Page 69 of Sven

“No,” she said, pushing it again, realizing it was stuck.

“First thing I think we need to address is your sloppy skating.”

“My skating is not sloppy,” Sven said, but it seemed like he was mumbling it.

“Oh, yeah, what do you call this? If you had been where you were supposed to be, then you wouldn’t have gotten stripped. This was going to be a shutout until you pulled that crap.”

Natalie didn’t want to listen to this anymore. She had gotten the feeling from Sven that his dad was kind of a jerk, but shedidn’t know it was this bad. She pushed the button a little harder, trying to get it to pop back out.

“And look at this bullshit. Sven, you’re better than this.”

She tried to get her fingernail under the button to push it out but nothing.

“You’ve got to get your fucking act together or just quit.”

“What?” she and Sven both said at the same time.

“At this point, if you can’t manage to pull your head out of your ass—I mean look at the sloppy pass. What were you doing looking at some bunny in the stands?”

“No.”

“Oh, stop. You look like a pouting kid. You’re a grown man. Act like it. Speaking of bunnies, how are your extracurriculars?”

Natalie shook her head in disgust at the voice coming from the speaker.

“I’ve stopped. I’m leaving the bunnies alone this year.”

“Well, that’s your problem. You gotta keep the energy moving. No wonder you’re stagnant on the ice.”

Natalie’s mouth dropped open as she gave an indignant huff to the intercom.

“I don’t think it works that way.”

Finally, Natalie remembered she could just turn the volume down. She turned it all the way done and went and sat on her couch. She was fuming. His dad was such an ass. The idea of Sven sleeping with other women made her angry, irrationally so. He was a dad. He needed to stop sleeping around. That was the reason she was upset.

It had nothing to do with having feelings for him. She got up and started pacing around her little pool house. There was a bit part of her that wanted to march right into Sven’s living room and give his dad a piece of her mind. That thought was so far from who she had been and how she had been raised. In fact,when she thought about a lot of the feelings Sven brought out of her, they were not the feelings she’d been able to express before.

Thinking about that, she stopped pacing. She was from a proper Southern family. Not only that, she was a Roper. That name came with lots of expectations and preconceived notions. Never had she yelled at anyone before. Even when she got fired, she did so with grace. She had accepted being turned away with grace, too. Anger was not an emotion she ever expressed because of her upbringing.

The night before, when Sven had made her so angry, she had told him. She had let him know in the moment she was mad at him and then, when they got back here, she had been openly mad at him. She had expressed it to him, and everything was fine.

At that moment, all the wind went out of her sails, and she plopped down on the couch. She was so angry at Sven for being an ass last night and angry at Sven’s father for being a diabolical asshole. But when she started to feel it, there was so much more anger inside of her. Anger at the school board, anger at the Moms Fighting For Freedom, anger at a foundation her family had founded who would not take a stand, and anger at the world was in such a state that these things were even allowed to happen.

The anger swirled in her as she took a deep breath. She was raised to be a blessing to those around her, which she was realizing meant she had never been comfortable letting out emotions deemed negative. She so very clearly remembered her mama’s words.

You catch more flies with honey.

And those were bad enough, but the words that rang in her head more that she cared to admit were when she would stand up for herself and she would get in trouble for it. She remembered, one time, there was a boy who tried to push her offthe swing at church. Little Natalie, mad at the injustice of it all, stood up with her hands on her hips and yelled at him to back off before getting back on the swing.

Her mother had called her over and given her a lecture about sharing and then had said,You really need to watch how you treat people or else they might say, “Here comes that mean Natalie Roper, and we don’t want to play with her.”

Those are the words that had shaped her response to anger. Those are the words that taught her to accept bad behavior. It had been so deeply ingrained in her she didn’t even realize it was a problem until this moment.

When she let Sven know she was angry, nothing bad happened. In fact, he had come here and apologized. She had told him she was still angry, and he had validated her and told her he still liked her. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she had expressed that rage to him multiple times. She had even called him a baboon’s ass, and it was fine.

All of the sudden, tears were streaming down her face. She was a swirl of emotions she had no idea how to process. As much as she loved her grandfather, being a Roper meant her behavior was always on display, and part of that was knowing how to put a check on your emotions. She was taught to be a charming Southern lady, but what good did that do? It made her sweet and docile and took her ability to fight back. And, sometimes, things needed to be fought back against.

She needed to do something. She couldn’t just sit here and spiral. But as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t march in there and tell off Sven’s father either. So, instead, she started unpacking her bag.

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