Page 130 of Rinkmates

I have a kid.

I’m a mom.

Saying it out loud makes it suddenly feel so real.

I search Riley’s whiskey-colored eyes, trying to read his reaction. Waiting for his expression to change, for him to look at me differently. I’m not just some young twenty-something anymore. I’m a mom. I was a teen mom.

What’s that look on his face? Shock? Disgust? Is he judging me or resenting me for having another man’s kid?

My stomach twists into knots as I brace myself.

But as I gaze into Riley’s eyes, I see none of that.

Just a flicker of surprise, quickly replaced by something that looks a lot like understanding. Or at least that’s what I want to see in there. He sighs gently and rests his forehead against mine, the gesture so tender it makes me shiver. I’ve never seen this vulnerable side of him before.

“Lia,” he murmurs, his breath warm on my skin before he presses a kiss on my forehead. “I told you before, you can’t say anything that would make me love you less.”

Tears prick at the corners of my eyes and I shake my head in disbelief. There it is. He said it again, even though he knows. “But my life is so messed up, Ri. It’s all so complicated…” My voice breaks. I can’t turn him into a father from one second to the other.

He pulls back slightly to look at me, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I don’t care about that. I care about you and how you feel. If something is upsetting you, I want to know why. I want to help.”

I hesitate, unsure if I can handle exposing all my painful scars. I never have. Only my mom knows all of it.

He takes my hands in his, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “I’m here to listen, for as long as it takes. Just let me in. Please. Let me be there for you.”

Hot tears spill down my cheeks at his words.

Talking. I should talk. I know but there’s this lump in my throat. I take a deep breath, evading his gaze, but he puts his thumb under my chin, refocusing me, looking at me as another tear slowly creeps down my cheek. Slowly. Silently. Like they have for the last five years.

“When I got to Beijing,” I start, breathing past that damn constricting lump. “I was focused on one thing only—I wanted to win gold again. I trained day and night, perfecting my routine. But I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally.” I swallow. All these pictures come back. Me, looking like a skeleton. So thin, purple rings under my eyes, with Sandford watching my every step. “Sandy…he was so demanding, especially since we were away from his wife. I thought my fatigue was just from the intense training and his constant sexual needs.But then the nausea started, and my breasts became tender. I tried to ignore it, convinced it was just stress.”

My voice wavers as I recall the moment everything changed.

Riley grips my hip, gently stroking me with his thumb as I need to take another deep breath. This is so hard. I chained it all up for years. Opening up like this makes me fragile. I lay my life bare in Riley hands now and I am so afraid. Of him telling me that he understands but doesn’t want to have a family. Because that’s what he gets with me. A mom and a kid. There’s no such thing as just me. There will never be and I’m happy about it.

“It’s okay. I’m here, I’ve got you,” he whispers, and despite all the racing thoughts in my mind, the urge to run, to vomit, to quit—I keep on talking.

“One day during practice, I got dizzy and blacked out on the ice. When I woke up, a doctor was there, telling me I was pregnant. I couldn’t believe it. I was on the pill. But apparently, something went wrong. Maybe I got sick and it messed with the effectiveness, I still don’t know how it happened.”

Riley listens intently, his brows furrowed with concern.

I forge ahead, determined to get it all out now. “The doctor said if I wanted to keep the baby, I had to stop skating immediately. My body couldn’t handle it. So I told my mom, and we cried together for hours. The Olympics were my life, and overnight, everything had changed. But in the end, we decided I would have the baby and move back to the States. When I told Sandford though—” A shudder runs through me at the memory. His face. The rage. The fear I had for my life and my baby.

My eyes feel hot again, the following coming out in horse, clipped sentences. “He was so furious. He said I was ruining his career, and he—he nearly pushed me down the stairs. He threatened me and my mom, forced me to go to some…go to some shady doctor for an abortion.”

I feel Riley tense up, there’s a tic in his jaw.

I can barely breathe.

I was so afraid. So afraid.

Something constricts my throat, and again, a hot tear falls down my cheek, and I wonder if there’s a day in my life when I won’t cry.

“My mother tried to get Sandy to his senses, tried to get me away from him without hurting me or the baby, but he brought me to the doctor, forcing him to do it, but the doctor refused. He wouldn’t abort without the woman’s consent—and he saw my pain, the danger I was in. So he lied to Sandford, said he did it, and gave me the money instead. My mom and I used it to fly back to the US that the same night.”

I cry so hard now that Riley takes me in his arms, his head resting on mine. His heart beats so fast.

And I cry and cry.

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