Page 134 of Oh, Flutz!

“In less than three weeks?” I say dumbly.

Bryan flushes a deep red. “When did you decide this?” he asks through clenched teeth.

“Last week.”

“Without evenasking?” he practically yells, and I jump. What is wrong with him? This is unexpected, but there has to be something else going on. “Lian, what the hell? You know that I—"

“Lower your damn voice, or I’m kicking you off my ice,” Lee replies calmly. “The decision is final. We’re doing it.”

“I won’t,” he says, eyes blazing, and my mouth is open.

“Bryan, what—”

He pushes past me, getting off the ice, not even putting on his guards before stomping out of the building.

I stare at Lian. “What just happened?”

She rubs at her forehead. “You missed…a lot.”

Ifind him sittingon the bleachers of the other rink, hunched over, glaring daggers at the oblivious Zamboni driver resurfacing the ice.

When he sees me, his gaze immediately jerks back to the Zamboni. “Just leave me alone.”

“You could say please.” The second I say it, I remember that first day, the first time he told me that. Grinning down at me, blocking the way to the refrigerator. I can’t tell if he remembers or not. I shake away the thought. “Bryan, what happened in there? What did I miss?”

Nothing.

“Bryan.”

“Can you please just—”

“No!”

He jerks his head back up.

I know I have no right to be angry, but the frustration has been building for days now, and I can’t deal with it anymore. I need him to talk to me. “Fight with me, yell at me, call me names and say that I don’t deserve your forgiveness. Do whatever you want. But please, please just talk to me. Justtalkto me already!”

“God, Katya, why can’t you back off?”

“Because I can’t! Just tell me, what is your problem?”

“It was his favorite song.”

Before I can askwho, he tilts his head to the side, looking like a lost little boy again. “He loved Jeff Buckley. Like,lovedhim. He could go on for hours about the time he saw him live just a few weeks before he drowned, and how if he hadn’t died he would’ve been one of the biggest artists out there. It was one of the only things that I could remember staying the same after the accident. He would play ‘Grace’ all the way through in the car, and me and Alex would get so mad at him because it totally killed the vibe, but he’d just say, ‘one day you’ll get it’. I can’t tell you how many times he said that.” Bryan wipes at his eyes, clearing his throat. “Hallelujah was his favorite. So they played it. At the funeral. I can’t even hear it without losing my shit.”

“Funeral? What funer—“

He looks up at me, eyes empty. “My dad’s dead, Katya.”

I open my mouth. I close it. I open it again.

“What?” I say, barely at all.

“Yeah. A month ago.” He smiles wryly, like a knife, not like him at all, and lets out something like a laugh. “Like, two weeks after.”

He doesn’t need to clarify what he means byafter. My chest is empty.Oh my god.

“But…but he was fine,” is all I can say. “What happened?”

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