“She cried in the bathroom. You made her feel like there was something wrong with her. You made her feel small and insignificant and worthless.”
The intensity in Hazel’s voice cuts through me. There’s an undercurrent of emotion to her words that makes my stomach turn.
“Do you know how shitty that is?” she continues with pain in her eyes. “Do you know how”—she points at her head—“damaging and traumatic that is?”
I hear the quiet close of the door as my mom leaves. I hear it again as Lauren, my dad’s next girlfriend, leaves a few years later. I hear the aloof way he tells me that he and his next girlfriend are no longer together.
My life is going to mirror his. It already does. I’ll be fifty-five and waiting for my current girlfriend to leave me like the others. Shame and frustration wrap around my chest, squeezing like a band.
“Hartley, it was a decade ago. I’m sure she’s over it.”
Fury rises in her gaze, and I can see her pulse going in her neck. “You sure about that?”
I shrug, brushing it off. Please. Please, can we fucking move on from this conversation? “I would fucking hope she’s over it by now.” The words tumble out of my mouth, fueled by this crushing, cold feeling inside my chest. “How pathetic is that to be moping around a decade later over some guy who didn’t even care about you? I doubt she even thinks about me anymore, and if she does, she doesn’t have enough going on in her life.”
I hear the words, but I can’t stop them. Shame has me by the throat, choking me. Hazel looks like she’s been slapped, blinking at me with hurt and shock before she lets out a quiet laugh.
“I don’t know why I said yes to this. This is exactly who I thought you were.”
My stomach sinks.
“I don’t know why I thought—” She breaks off, shaking her head as she shuffles away, heading for the entrance to the rink. “We’re done.”
CHAPTER 14
RORY
I hear the end of her sentence a million ways.
I don’t know why I thought I could spend time with you.
I don’t know why I thought our agreement would ever work.
I don’t know why I thought you were different.
It hits me: Hazel’s reaction isn’t just about her friend. It’s about what Connor did to her.
I said it didn’t matter. That she should be over it by now. I called her pathetic. How fucking thoughtless could I be? No wonder she’s done with me.
My dad wouldn’t budge. Rick Miller always lets them walk away. He wanted to go after my mom—I still remember his crushed expression when she left—but he didn’t.
“Hartley,” I call, skating after her. She ignores me as I approach. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”
She reaches for the boards, loses her balance, and I’m right there holding her up.
“Don’t touch me,” she hisses. “I’m mad at you.”
“I know.” I wait for her to find her balance before I pull back. “You have every right to be mad.”
Her jaw is so tight and her eyes flash with all the bad emotions I never, ever want to see there. She folds her arms over her chest, still glaring at me.
I rake a hand through my hair, pulse going a mile a minute. “I hate that I hurt your friend, so I brushed it off to make myself feel better. I think I thought—” I heave in a breath, watching her face for any reaction, any clue. “I thought that if I made it sound like it wasn’t a big deal, I wouldn’t feel like this.”
“Like what.”
“Like a fucking asshole.” I search her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt people like that. That’s what my dad does. I’m sorry I hurt your friend. I was young and stupid, but that’s no excuse.” She watches me, and I memorize the gray threads in her irises, rimmed in thick, dark lashes. People maneuver around us, but we ignore them.
Understanding, sadness, and pain ebb and flow in her eyes. Hazel’s throat works again and her eyebrows pull together before she looks away. “He cheated on me the whole time,” she says quietly, staring at the ice.
Streicher told me this already and yet I’m still tensing with protective fury. How dare he fucking hurt her?
“I worked ahead in school so we could go to university together.” Her gaze flicks up to mine before looking back down at the ice. “I found out at the end of the first year of university. Everyone knew but me.”
Rage pounds through me, gathering power. McKinnon is so fucking stupid, and if it’s possible, I hate him even more. My hands make fists so I don’t reach for her. No wonder she doesn’t take shit from anyone.