I’d been trying not to think about anything beyond the end of the intensive in August.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess we’ll go back to Illinois. Keep going to school and training. Hopefully make it to Nationals again.”
We’d be lucky if my brother let us back in the house. We’d be even luckier if he didn’t fly into a drunken rage and break Heath’s legs while I watched, as punishment for running away in the first place. It was possible Nicole would let us stay with her, but that wasn’t a long-term solution. And we still had no money.
“What if you didn’t go back to Illinois?” Bella asked. “What if you stayed here?”
My stomach flipped. She was messing with me. This couldn’t be real.
“Garrett and I have been looking for dedicated training partners for a while,” she continued. “But we haven’t found the right match yet.”
“And you think Heath and I—”
“Like I said, you push me, I’ll push you. I know Heath and Garrett aren’t exactly BFFs, but give Garrett long enough, he can win anyone over.”
I highly doubted he could win over Heath. But maybe it wouldn’t matter. They didn’t have to get along for us to train together. Maybe Heath’s loathing toward the Lins would make him work even harder.
“I don’t know if…” I swallowed. This was humiliating. “It might be tough for us to come up with enough money.”
I didn’t even have a concept of how much a full season of training at the Academy might cost. It would be more than a year before I could access my inheritance, and I didn’t have any more family heirlooms to sell off.
Bella waved her hand. “Oh, don’t worry about the money. We’ll work something out.”
There was that confidence again. The idea of worrying about something so mundane asmoneywas alien to Bella Lin.
When I was a little girl in messy pigtails, demanding to be watchedfrom the front row, I’d had that sort of unshakable, semi-delusional confidence too. But after years of losses, disappointments, scraping by, holding on tight to Heath because he was all I had, I’d shoved that little girl aside, locked her up in some small box inside of me.
That night in the pool, it felt like Bella was handing me the key.
“I’ll talk to Heath,” I said.
Bella winked, a bead of water sparkling on her eyelashes. “I’m sure you can find some way to convince him.”
—
Bella ended up inviting me to sleep over.We’ve got plenty of room,she said.
A staggering understatement; the Lin house had at least a dozen bedrooms, though some had already been claimed for the night by Sheila’s gold-medal-winning guests from out of town.
I’d tried to imagine it: waking up under the same roof as Sheila Lin. Sitting at the breakfast table with her and her children. Riding with them to the rink. The look on Josie’s and Gemma’s faces when I emerged from the Lins’ chauffeured town car.
Then I had imagined Heath, tossing and turning in his twin bed. More comfortable, certainly, than he’d been in the stable back home. But just as alone. Just as abandoned.
Besides, Bella’s offer was burning in my chest. I had to tell him. I had to make him see what an incredible chance this was. Maybe ouronlychance, to become the athletes I knew we could be.
I splurged on a cab back to the Academy, but I didn’t go to my room. Instead, I snuck around to the north side of the building.
There wasn’t a drainpipe next to Heath’s window, but there was a small tree, the roots surrounded by concrete. Shoes in hand, I shimmied up the trunk, cringing every time the bark snagged Arielle’s dress. Once I was high enough, I tapped one shoe heel against the glass.
Heath slid the pane up. “Katarina? What the hell are you—”
“You make this look a whole lot easier than it is.” I rucked up my skirt, rustling the branches. “Are you going to let me in?”
“It’s late.” He’d showered and brushed his teeth, so he didn’t smell like alcohol anymore.
It was late. But there was no way I could wait until morning to tell him. The words were buzzing on my tongue, like a whole hive of bees trapped in my mouth.
So I heaved myself up onto the windowsill. Heath relented, gripping my wrists to help me get safely inside—though not without some under-the-breath grumbling.
