Walk on Water

by Laura Peyton Roberts

  Just before the open doorway, she heard a man’s voice and stopped short.

  “She skated well enough to get by. I’m sure you’ve worked miracles, Candace. But she’s sure as hell not her mother, is she? You’re not really thinking nationals?”

  Lexa swallowed hard and held her breath. Candace was speaking with one of the test judges.

  “We don’t have a prayer of placing, obviously. The main thing is to season Boyd. He couldn’t have gotten there this year with his former partner—too immature, way too fragile. Lexa’s a star-quality pain in my ass, but she was available and she’s tough. There’s no lack of funds behind that little diva, either; her grandma throws money at every obstacle. Besides,” Candace added with a chuckle, “this has got to be pissing off Blake no end, and you can’t put a price tag on that.”

  They joined in the laugh that followed. “What’s your plan for after nationals, then?” the judge asked.

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. First we have to get there.”

  Lexa backed away from the door, then turned and ran for the exit, eyes stinging with unshed tears. All this time she’d been telling herself that Candace had her best interest at heart, that her criticism and lack of warmth were professional, not personal. There was no way to continue viewing events through those rose-colored glasses now, though. Those lenses hadn’t just been ripped away, they’d been dropped and crushed to shards.

  Candace didn’t like her. It was personal.

  —33—

  “Lexa! You came!” Bry exclaimed, throwing his front door open. Music and laughter poured out, enveloping her on the stoop.

  “As if I’d miss your birthday.” She thrust his present at him, a brightly wrapped hat and scarf she’d knit herself. It wasn’t the right season for them, but Bry loved handmade gifts and her crafting skills were limited. “Happy seventeenth.”

  He pulled her inside. “Should I open this now or later?”

  “Later. You won’t need it for a while anyway.”

  Her eyes moved past him to the small gathering in the Nicholses’ living room. Balloons trailing blue streamers floated against the ceiling. Beneath them, Aiden and Paul were moving furniture to make more room to dance. Most of the people there trained at Ashtabula Ice, as Lexa had expected. What she hadn’t expected was the sight of Jenni in the throne-like corner chair, Adam dancing attendance as if her bad behavior at the bonfire had been some sort of foreplay.

  “Are you kidding me?” Lexa demanded through clenched teeth. “You said she couldn’t make it!”

  “I lied,” Bry replied serenely. “Make up with her tonight and you won’t have a dilemma next month when it’s time for her birthday bash.”

  “There’s no dilemma—she won’t invite me and I won’t go. You should have told me the truth.”

  He jerked his head impatiently. “Just because you’re both being ridiculous doesn’t mean I have to choose between you. If it helps, she’s not expecting you to be here either.”

  It didn’t help.

  “And what about him.” Lexa’s eyes cut toward Adam. “Don’t tell me those two are a thing now?”

  Bry shrugged. “Ask Jenni.”

  As if sensing her name, Jenni chose that moment to look in their direction. She and Lexa made accidental eye contact and quickly glanced away, each pretending not to have seen the other. Lexa wheeled around and walked off, seized by a sudden need to visit any other room.

  Bry’s mom was alone in the kitchen, frantically icing a home-baked cake. She glanced up guiltily, then relaxed. “Lexa!” she said warmly. “It’s been too long since we’ve seen you here.”

  Lexa forced herself to smile to hide how upset she was. “Things have been kind of crazy lately.”

  “I heard!” Grabbing a handful of candles, Mrs. Nichols began stabbing them into the cake. “Pairs with Candace Zaharian! I can’t say I saw that coming.”

  “Yeah. Nobody can.”

  “And how are you enjoying it?”

  “It’s awesome,” Lexa lied. There was no way she could tell the truth. She hadn’t even told Beth.

  “Bry said you passed all your pairs tests. The sky’s the limit now!”

  “Pretty much. Hey, great party!” she said, changing the subject. “People are already clearing a dance floor.”

  “Really? Can you do me a favor and tell Bry the pizzas are on their way? Wait!” Mrs. Nichols added as Lexa moved to leave. “Don’t tell anyone I’m making his cake, okay? I wanted to order a fancy fondant one from that new bakery everyone’s talking about. I’d have loved to throw his party somewhere better than our living room. But between skating, and presents, and everything else . . . well. You know. It adds up.”

  “I do know. So does Bry, don’t worry.” Bry’s parents both worked full time and his dad had a second job, just to keep their only child skating while paying the mortgage on their modest home. Mrs. Nichols had probably only left work an hour before; her husband was unlikely to show up before the end of the party. “Homemade cake tastes best anyway.”

  Mrs. Nichols smiled and mimed zipping her lips. “Our secret, then.”

  Lexa walked back into the living room with her eyes trained away from the corner. The birthday boy was busy spreading his attention among his guests. She gave him the pizza message, then found herself left hovering alone near a table piled with gifts. Across the room, Adam was feeding Jenni M&Ms like a Roman slave doling out grapes. The last thing Lexa wanted them to see was her lurking like some sort of outcast.

  Darci Wallace was standing next to a bowl of chips. Lexa barely knew the girl but moved to join her anyway. “Hi, Darci. How’s it going?”

  “Too fast!” Darci joked. “Our little Bry is all grown up!”

  “Um, yeah,” Lexa said, taken aback by the “our.” Darci’s time at Ashtabula Ice had overlapped hers by only a few weeks, but apparently Bry spent more time with her now that Lexa wasn’t around. “You guys hang out at the rink?”

  “All the time! He’s just so fun to be around.”

  “Yes, there’s nobody quite like our Bry.”

  “Jenni’s hilarious too,” Darci said obliviously, pointing to the corner Lexa was trying to ignore. “I can’t believe I’m looking forward to school starting this year. It was no fun transferring here last semester, but it’s going to be worth it now. Senior year! Aren’t you psyched?”

  “Psyched? Um, no. I’d have been a junior anyway, but I’ll have a tutor again.”

  “Oh. That’s cool, though,” Darci tacked on sympathetically. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

  “Exactly.” Lexa looked away in search of a better conversation, but everyone else was talking and laughing as if she weren’t even there. It wasn’t that her friends were ignoring her so much as they didn’t seem to see her anymore. Every day she’d been away had taken her farther out of their lives, erasing her bit by bit.

  She had made herself extraneous.

  And they had moved on.

  —34—

  Everything felt wrong from the second Lexa left the ice—not enough speed, maybe, definitely not enough lift. She completed the lasso circuit, but as Boyd pressed her overhead, he stopped with his elbows still bent. He had already begun rotating, and Lexa wasn’t in position. For one stomach-churning moment they struggled hand to hand, trying to achieve enough control for him to swing her back around and lower her correctly; then Lexa overtopped him, momentum carrying her hips forward over his head. Boyd ducked and released her hands.

  Ice rushed up to meet her. She had only a heartbeat to decide which body part to sacrifice, and not enough time to make that happen. Her toe picks stuttered down first, the impact jolting through her body as she crashed forward onto her knees, getting her hands down barely in time to keep her chin from smacking down too. She slid a few yards, ice chewing through her tights and grating her bare palms, before skidding to a stunned stop.

  For a moment, all she heard was the blood rushing in her ears. Then Candace’s vo
ice broke through. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously, one hand fluttering on Lexa’s back.

  “My knees!” Lexa cried, choking back a sob. Her hands and wrists hurt too, but her kneecaps felt shattered. Rolling into a sit, she tried to straighten her legs, then wrapped her arms around them and rocked back and forth, crying into her ruined tights. Scraping blades sounded all around her as other skaters gathered to see how badly she was hurt.

  “That was scary, but you’re all right,” Candace reassured her. “Take a minute. Catch your breath.”

  Lexa gulped air, still rocking. The pain in her knees was receding, but only because they were going numb. Bracing for a horror show, she forced herself to look. Both knees were scraped raw, but only one was bleeding. The bruises were already rising, though, a bluish swelling under her skin that promised to spread and darken.

  “This doesn’t look too serious,” Candace said, lightly manipulating first one leg then the other. “It wasn’t a bad fall. Boyd got you as low as he could. Your skates hit first. You’re shaken up—that’s all. You’ll be fine.” She waved the spectators away, back to their own practice sessions.

  “He let go of me!” Lexa accused tearfully.

  “You’d have gone down headfirst if I held on,” Boyd defended himself.

  “Let’s not point fingers,” Candace said. “The timing on that lift was off from the beginning.”

  “Yeah, her timing. She swung out about a mile. How was I supposed to get under that?”

  Candace moved behind Lexa and raised her by both elbows, guiding her gently up onto her feet. Lexa’s body trembled with pain and shock, but anger was kicking in too. “You’re blaming me?” she asked incredulously.

  “You blamed me first,” he said.

  “Let’s just get you off the ice and take care of those knees,” Candace said.

  On a bench inside the dance studio, a bag of frozen peas riding each knee, Lexa could barely contain her rising bitterness. Candace was being extremely nice—fussing to make her more comfortable, bringing tissues and bottled water, finding the physical trainer to confirm the injury was minor—but Lexa knew how her coach really felt. She couldn’t help believing that Candace was mostly worried about her own reputation.

  Boyd was even worse. Not only did he refuse to take any responsibility for the failed lift, he didn’t even seem to care. He sat off to one side, yawning and studying his hair in the mirror while Candace did all the fetching.

  “My timing was not that bad!” Lexa finally burst out, unable to keep silent any longer. “Maybe I swung out a little, but Boyd just didn’t lift. There was nothing underneath me.”

  “Maybe if you laid off the cookie dough!” he shot back, turning to argue his side to Candace. “Ashley felt like a feather compared to her!”

  “I’ve eaten that once in two months!” she said, betrayed but not surprised he’d used that confidence against her. “If you can’t lift a partner who isn’t anorexic, maybe you aren’t the stud you think you are.”

  “Okay! All right!” Candace broke in. “Lexa, you did swing out too far.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but her coach held up a hand. “And Boyd, you could have done more to save the situation.”

  “That lift was doomed from takeoff,” he disagreed.

  “The main thing now is that everyone’s okay.” Candace pasted on a fake little smile. “We live to skate another day!”

  Waiting for Beth to come drive her to the orthopedist, Lexa couldn’t get those words out of her head. The doctor took scans and confirmed that her knees were only bruised. She was cleared to skate again as soon as she felt ready.

  I’m not sure I’ll ever feel ready, she thought on the long ride home. People did get injured skating pairs. She hadn’t expected to be exempt. But the way Boyd had acted about it . . .

  I don’t trust him, she realized. How could I?

  Blake had been one of the sport’s all-time bests. Boyd couldn’t even stand in his shadow. And if Blake hadn’t been able to keep Kaitlin safe . . .

  As hard as Lexa tried to avoid finishing that thought, it wouldn’t leave her alone.

  —35—

  Lexa was lying flat on her back when her phone chirped on top of the dresser. Text—she knew that much without getting up. The only person who texted her anymore was Bry, and she was far too depressed to fake being okay for him. She glanced at the clock: almost eleven. She’d get back to him in the morning and pretend she’d been asleep.

  If only that were true. She’d had such bad insomnia for the past week that so far she hadn’t mustered even enough optimism to put on pajamas. Her knees were sore and ugly, and although she’d been back at the rink for two days, she and Boyd were still barely making eye contact. They skated as hard as before, but Lexa carried fear with her now like a stowaway. Anxiety weighted her skates to the ice, and every lift was a too-fast elevator ride that left her stomach on the ground floor.

  Heaving herself off the bed, she changed into a nightgown, making a conscious effort not to look at her Technicolor knees. As she turned off the bedroom light, the flashing beacon on her phone caught her eye. She glanced at its screen to make sure whatever Bry wanted could wait.

  The text wasn’t from Bry.

  just heard u passed ur pairs tests. congrats! will have 2 c u sk8 sometime.

  Lexa stood blinking as her pulse thudded. Who did Ian get her number from? Bry? She imagined them talking about her with a rising sense of discomfort. She’d passed those tests long enough ago that they obviously didn’t talk often, but still.

  Should I text him back? she wondered. What should I say? Thanks, but don’t tell Blake?

  Blake had to know already, though. Despite his efforts to isolate himself, the skating world was too small and gossipy for news like that not to reach him.

  She considered another minute, then typed a reply: thx. what’s new with you?

  His text pinged back: nadt. just wanted 2 say hi.

  Lexa smiled. He really wasn’t holding a grudge about Jenni’s stupid comment then.

  hi, she responded.

  There was a long delay. Then: ok. cul8r

  She sat on her bed with the phone, wondering if she should respond to such an obvious good-bye. She wasn’t sure why he had texted her in the first place, which made it harder to know how to act. If he wanted to be friends, though, she wasn’t going to say no. The way things were going lately, she needed every friend she could get.

  see you first :-) she texted back. Then she sprawled on top of her bedspread, stressing about whether that had been too flirty.

  She’d probably never know. Ian Wilde was about as easy to read as a Zambonied sheet of ice.

  —36—

  Lexa picked through the lettuce on her plate Friday night, avoiding the bacon bits and chunks of avocado. She’d lost three more pounds since Boyd had dropped her, but if being underweight made her safer, she intended to deliver. She didn’t have an appetite anyway.

  “Is something wrong, kitten?” Beth asked. “Do your knees still hurt?”

  Lexa slumped down further under her grandmother’s concerned gaze. “They’re okay. I’m just kind of . . .”

  “Kind of what?” Beth prompted.

  Kind of miserable, Lexa thought. But how could she ever say that after everything her grandmother had done trying to make her happy? “Nothing.”

  Beth reached across the table. “Tell me,” she urged, squeezing Lexa’s hand. “Something’s been bothering you for a while now and I’d really like to know what.”

  Lexa tried unsuccessfully to reclaim her fingers.

  “Is it me?” Beth persisted. “Have I upset you somehow?”

  “No. Of course not.” The tears she’d been fighting for weeks filled her eyes, threatening to spill over.

  “What, then? You and I can fix anything, if you’ll just tell me what it is.”

  Lexa remembered what Candace had said about Beth throwing money at every problem, and it made her feel even worse
. “It’s just . . . what if I made a huge mistake? Maybe Blake was right. Maybe I’m not cut out for pairs.”

  “What?” Beth said incredulously. “Of course you’re— Is this about the fall? You’re still shaken up, aren’t you?”

  “No. Well, yes. But it’s more than that. A lot more.”

  The whole ugly truth tumbled out at last: Boyd’s ego and immaturity, his refusal to take any responsibility for errors, the drama with Temp and Ashley, Candace’s favoritism toward Boyd and real motivation for pairing them up. Beth’s face hardened by degrees, her eyes snapping with anger as Lexa repeated the conversation she’d overheard between Candace and the judge.

  “I don’t want to let you down,” Lexa said tearfully. “I keep telling myself to just work harder, to make Candace at least respect me, but . . . this can never be what I hoped for. Boyd and I will never really connect. I don’t want to skate at nationals just to advance him and Candace. I don’t even want to skate with them next week.”

  “Damn straight. I wouldn’t want you to.”

  “But . . . then . . . the only alternative is to quit.”

  “I’ll go make that call right now.”

  A weight inside Lexa lifted. Her pairs dream had just died, killed off by her own hand—and to her amazement, it felt good. She searched for the right thing to say as Beth rose from the table. “I really appreciate everything you did for me, Grandmom. I’ll always be grateful I gave it a shot. It just wasn’t meant to be, I guess.”

  Beth stopped halfway through the kitchen. “Wait. You’re not quitting pairs!”

  “Isn’t that what we just—”

  “We’re firing Candace! We’re dropping Boyd like a bad habit. But pairs . . . We haven’t even begun to exhaust our options there.”

  “So you’re thinking. . . ?”

  Beth came back to the table. “You and me, you living here, being tutored by Clara . . . the rest of this is working. I’m going to fix the skating part, and I’ll make damn sure I get it right this time. You have my word. Okay?”