I turned to face her. “So youdiddo it on purpose.”
“That’s not what I said.” She swiveled toward me too. The stone left a smear of dirt on her designer coat. “I’m sorry this happened. I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“And you’re sorry you didn’t get to go to the Games.”
“Did you watch?” she asked.
I shook my head. Heath and I hadn’t so much as spoken about it. I didn’t even know who had won the gold.
Bella tugged the coat tighter. “Mom made us.”
Rubbing her children’s faces in their failure, like puppies who’d soiled the carpet. Sounded like Sheila Lin.
“How did Ellis and Josie do?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
I winced. “And the Russians?”
“Gold for Yakovlevna and Yakovlev,” she said. “They won the world title last week too, even though Polina’s twizzles were a total mess.”
Garrett and I had competed against the second-tier Russian couple plenty of times, and they’d never beaten us. They only won those medals because we weren’t there.
But it didn’t matter. They were in the record books, and we were a cautionary tale.
The wind blew harder, colder, heaving water at the base of the rocks. When Bella spoke again, her voice was barely audible above the waves.
“Your friendship means so much to me, Kat.”
“More than winning?” I asked.
I just wanted to see if she would lie.
Bella met my eyes without hesitation. “Of course not. You want to know why I’m here? Because it’s about damn time you stopped playing house and feeling sorry for yourself.”
There she was—my cutthroat, ambitious best friend.
“When are you coming back?” she asked.
“Who says I’m coming back?”
She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. Heath doesn’t want to.”
He hadn’t gone that far. Not yet. But he was content in our little stone house by the lake, more at ease than I’d ever seen him.
Some days, I was content too. Other days, I felt trapped in a purgatory of my own making. Every day the same as the next, not working toward anything, not improving, not striving. Simply existing. Heath might be able to live like that, but I couldn’t.
“We haven’t discussed it,” I said.
“Seriously? What the hell have you been doing out here in the middle of nowhere for all this time, then?”
I raised a suggestive eyebrow.
Bella scowled. “Don’t answer that. And if you’re worried about me getting between you two again, don’t. You were right about him.” She laughed, but it did nothing to douse the spark of fury in her eyes. “Guess it was all about you after all, huh?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Bella had every right to be angry. Heath had wasted her time, toyed with her emotions—and worst of all, derailed her career when it mattered the most.
“Anyway,” she said with an imperious sniff. “He’s all yours. At least you’ll have no trouble getting sponsors now.”
