Page 21 of Wonderstruck

I hesitated. Being around him the other day was enough for me to remember how dangerous being around him was. But my mind felt cloudy up here, and before I knew it was wandering toward the window sill and perching on the edge of it. “I suppose it is if you're into dust and horrid lighting.”

A hushed grunt was all I got from him.

Neither of us said anything for a minute. But he didn’t ask me to leave.

And weirdly I didn’t want to.

"Have you found anthing?" I asked, breaking the silence, his green eyes settling back on me. "Or have you just devoted your time to injuring yourself?"

His chuckle hit me, like a warm morning breeze. "A few things." Groaning as he leans, he reaches behind him, before handing me a stack of photos. "Thought you'd want to keep these. Especially the one where you look like a baby marshmallow."

I was confused for all of two seconds, before my eyes fell to the picture at the top of the pile.

I'd know this scene in my sleep. It was me and my mom, standing on the edge of the frozen lake by the cottage back in Honeywood. A pink coat with a fur hood way too big for me covered my tiny frame, but my smile was huge. Shining right at the camera.

My eyes rolled back at him. "Baby marshmallow?"

One of his broad shoulders lifted. "Tell me I'm wrong." He laughed, nodding at the photo.

He wasn't. Annoyingly. But he didn't need to know that.

Instead, I focused back on the picture, as my eyes trailed down, finding my feet covered by a tiny pair of skates.

The sight made my heart jump.

Itwas one of those moments where your mind was suddenly filled with memories that you hadn't realised you'd forgotten. Or I guess in my case I'd willingly blocked them out.

“How old were you there?” Finn asked, his voice a whisper in my mind.

I looked up, barely. “Umm, six, maybeseven.” I looked back at the picture. “Thelake is fully frozen, so it would’ve been January, and with my birthday on the fourteenth, I could be either.” I squinted my eyes at the picture once more. “Actually, those were my first real pair of skates that weren’t rented from the rink, so that would’ve been just after my seventh birthday.”

My fingertips hovered over the photo,a pang of bittersweet warmth flickeringin my chest. I knew it was Dad who’d taken the picture—the angle was too familiar, the way he always seemed to capture Mom mid-motion. She was in the middle of a pirouette, right next to me, her skate resting against the inside of her leg, perfectly balanced. That was around this time in my lifethat I truly fell in love with watching herskate. Wanting so badly to skate just as well as she did.

When had I last skated? I tried toremember, but the answer was a hazy blur.

Not since Montana. That much I knew.

Back then, the lake was practically my second home. Once, I even got caught skating at four in the morning, though after that, I learned to hide my sunrise skates better.

It was magic—the way the world seemed to wait for me to take that first steponto the ice. The birds wouldn’t sing, and the sun wouldn’t crest the mountains—not until I was out there, gliding across the glassy surface. Dancing. Spinning. Flying. Like the lake wasn’t just a frozen stretch of water but the very heart of who I was, the only place I was truly alive.

But since Mom… since losing the person who showed me just how much Iloved skating, even thinking about that lake makes my body freeze.

I couldn’t do it. Not anymore. Because something was missing.Shewasmissing. Her laugh, her soft voice offering instructions from the sidelines, her smile—the one she wore just for me—was all gone.

My thumb brushed over the corner of the photograph.

Could she hear me now? What would they say if they knew? Me.Rory Greene. The girl who once lived for the ice, who would’ve slept out there if it meant I didn’t have to leave it. I wanted to believe she’d understand. If it hurt this much, maybe I wasdoing the right thing by leaving it behind like these memories stuffed into boxes. That was what dad always said when he’d ask me about it.

But then my mind drifted back to those mornings, the ones where we’d wakeup at five a.m. to drive to my competitions. I could still hear her voice—hers and Dad’s—reminding me as we packed to-go breakfasts,“Just do your best. That’s all we’ll ever ask of you.”

I thought about her skaters, the ones she’d trained when she was technicallyretired and done with her competition career, who’d gush about how much I reminded them of her when I skated. There was one of them… Amelia… Aspen… I couldn’t remember, but she went on to be a four-time gold medalist for the Olympicsin figure skating, and she was always telling mom how taleanted I was, how natural my gift with this sport was. She never argued when any of them said this to her, just smiled at them, before turning that same, angelic smile on me.

I lifted my head, a dull ache bloomingat the base of my neck from how longI’d had it arched. Finn had taken my silence as a hint and was busying himself with the boxes he'd already sorted through.

How long had I been staring at that photo?

The though had me blinking away the dryness in my eyes, but before I could flick to the next picture, Finn cleared his throat. "I found these too." My eyes pinged to him. "Figured since the box was taped up it might be important. And I didn't want to go routing."

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