Same Time Next Year

by Tessa Bailey

My mother raised me to be an unholy terror on the ice but a gentleman as soon as I take off my skates. Like a fucking Canadian should be, she’d say.

“Not everyone needs a person.” He concedes this with a nod. “Maybe that’s true. But even if you’re strong alone, when someone wades into your lake and you feel something . . . if you choose to ignore it, maybe that strength is actually just something else in disguise.” “Weakness?” “Fear.”