Page 75 of Unsteady

“Clearly.” She rolls her eyes. “What crawled up his ass and died?”

Holden snorts, stuffing the last of his grilled chicken in his mouth in one overly large bite. Freddy looks up and laughs, shuffling his head towards me as he answers Paloma.

“He likes a girl that isn’t falling all over him for once.”

Paloma raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow as she peels back the lid of a brightly colored kid’s yogurt that seems like it appeared from nowhere.

“Who?”

I don’t want to say, because if her reaction is anything to go by, Sadie might be keeping us a secret. But I know that if anyone on this campus knows everything, it’s Paloma.

“Sadie Brown.”

There’s barely a twitch in her face, her perfect features forever in place against any reaction.

“The figure skater?”

I pause and look at her. “Yeah—you know her?”

She smiles and it makes my stomach hurt. “Oh I know her—she’s fun.”

Something about the way she says it makes me uneasy.

“Fun?”

Paloma shrugs, but that gleam in her eye doesn’t disappear. “She’s wild. She pops into parties for quick, not-so-quiet hookups and bounces, so it’s given her a reputation. I don’t think she slept with anyone on the hockey team, but… the others? Yeah. She has a type—athletic, rough. I haven’t seen her around in a while, but last semester she waswild.”

I want to ask, but I force my mouth closed. If I’ve learned anything from the time I spent dating her, Paloma isn’t who this information should come from.

I force myself to eat, despite the sour feeling in my stomach. We’ve got practice in a few hours, which might give me enough time to talk to her and make it up to her if she wasn’t already at practice.

But I know her schedule like I know my own, because Iwantto know it. I want to see her every second I can, and for two busy student athletes, that’s a scheduling game itself. It’s surprisingly easier for me to find the time for her than she can for me. More often than not, she is taking care of her brothers. I get the sinking feeling in my gut, the more I am around her, that she is theonlyone taking care of them.

Shoving back from the table, I excuse myself quickly and toss my scraps in the bin on my way out. Then dive into my phone and pull up Sadie’s text thread, debating exactly how to fix it.

But not before opening her playlist for me, queuing up the new song “Yippie Ki Yay” by Hippo Campus. I can’t help the smile that spreads at knowingexactlywhy she chose it.

TWENTY-FIVE

SADIE

It’s Friday night and I have a shift at the cafe that I’m already late for.

Practice was awful, focusing on the jumps for my long program which I ran through angrily, sloppy the first handful of times because all I could think about was Rhys.

He texted me last week, after our mishap on the quad, but I’d ignored it at first, focused solely on the week’s schedule—work, practice and Oliver’s game.

I planned to message him back, to apologize for getting so upset—because the truth was that Oliver didn’t care, not enough for this to bother him. I was the one who was hurt and I should have been honest with him about it.

But then, Friday night came.

Instead of making it to the competition, I spent the night hunting down my father—who’d stolen my car while we were packing Oliver’s gear bag—and getting Liam dressed from his bath. Oliver missed his game, Liam became more aware of exactly how terrifying his father could be, and I called every bar within fifteen miles until I found him.

I had to hitch a ride from a too-expensive taxi, fight off grabby hands from drunk older men in a seedy dive bar and fight my own father for my car keys back.

So, Rhys' text sat unanswered, and the self-hatred that lingered around me swallowed me whole until I’d made my decision. Bringing Rhys Koteskiy into the mess of my life was something I wasn’t willing to do.

I texted a quick,I don’t think we should do this anymore. Then left the rest of his messages unread and unopened, because I couldn’t bring myself to block him.

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