Page 30 of Heart on Ice

“Issy, come on, let’s talk. Let me have it. I’m sure there are things you have wanted to say to me for the past fifteen years and never got the chance to.” He smirks.

“If I had wanted to say anything, I would have but I don’t,” I say, folding my arms as I impatiently wait for my drink.

“You’re so fucking stubborn.” He curses. I ignore him and look out the window. “This is ridiculous. You obviously still have feelings for me, otherwise, why would you still hold a grudge?”

“Screw you. No, I don’t,” I bite.

“Weird. If you have no feelings toward me, then you would be indifferent, not this ball of hate. Why won’t you let us put it all out on the table and clear the air, not just for us but for Harper and Felix.” I side-eye him. “Give it to me. Please.”

There are some things I should say to him, he deserves to hear them.

“Fine,” I hiss, just as my drink arrives. I’m going to need it to get through this talk. There is nothing he can say that will make me forgive him.

Pierre stares at me in surprise that I agreed. “Right, um, yeah, where should we start?” he asks.

“Guess at the point where you started cheating on me,” I say, levelling him a glare.

He nods. “That would be a good place to start.” Pierre looks uncomfortable. “I think I’m going to need another drink for this.” He calls the flight attendant over and orders himself a whiskey.

“You wanted this,” I tell him.

“I did,” he says.

Moments later his drink arrives, he takes a slow sip, neither one of us knows where to start.

“Why did you do it?” I ask him. It’s a simple question that should be easy for him to answer. “I was a good girlfriend to you.” He was my first boyfriend. I had nothing else to gauge it against, maybe I sucked. “I thought we were happy. I thought we were in love as much as two teenagers could be. Was I not pretty enough?” I know I wasn’t like those blonde bimbo puck bunnies that hung around the frat house with their big boobs and short skirts. “Did I not put out enough for you?” I thought our sex life was good. I mean, we were at it all the time. “Were you embarrassed that I was your girlfriend?” With each question, my throat tightens with emotion. I will not lose it in front of this man.

“Shit, Issy, is that what you have thought all these years?” He curses, running his hand through his hair. “Have you thought that this was all your fault?” Is he dumb? Of course, I’ve thought this was my fault because he cheated on me. I was obviously lacking something for him to do it. “Fuck, I’m an asshole.” He gets up out of his chair and kneels beside me, he’s so tall that we are almost eye to eye. Why is he so close? He doesn’t need to be this close to me. “Issy,” he says, looking at me, “this was all on me.” He starts to explain, and I don’t like the way he is looking at me. I pick up my emotional support tequila and take a sip. Being this close to him is intense. “I was the one lacking.” Damn right. “You were perfect.So, fucking perfect.” Bullshit, otherwise he wouldn’t have cheated. “Once I joined that frat house, we were never going to make it.” That was my concern, but he told me he needed to be with his teammates, it’s a bonding thing. Lies. “I valued what other people thought about me more than you. I started to believe the hype around me. I believed in my own legend that I was untouchable, unstoppable. I loved the fact that people worshipped me. My frat brothers would fuel thatego.” I continue to sip my tequila, he’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. “I watched how they treated their girlfriend’s and thought that was normal. I mean, it was exactly how my father treated my mother. I thought I was a fucking god. I started to party more, and I enjoyed the adulation, and then came the puck bunnies.” You could have said no. You could have talked to me. You should have broken up with me if you wanted freedom. I would have understood. But I don’t say any of that because I’m lost in the past. “None of this is an excuse for what I did to you. I was dumb and young and was so caught up in my own ego that I turned into someone I didn’t like.” Someone I didn’t fall in love with. “I should be thanking you for leaving my ass. You were the wake up call I needed to get my shit together. If you hadn’t left, I don’t think I would be here today, nor have the career that I have.”You’re welcome,I think. “The guilt of what I did to you haunts me.” It haunts me, too, but still he has no idea the damage it did to me. “It’s a festering wound that never seems to close.” Mine too. The more he tries to explain, the angrier I’m getting. He still doesn’t get it. “I wish we were able to have this conversation years ago.” What conversation? You just gave me line after line of bullshit. “I fucking missed you, Issy, didn’t realize how much until you left. You were my other half, and I was lost without you.” He means none of this. It’s just words. Words that he thinks I need to hear. I’m gripping the tumbler of tequila so tightly I swear it’s about to shatter beneath my fingers.

“From what I heard, after I left, you didn’t stop partying,” I say through gritted teeth. He wasn’t wallowing with a broken heart like I was.

Pierre hangs his head. “I was angry for a long time. Wish I could say I handled it maturely, but I didn’t. When you didn’t come back after spring break, and no one would tell me where you were, I lost it. I sank into a dark hole of drinking and women,but realized that if I ever wanted to get you back, that hearing about me being a ho was not the way to go.” He chuckles. “That rhymes.”

This man is a moron. He thinks he can give me some basic bullshit excuses and throw me a smile and be coy with his nervous neck hold thing, then he’s an even bigger idiot than I thought.

“You fucked my friends. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was to find out? That these girls I would go to class with, hang out with, had all been with you.”

Pierre gives me a sheepish look. “I wasn’t thinking.”

No shit, dipshit. “Could you imagine if you had found out I had slept with your entire hockey team?”

“That would have devastated me.” He stares at me intensely with those hazel eyes. I hate him. “I’m surprised you didn’t after we broke up.”

“They were all morons. But maybe in hindsight, I should have taken them up on their offers. You know they offered, all your friends.” He stills. “Yeah, your boys, the ones you valued over me, they kept sliding into my DMs. They would always tell me that you didn’t deserve me, that I was the perfect girlfriend, and that you didn’t appreciate me.”

“What fuckers,” he says, shaking his head.

“Stupidly, my heart was yours, and no one could tempt me away from you, and I thought you felt the same. How wrong was I.”

“Issy …”

I shake my head, now I’m worked up, and let him have it. “You broke me. You ripped my heart out. It took me a long time to be able to date again. I didn’t trust men, still don’t. You ruined my self-esteem. I thought there was no way anyone would ever find me attractive enough to date. That they would always find someone better because I knew I would never be enough.” Tearsescape, and I feel them slide down my cheek. Dammit. No. He doesn’t deserve them.

“Issy,” he says, reaching out to wipe the tears away.

“Don’t,” I say, getting up abruptly, “I need a moment.” I head toward the plane toilet.

9

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