Page 89 of Heat It Up (Off the Ice)
But I don’t get on the bus.
I phone Maija and ten minutes later she pulls up in front of the bus stop. I never told her what was wrong. She’d heard it in my voice that I’m an emotional train wreck.
I climb into her car. “Hei.”
“No one is at my place. Why don’t we go there, eat lots of ice cream, and you can tell me what happened?”
All I have the energy to do is nod.
At her parent’s apartment, we flop down on the couch, each with a bowl of strawberry ice cream and cloudberry sauce. We don’t talk about what’s upsetting me at first. But eventually, after the last of the ice cream and sauce has been licked clean, I open up and tell her everything.
Until now, I’ve been doing a good job keeping the crying to just a stray tear or two. But the memories of Kyle’s scars, of all the times the pain in his leg became too much and he was reduced to limping, of his struggle with drinking, of the dog tag from his wife overwhelm me, and the sob I’ve been holding back bursts free. I cover my face with my hand and don’t bother to try stopping it. Maija hugs me.
I cry for a good five minutes…or maybe even longer. Maija strokes my hair as she tells me it will be okay. Everything will be all right.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say, scrubbing my fingers under my eyes to remove any traces of makeup that transferred there during my sob fest. God, I must resemble a natural disaster times two.
“You love him, don’t you?” She doesn’t sound too surprised.
“I need to go,” I murmur, more to myself than to Maija. She’s right. I do love Kyle, which is why this is so hard.
Maija puts her hand on my arm. “You don’t need to go yet. Stay. Just a little longer.”
“No, I need to go.”
She hugs me again. “Okay, I’ll drive you.”
I shake my head. “No, I mean I need to go somewhere that isn’t here. I need to figure out what I should do. I have to figure out if I should stay in Vantaa”—And be haunted by the memories of Kyle and what could have been—“or return home.”
And be haunted by the same and so much more.
Chapter Forty-Six
Kyle
It’s been forty-three hours and still no word from Sofia. She never called me after I dropped her off at the bus station the other night. I’ve sent her several texts and voice messages. Those all went unanswered. What the hell’s going on? Shit, if something’s happened to her or her grandmother, I doubt Joni would bother to track me down and tell me.
I need to know the truth. I need to know what I did to upset her. I’ve been through our last conversation so many times and still come up blank. All I can think of is that she was upset I never told her that I used to play for the Bears. She already knew about the accident and that Gabby was dead. But it doesn’t make sense that she would be upset over my history with the team.
It has to be something else.Like she’s already written me off because of the job offer in Seattle.
There’s only one other person who would know what’s going on.
I call Toivo. After he talks to someone who I guess to be Maija, he tells me to meet them in the pub I’ve been to one other time with them and Sofia.
“Is Sofia okay?” I ask. “Is she hurt?”
“I don’t know all the details. Maija will fill you in when you get here.”
Toivo and Maija are sitting at a small table in the corner of the patio when I arrive. I take the empty seat. “So what’s going on? Where’s Sofia?”
“She went to Rovaniemi,” Maija says. “She needed time to figure stuff out and couldn’t do that here.”
“Rovaniemi? Where the hell is that?”
“Lapland. In northern Finland. It’s a city on the Arctic Circle.”
I remember Sofia and I talked about Lapland at one point. Her parents took her there as a kid. It’s where she got the swan pendant she loves so much. “What stuff did she need to figure out? Is this about her trying to decide if she should stay here another year?”
