“The younger skaters still talk about you, you know,” Bella said.
“What, as a cautionary tale?”Katarina Shaw, the Wicked Ice Queen Who Destroyed Her Own Career in a Single Day.Sounded about right.
“No,” Bella said. “They talk about you the same way you talk about my mother.”
“So they think I’m a bitch?”
“Mm-hmm. And they want to be exactly like you when they grow up.” She did a graceful pirouette, arms above her head. “This is amazing. I want a skating rink in my backyard.”
“It used to be a stable. It’d been on the verge of falling down for years, but—”
“Wait.” Bella stopped, blades spraying snow. “Thisis where your brother made him sleep? In the middle ofwinter?”
So Heath had told her about Lee’s abuse. I wondered what else he’d told her.
My fury over finding Heath and Bella together had long since cooled, but the thought of him confiding in her about the childhood trauma that bonded us stung like a fresh scald.
“So.” I’d put off the subject as long as I could. “You and Heath.”
“It’s not like that,” Bella said—a little too quickly.
“What’s it like, then?”
“Well, at first, it was revenge.”
Hearing her admit it was almost a relief. They’d both been furious that night, and they couldn’t have found a better way to wound me than jumping into bed together.
“Then after Vancouver,” Bella continued, “I was assisting my mother, and Heath started choreographing programs for some up-and-coming teams at the Academy.”
“Really?” I’d assumed Heath would want nothing more to do with the skating world.
“He’s great with the younger kids. Especially the boys who don’t have formal dance training; they really look up to him. But anyway, Garrett moved away, and my mother…” Bella shook her head. “I don’t know why I thought working with her would improve our relationship. She treated me like I was just another junior coach. So Heath and I ended up spending a lot of time together.”
I thought of the way she’d leaned toward Heath at Sheila’s funeral, seeking solace from him instead of her twin. Part of me—the part that loved them both, in spite of everything—was happy they had each other to rely on, in whatever capacity.
The rest of me wanted to rip Bella’s hair out at the root and use it to set the building on fire with her locked inside.
At least a hint of that impulse must have shown on my face, because Bella quickly added, “We’re just friends.”
“Friends with benefits.”
“Friends,” she insisted. “Until…well, there was this one night. I had an extra ticket to see Adele at the Palladium, and Heath offered to go with me.”
I wasn’t sure which was more shocking: Heath willingly attending an Adele concert or Bella taking a night off to have some fun for once.
“I swear,” Bella said, “it was purely a physical release. It meant nothing.”
“So that was it?” I fought to keep my face neutral, to keep any hint of hope from sneaking into my voice. “Just that one time, and then—”
“What, you want an exact count?” Bella’s eyes flashed. “You left, and Garrett left, and Heath and I stayed. All we had was each other.”
And I had no one.But that was my own fault, wasn’t it?
For the next few songs on the album—which later, after I’d officially rejoined society, I learned was Taylor Swift’sRed—we skated in silence, improvising to the music. Eventually we turned toward each other and clasped hands in a dance hold, switching off lead and follow roles.
By the end of “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” Bella was bent double, breathing hard, while I’d barely broken a sweat.
“Jesus,” she said. “This whole time I thought you were, like, sitting on the sofa watching soap operas, and instead you’ve been secretly training for Sochi.”
