“There you go, baby. Bend your knees. Don’t try to walk, push your foot away from the center like you’re trying to draw a sharp C.”
He practices that for a full lap with me as his human skate helper. I keep watchful eyes on him and the kids at the same time. In a Meyer house, you learn to do a lot of things while also watching children.
“Wanna go another lap?” I ask.
He smiles. “Yes.”
I take us into a second round.
“You’re good at this,” he says.
“I’ve had some practice.” I wink, and I’m loving this, but I can’t help my curiosity. Why didn’t he learn to skate? His family owns this rink. It doesn’t add up.
“I know what you’re thinking, Ari.”
“How?”
“It’s written all over your face.”
“I respect if you don’t wanna to tell me.” Even if it’s killing me. I can tell it’s something bad. I want to smash all the bad for him. Make it go away.
“Sorry, you can’t punch this enemy, Ari. It’s … I wanted to. I grew up here. I watched all the other kids skate. I tried. ButI wasn’t a natural—didn’t have the Meyer skating magic around then, I guess.”
“I am so mad that we lived on the other side of town back then. If I were here, I’d have given you Meyer skating magic.”
“Are Meyers born on ice skates?” The corner of his lip hitches into a half smile.
“Pretty much.”
“Well, I wasn’t. The kids made fun of me. Knocked me down. Pushed my face into the ice. Mom and Dad tried with lessons stuff, but it was too late. My little brain already believed what those kids said about me.”
I skid to a backward stop. He collides with my torso, and I wrap my arms around him in his thick mackinaw. “Do you still believe whatever those mean little dicks said?”
He looks away. “Well, no. Not exactly. It’s just … it didn’t stop there.”
Oh, I see. People bullied him until he retreated to the only safe place he knew of—inside himself. All his protective layers make sense. We’d moved by the time I hit high school, and I definitely saw him around, but I was a jock, and he loved science. I spent high school either playing hockey or trying to get schoolwork done in between helping Merc look after our younger siblings. I didn’t have time for much else.
“And it’s weird how it all works in your head. Those voices—ones that don’t even matter—become a soundtrack of criticism from which you base all your decisions. I’ve learned to block a lot of them out.”
But some are harder to ignore than others.He doesn’t say it out loud, but the words hang in the air anyway.
“Ugly things grow from those voices, weeds nobody planted. They wrap around you and suffocate who you could have been. Those beliefs become real, too. An identity you don’t like or want, but you’re trapped in.”
Okay, he’s right. I want to punch all that in the face, but it doesn’t have a face to punch. It’s a faceless demon he’s been fighting alone.
Not anymore. I’m here. Maybe I can’t magically make it all better, but I can support him.
“I swear I didn’t know, Codes. I fucking swear, or I would have pounded the shit out of whoever was saying shit to you.”
He laughs, and the tension coiling in my gut relaxes. “I know that now. I see that you had other priorities.”
His gaze lands on the kids. Rachel’s slipped to the ice, her brothers help her up, but I should go over there. I pull him into me, so I can hug the fuck out of him.
“Think you can skate beside me if I hold your hand?”
“If we go slow,” he says.
“Of course.”
