in foster care, too, you know, when I was your age. And I was fortunate, in so many ways. But it didn’t stop me from feeling all the feelings.”

She thought she’d gone too far, pushed too hard. She hadn’t intended on getting into a conversation like this. The outing to Cold World was supposed to be fun, a little lighthearted romp before Christmas, but now here she was giving lectures. She braced herself against the wall, planning to stand back up, when Eddie’s voice came so low she had to bend down again to hear him.

“What did you do with all of them?” he asked. “The feelings.”

The most honest answer was that she’d pretended they didn’t exist. She’d shoved them down, focused on being as good as she possibly could. She’d done her homework, helped around the house, kept to herself. And every once in a while, she’d taken a long, hot shower, staying in until Miss Bianca pounded on the door and yelled that she was wasting water, so she could have a place to cry.