“And you can handle this?” I question skeptically.
She confidently rises to her elbows. “Yes.”
I get a fresh whiff of her body cream. It must be clouding up my mind. For some reason, I believe her.
“Alright one weekend in New York and then you will reschedule for when we come back.”
“Yes. It will be done.”
My gaze slips to her full lips. I hadn’t noticed the clear gloss before. I’m aware of it now and I’m captivated.
“Someone might see.” She warns nibbling her bottom lip.
“And we wouldn’t want that.”
“No,” she sighs, breathlessly leaning into me. “We wouldn’t.”
I ease her leg back down to my side and cover her body with mine. Her hands grip the sides of my face and she tugs me to her. I go willingly. My heart quickens.
“Is this all apart of the show?” A woman interrupts.
I look over into the wall mirror and see Kennedy with her partner Chris. Sage goes rigid beneath me. It takes a little bit of time but we both get to our feet quickly.
“This room is reserved.” Sage says firmly.
“We know. I just wanted to pop in and see what we’re up against in a few weeks. And it turns out, my initial assessment was right, huh Sage?”
Her cheeks flush red. “You both can leave now.”
It seems like Kennedy has made her point. Chris looks like an innocent bystander at her side. He simply pulls her out of the studio, and they slam the door behind them. I know what my reputation is and I wouldn’t ever want it to impact Sage.
“I’m sorry about that.”
She shrugs her shoulders dismissively. “Not your fault. Just lost my focus for a minute. It won’t happen again.”
I don’t let the wall she throws up deter me. Letting me in isn’t easy for her to do again. And despite what happened between us a few weeks ago, she isn’t ready to love me. That’s alright. I’m loving us hard enough until she can.
“Are we ready?” Colleen sings into the studio.
“More now than ever.” I tell her watching Sage in the mirror.
##
“She’s sixteen.” Viktor reminded me when he circled me on the ice. He had hit my legs with the hockey stick harder to take my attention. Finally, I stopped watching Sage and my sister Galina stomping and laughing in the snow.
“She is sixteen.” He annoyingly repeats.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked playfully pushing my friend back.
Viktor stumbled on the ice but quickly regained his footing. I laughed as he tried to catch up to me. He was determined. We’d hung out the night before and I’d beat him in several card games before he left early. I thought he was still a little sore about his defeat.
“You are twenty. She is a child and you peddle after her.”
“She is seventeen and she is a good friend for Galina. You see how she smiles when Sage is around.”
“I see how you smile too.”
“My sister admires Sage. And since she is visiting for training, I invited her here. She has rigid schedule. I think it is good for her to spend time with someone her age.”
“Why do you care if she spend time with Galina. Or anyone for that matter?”
I shrugged and skated away with the puck talking to him over my shoulder. “Her mother is dead and her father is gone. She has no one. I look after her. Like brother. I don’t think of her as anything else.”
“You can lie to yourself, Yuri. But you can’t lie to me. You like her “
“I don’t know what you are talking about”
“Look around you. Don’t you see them?” He whispered in my ear. He was pointing at the girls who had gathered around the outside rink.
“For the love of God you can pick anyone of them and I guarantee you will have their panties in your pocket before you leave. And everyone of them is prettier and older than Sage Parker.”
I scoff. “She’s more beautiful than all of them combined.”
“I thought you didn’t see her that way?”
“I don’t.”
“Yuri!” Galina yelled. “Come here.”
I didn’t waste time looking over my shoulder at Viktor. Not even as he teased me for how quickly I answered my sister’s call. I crouched down beside my sister while looking at Sage. She kept her gaze low and away from mine. I didn’t mind. The snow had begun to fall and I liked the way the snowflakes gathered on her dark lashes.
“Tell him,” Galina urged Sage with another giggle.
Sage refused to look me in the eye as she spoke. “I have a date…tonight.”
Had I been eating something, I would have choked. She had a date? That wasn’t that unique. She was seventeen. Old enough to date. Old enough to make that decision herself. I knew that. So why did it feel like I could melt the snow with the touch of my hand. That’s how hot I felt.
“With who?” I asked harsher than I intended.
She hesitated. Galina shook her playfully but Sage wouldn’t bring herself to say anything.
“Viktor asked her to go to club with him tonight. It’s hard to tell but she is really excited.”
Sage nodded and spoke shyly. “He brought me flowers last night.”
Last night? That was where he’d disappeared to. He had not gone home. He’d gone to the training facility. He’d spent the last few minutes guilting me about Sage, only so that he could come in and take her for himself.
I glanced back at Victor who was busy with a group of our friends. Technically he was just a year older than Sage. And unlike me, she didn’t think of him as a big brother. He was also a good guy. He just wasn’t the right one. Not for her. But I couldn’t have told her that.
So I’d left it alone. Sage had eaten dinner with my family. I’d taken her back to the training facility on time as I promised Dean. And then I broke her trust. I told Dean about the date. I justified my actions to myself. I was protecting her. I was saving her. But I wasn’t acknowledging the truth. I was saving her for myself. I was keeping her until I could love her. Until the world said it was okay. I know that now.
Chapter 15
Today is a bad day. I woke up out of my sleep and I swore that I could smell pancakes. The kind that Momma used to make. They seemed so real that I could almost taste them. I drag my blanket back to my chin and hold myself. I don’t want to remember her and don’t want to forget her either. But it hurts either way. I used to talk to Yuri when things felt dark. But now I’m scared to let him in again. Terrified of his reaction.
So, I hug myself harder and wait for sleep. I will it in my brain. But all I get is more memories. And all that’s there is pain.
##
I had been here before. Walked the very bright hallway a dozen times since Momma had been sick. It’d always smelled the same. The air reeked of disinfectant, blood, fear and grief. I looked up at Dean, he had his hand on my back as he ushered me forward. It was the only reason I moved at all.
In my head I kept wishing I could go back to the waiting room and sleep in those uncomfortable chairs with Kennedy. Or go back and hide in the fort that we made with the hospital sheets. But I couldn’t. I knew what this was. I’d known the moment I saw Dean in the lobby. His sad brown eyes when he’d gotten off the elevator couldn’t bear to look into mine. Auntie Carrie hadn’t said much on the drive over. She wasn’t much for soft words. But it was alright. Dean’s had told me everything. This would be the last visit to see mom.
She’d been here for two weeks. I’d spent most of that time prepping for competition. No one told me anything. Momma said she was feeling weak and she was going to check into the hospital. She’d been sick for much of my life. I’d known the drill. She’d check in. They’d run test. She’d get sick and then she would get better. Then she would come home.
“Sage,” Dean stopped me in front of her room. His eyes had welled up with tears. “I want you to go in there and be brave. Do you understand? Don’t cry. Be strong fo
r her.”
Be strong. That was the phrase of the day. The phrase of my life. Be strong, bury what you’re feeling. So, I did. I shoved the tears down and I walked into that dark and depressing hospital room. I was puffed up with a false bravado that nearly deflated the moment I saw her.
Two week, had changed a lot. Mom’s dark skin was ashen in color. She was thinner than she’d ever been and her hair which had just started to grow back, looked dull and lifeless too. I’d walked in and felt the burn in my chest and the sting in my eyes. But I didn’t cry. I took her hand and held it. As soon as I did, her eyes fluttered open and she looked at me and smiled.
“Hey, Pooh Bear”
I smiled. She was the only one who had ever called me that and the only one who ever would.
“Hey Momma.”
“Is it time for school?”
I shook my head. She’d been doing that a lot lately, going back and forth between time in her head. Some days she knew exactly where she was. Other days she still thought I was two years old. Since I moved for training, I was being homeschooled now. In her mind it was three years ago during one of her good times. Back when I’d wake her up and she’d take me to school and take me to all my practices. Looking down at her then, I realized that I had taken all those times for granted.
“No, it’s after school now.”
“Right. I slept a while huh?”
“You did.”
“Dean played me your tape. You going to the Championships?”
And just like that she was back to the present. I smiled at her.
“Yeah. Just like you.”
“Better than me, Pooh Bear.”
“He’s been pushing me, hard. Too hard. I barely get anytime to see you, Momma.”
Her eyes fluttered close and she drifted out for a minute. Before coming to again. “He loves you. It’s not his fault. This ain’t nobody’s fault.”
I’d known that. But I wanted someone to blame. I was losing my mother well before anyone should. It wasn’t fair to ask. She wasn’t in control. But I didn’t want to be without her.
“Momma, please don’t leave.”
“I’m not. I’m just going to sleep. Stay with Daddy. He said he’ll take care of you until I wake up.”
She was gone again. Back to a time where I still had my father before she got sick and he decided he couldn’t handle it and he left.
“We love you.” She murmured drifting out of consciousness.
No. She loved me. He didn’t care for me at all. But I wouldn’t make that point now. I kissed her cheek and sung our song Blackbird. I sung while the nurses medicated her. I sung when they came in to draw blood. I was still singing when Dean came in and told me to say goodbye.
Momma died at one in the afternoon three days later. I swear I’d known she was gone as soon as Dean’s phone rang in the kitchen that afternoon. I didn’t stay for Dean to tell me the news. I ran up into my room and locked the door. I cried until I was empty. I wanted to cut myself right then and there. But there was no cut deep enough that would take away the pain. So, I picked up my phone and dialed his number. The only person besides Momma who always knew what to say.
Yuri answered on the fourth ring. I couldn’t swallow the lump in my throat and I couldn’t get the words out at first. I tried a few times and managed some words. When I finally got everything out, I put the phone down. Screamed into my pillow and wept.
It took a while but eventually I got most of the tears out. I could talk again without falling apart at least for the moment.
“You can cry, Sage. You don’t have to be strong with me.”
More tears had followed those words. No one in the world let me feel the way Yuri did. And I was grateful for him. Yuri most have known how much I needed him in that moment because when I had tried to end the call, he wouldn’t let me.
Despite the time difference, he stayed up with me well into the evening. I didn’t leave my room. I ignored Dean’s knock at my door. I just wanted Yuri; I wanted to feel safe. And whether I was with him or talking to him he still managed to make me believe that somehow, everything was going to be okay. I don’t know when I fell asleep. But I remembered that he had made me feel like it was okay to. And I just want to feel okay again.
##
Yuri
I reach over and reluctantly pull my ringing cellphone from the night stand. A cursory glance of the clock tells me it’s half past three. Sage’s name appears on the screen and I roll onto my back to take it.
“Hello?” I murmur
“I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t realize how late it was.” She hurries. “We can talk tomorrow, when I see you at practice.”
I clear my throat and sit up in a panic. “Hold on a minute.”
“I really have to stop calling you like this. It probably scares you half to death by now.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” I admit. “Maybe we should make that a rule.”
“Maybe.” She whispers.
Her voice is so distant. It hurts. Fear piles like bricks in my chest. As if she knows she tries to calm me down.
“I’m okay. I’m not hurt or anything.”
A heavy sigh of relief passes through my lips. “Good.”
“Yuri can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” I settle into my bed and throw my arm over my eyes.
Exhausted wouldn’t even begin to describe how I feel. Sage and I have been practicing nonstop every day. I’m drained. But I’m never too tired for her.
She clears her throat and asks. “Do you have any regrets?”
My heart races. “You know I do.”
“Yeah…I do too.” She sniffs and my heart skips.
“We can’t fix the past.”
“I know...I wish…I wish you didn’t find me like that. You still see it when you look at me. I can tell.”
“I see a lot of things when I look at you.”
“You shouldn’t have seen that though. Especially after Galina.”
“I’m glad I found you. I’m glad you called me that night.” I can’t hear her sniffling anymore. “Sage?”
Silence. I panic and leap out of bed. It takes just under two seconds to pull a t-shirt over my head. Then I mentally recall where I tossed my keys earlier.
“Sage?”
One whimper from her. That’s all it takes for me to breath again.
“Do you think Momma and Galina have met in heaven?” She asks as I pull on my socks.
“You had the pancake dream again.”
She sniffs again and then whispers quietly. “Yes,”
After her mother died she had that dream all the time. She dreamt she was eleven again. Her mother was in remission, healthy and singing Sages’s favorite song. Sage would come down the stairs and sit on the counter and sing with her. When she woke up she always swore she could smell the pancakes. And it always hurt when she realized the truth.
“Where are you?” I ask her tugging on my jacket.
“Outside.”
My keys are on the kitchen table. I’m grateful that I find them quickly. My heart can’t handle any delays. I need to get to her quickly. She could be hurting herself. I could lose her.
“Outside where? Be specific.”
Four pebbled knocks echo from my door across the short expanse of the living room.
“Outside your apartment. Can I come in?”
When I pull the door open Sage steps inside with her head bowed low. She looks up at me once the door closes. She looks good. Nothing at all, like what I thought I would find again this late at night.
“You could have told me you were here, a lot earlier.”
“And ruin the surprise? I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I grunt and drop my keys and cell on the kitchen table.
“Do you want coffee?”
“Sure.”
I want to be pissed but, I’m happy that she’s okay more than anything else. I take two cups out of the cabinet and start the pot. Sage foll
ows me quietly to the table.
“I’m sorry”, she says suddenly. She reaches around and takes the coffee cups from me. Placing them on the counter. “I didn’t mean to make you think, that that was happening again.”
“It’s okay.” I reply.
“You always say that.”
“I always mean it.”
She tilts her head and gazes up at me. “I miss her so much.”
“I know, little bird.
The whites of her eyes are red. The dream haunts her. She wants so bad for it all to be real. I’ve been told that the bond between a mother and daughter is a powerful one. In Sage’s case I know that it’s true. Her mother was her idol. In some ways her best friend. She was the woman, Sage wanted to be and losing her the way she did, will forever hurt her deeply. I touch my hand to her cheek and she falls into my arms.
“I feel like I’m shattering. Why do I always come to you when I’m broken?”
“Because I still see the beauty in all of your broken pieces.”
She squeezes me to her. Or perhaps I hold her to me. Does it even matter? She’s here in my arms and it’s where I want her to always be.
Sage
“I can get you in with the Dr. Hamilton tomorrow. He is good doctor.” Yuri says, with his lips pressed to the crown of my head.
I peel my head from his chest and take a step back. That request reawakens the voice in my head. It reminds me of the last time I trusted him. The last time that I believed that he would still love me despite the dark cloud that lingers above my head. He couldn’t handle this before, so what makes me think he can now? He came back. I know he came back but that doesn’t change how he left.
“I can’t.” I tell him pulling out of his grasp.
“Sage, you need to do this for yourself.”
“Why are you so pushing me to do this now? You never cared before. And now it’s literally all you talk about.”
“You said it yourself. You need help.”
“Maybe I don’t.” I snap. Maybe I just need you to back off.”
“Sage—,”
“I have to get out of here.”
“Don’t leave like this.” He pleads.
I move to the door and he’s right on me. He tugs my wrist and spins me back to him. Our lips meet harshly. He moves his hands around my body. I slip my hands to his chest. His heart beats rapidly beneath my palm. Mine drums wildly. We pull apart slowly. Through my eyelashes, I see his blue gaze willing me to stay.
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