Page 23 of Jesse and the Ice Princess
Because she loved it.
And she could never tell anyone quite how much.
Charlotte Morrison was a figure skater, she'd always be a figure skater. She had a competition to prepare for. There was no time to think about anything else. So, she did what she always did.
She ignored the things that bothered her.
Acted as if none of it mattered.
Pretend. Pretend. Pretend.
Maybe then she'd win another competition she cared nothing for.
Hadley barged into the room as Charlotte finished getting dressed. "There you are!"
"Here I am."
"The guys have started playing, so I'm bored. We can go." Translation, they stopped paying attention to her. But Charlotte would take it.
"Perfect."
They didn't pass by the rink on their way out, instead leaving down the long hallway from the locker rooms, away from the guys who got to suck at playing the sport she loved.
7
Jesse
They lost. Again. Sunday's afternoon game started out great. For the first time in months, the Gulf City Hurricanes scored the first two goals of the game.
Then everything started to fall apart.
First, Damien got hurt. A player from the other team hit him in the corner, and he went into the boards. The full arena—because people still came even though they sucked for some reason—went completely silent until Coach and a trainer helped Damien off the ice.
After that, the guys got reckless, hitting everything that moved and taking penalties as if their lives depended on it.
It took a grand total of ninety seconds for the game to be tied. Jesse wanted to forget about everything that happened after that. He'd expected a quiet locker room after the game, but the guys talked and joked as if their play hadn't even mattered.
Damien ended up with a nasty bruise that would hurt for a while, but he didn’t have a concussion.
Jesse ended up with the hopeless feeling that nothing would change. He had to do something.
The plan he'd started to form as soon as he'd seen Charlotte skating began to seem like an impossible one. She'd never agree.
But he had to try. Right?
He walked into Chem on Monday to find Charlotte sitting by herself. She didn't look up when he stopped at her table.
"Where's Hadley?" he asked.
She traced an invisible image on the black tabletop with her finger. "Sick."
Studying her for a moment longer, he slid into Hadley's normal chair at her side.
She finally looked his way. "What are you doing?"
"Sitting next to you."
"Obviously. But what are youdoing?"
