Page 8 of Frozen Play

The apple went past him into the dark. “Okay, I won’t ask again. Sorry.”

He had good reason to be concerned, but I wasn’tthatupset about it. Not anymore. Not enough to hurt a Collins, though it had been touch-and-go when it happened. “How the actual fuck can you ask me that?”

He paused with a juice bottle halfway to his mouth. “Because I don’t know?”

I sat bolt upright, no longer feeling the cold. “You don’t know?YOU DON’T KNOW?”

He flinched, but I was just getting started.

“You don’t know about the code violations that were filed against our cottage and our business by your family? If one of our tow trucks showed up anywhere near here, there was a complaint. If the grass was too long, a complaint. Disputed property line. Anything and everything. Claims the buildingdidn’t meet code, and that spilled over to the garage as well. Business dropped off.”

I’d been a teenager and didn’t understand all the details, just that our former allies, the Collinses, were doing their best to destroy us.

“My dad got a lawyer, but our local law firm couldn’t compare to the lawyers your family has. Finally, he had to sell because we owed so much in legal fees.”

Phin looked stricken. “No way.”

“Oh, most definitelyyesway. And then both cottages were torn down and this”—I waved at the shadows around us—“was built.”

“Fuck. How the hell could she…” His voice trailed off. “When did this happen?”

“Twelve years ago. I was fourteen, and I remember it very clearly.”

“Fuck,” he repeated, more forcefully. “I’d like to say Lina wouldn’t do that, but she would. Without a thought.”

I shrugged. He could blame it on his stepmother if he wanted. But the whole family came and enjoyed the place. They no longer associated with plebians like us, but they’d all been here. Except maybe Phin.

“I would have been sixteen—” He stopped and then swore. Impressively.

I unzipped my jacket, the room feeling another degree or two warmer. It was a big fireplace but the room was huge too. Floor-to-ceiling windows, and I wasn’t sure how well they were insulated.

Phin sighed. “It’s my fault.”

“What is?”

He waved a hand at me. “You losing your cottage. But I swear, I had no idea what she’d do.”

It wasn’t hard to figure out theshehe meant. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t like Lina. I didn’t like it when she started dating my dad. I was sixteen, and I’d been drafted to play major junior, so I wasn’t around much. But I was pissed that my dad was dating. Lina tried to make friends and offered to take us to Europe that summer when I wasn’t in hockey camp, but I said I preferred to spend summer here, at the cottage.”

I went back through my memories, trying to remember what was going on before the pressure on Dad to sell our property started. I’d been focused on Quin, but I didn’t think Phin had been around much.

He sighed. “I said it mostly because I knew there wasn’t room for her up here, and it wasn’t something she’d like.”

I looked around the shadowy spaces of this huge room. Yeah, Lina Collins wasn’t going to sleep on a lumpy futon. “She forced us to sell so she could build this huge place only because you said you wanted to be here? Even though you didn’t?”

He shrugged. “I wanted to scare her off. Have something that she wasn’t a part of. I had no idea what my being a brat would do.”

I’d been angry at the Collins family, and also hurt because we’d shared a lot over those summers hanging out together. I’d mostly played with Quin, who I had a crush on, but Phin and my brothers had been close and we’d done things together. Every summer, for as long as I could remember, it had been the five of us.

It made sense that the boys hadn’t initially been the ones to want to push us out, but Quin had broken my heart when he’d started avoiding me, blocked my number, and ended what had been a years-long friendship.

“She forced us out to build something big enough for everyone, and then you never come to the cottage she built.”

“I still don’t like her. I’m polite, and I don’t make a fuss when we have family events, but I avoid her as much as I can.” He looked around the dark spaces where the fireplace didn’t send light. “Even if I didn’t, this isn’t the kind of thing I’d want as a vacation home. I don’t know how the hell anyone relaxes here.”

“It’s very luxurious,” I noted.

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