Page 22 of Forbidden

I blink. This is the first time he’s acknowledged me since he arrived almost two months ago. The first time I’ve heard him say my name in four years. I turn around and keep on walking.

“Fuck,” he swears under his breath. “Joy.”

His hand grabs hold of my padded yellow jacket, and I shrug him off, whirling on my heeled boots to glare at him. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

“Joy,” he says again. “Please talk to me.”

My eyes widen, my mouth falling open in disbelief. “Are you serious, Lane? You’ve straight up ignored me for two whole months and now you’re begging me to talk to you? You’ve got a fucking nerve.”

Anger churns in my gut, my face heating with rage, and my fingers curl into fists in my gloves. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later—having to face him—but no matter how many scenarios I’ve let play out in my head, nothing could have prepared me for the pain of the real thing.

He might look a little different—older, broader, tattooed—but at the core he’s the same. The same soft blond hair. The same small scar on the left-hand side of his square jaw where he fell off a skateboard at fifteen. The same midnight blue eyes. His right eye is a little lighter when you look closely.

I turn and take a step away from him. “I can’t do this. Maybe if you’d spoken to me when you first arrived, but it’s too late, Lane. Four years and two months too late.”

“Joy. . .”

The way his voice breaks on my name squeezes around my heart and I suck in a breath.

“You don’t have to forgive me,” he says. “Just let me explain.”

I don’t leave, but I don’t turn to face him. My eyes closed, I wrap my arms around myself and wait. He’s got one thing right. I won’t forgive him. But four years of wondering what I did wrong win out. I want to know. Even if it hurts more than not knowing.

He exhales loudly, taking a small step closer. For a second, I think he’s going to try and turn me around, but he keeps his distance.

“That summer, I kept something from you.” He draws in a shaky breath. “Over spring break, I went skiing with some friends and I fell. I tore a muscle.”

I frown, my eyes opening. “That’s why you didn’t show up to the trials? You told me you had the flu.”

“Yeah. I was embarrassed. You told me after that skateboarding accident that I needed to take better care of myself. To prioritize my body. As I was tumbling down the slope, I could hear your voice. ‘Your body is the tool for your craft. You need to take care of it, nurture it. Treat it better than anything else. Because without it, you’re nothing.’”

I wince at the recited words. They’re not mine. I mean, what fourteen-year-old talks like that? Those words are one hundred percent courtesy of Emi Blake’s pot of wisdom.

“Anyway,” Lane continues with a sigh. “I thought I’d healed, but things just weren’t the same. My times were slower, and no matter how much time I spent conditioning, how many hours I put in, I couldn’t move past my old PRs.”

I turn to face him, but he’s not looking at me. His shuttered gaze is fixed on his sneakers, a deep line between his brows.

“My college found out and said they wouldn’t be able to honor my scholarship if I didn’t get back on track.”

My throat is thick as I listen to the explanation, wondering how I didn’t notice. We were in the same trials, the same training. Of course, men and women trained at different times, but I was there. Surely, I would have noticed he’d slowed down. But whenever I think of that last summer, all I can think of is his arm around my shoulders, his mouth on mine. The wild look in his eyes as he pulled off his shirt. Until now, I thought I’d been remembering those parts to torture myself, but had he been trying to distract me?

“But you went to Minnesota,” I say quietly. “You must have got your times back up.”

He glances at me, the shadow of something flickering across his face, but then he looks away again. “I scraped it. Just.”

Staring at him, I wait. But nothing comes. “I don’t understand.”

He looks up at me in question.

“I don’t understand how that’s an explanation. You were embarrassed that you hurt yourself and your times suffered for it. How is that an excuse for telling me that we’d make it work, and then straight up ghosting me for four fucking years?”

I try to keep my voice calm, but I can’t make it to the end of my rant before a sob sticks in my throat.

“I didn’t want to hold you back,” he says, taking a step closer, his blue eyes filled with pain. “You were going places. You still are. You could have competed in the Olympics already. I’ve seen your file. I know Team USA wants you.”

I wince. My trial times from the summer were enough to get me on the team, but I don’t want to. The Olympics aren’t for a couple of years, so I have time. Time to tell my parents that their dream just isn’t mine.

“I still don’t understand.” Although my voice sounds so weak and pathetic I want to hurl, my body thrums with a violent rage that wants to punch Lane in the throat and stamp on his dick. It’s exhausting.

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