From Lukov with Love

by Mariana Zapata

Eight less weeks that I’d get to be around this man who meant the world to me.

I loved him. I loved this man so much that losing him was going to break my cold, dead heart into so many pieces I was just going to have to stick them in the same box I kept my dreams and carry it around with me forever.

I didn’t want someone to pat my cheek and tell me everything was going to be okay. I wanted this man who would never take my shit, who would never let me quit, and I had a feeling would never quit on me. Not ever. Not if I screamed, not if I kicked, not if I told him to go eat a thousand mounds of shit. This was my partner. This was more than my partner. He was my other half. And the only thing I could do to thank him for this gift he’d given me, this knowledge that he thought I was invincible, was to make sure we won. I’d give him the thing he had wanted me for in the first place. I’d give him my fucking all.

What I wanted was him forever, but I’d take what I could get.

“I want to know because you never told me, but what do you have against Mary McDonald?” he asked. “I want to know why we hate her.” Why we hate her. Ivan. Fucking Ivan.

I was a lot of things, and half of them weren’t good, but Ivan was.

“I also said that I’d destroy you. You missed that part,” a familiar voice piped up, making both of us turn to find Ivan peeking his head inside the room, the door barely cracked, hair perfectly gelled into place, his face shaved clean, everything about him bright and sparkling. And he was smiling. And holding red roses. I loved him. Goddamn I had no idea what the hell had happened or why it had happened, but I loved him so much in that moment, my heart could have burst.

“No shit, Sherlock. The idea of you being upset over that waste of breath pissed me off. You deserved better.” He smiled and pressed our hands tight against his side. “If you were going to cry for anyone, it was going to be me.” “You’re an idiot.” “I know.”

“No.” I wouldn’t. “You’d be in sixth place with me. I wouldn’t be alone. If I’m going to fail, at least we’d do it together,” I whispered, this funny fucking feeling going over my body. It felt like… it felt like relief. Like acceptance. And it was the second single most beautiful thing I had ever felt in my life. Second to loving this idiot and my family.

“Give me back your wrist, you little shit,” he ordered, beaming that smile that I wished with all my heart was mine and only mine.

“Let’s get ’em, baby,” Ivan whispered into my ear, with a squeeze to my upper arms.

It was so much more than I deserved, but that familiar feeling I’d gotten earlier when Ivan had given me my bracelet and just minutes ago when Coach Lee had told me to be myself, it felt like home. It felt right. It felt an awful fucking lot like love.

Whatever happens, he mouthed to me. But then his lips kept forming words. Three words exactly. I love you.

I love you, he repeated like it was something he’d said a thousand times in the past.

“You suck, Meatball,” he called out a second before I knew the music was about to start. But I love you, his lips formed.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head at the ceiling, thinking again, finally, about the words Ivan had said to me while we’d been on the ice. I love you. He loved me. And he knew I loved him back.

“If I had to choose anyone to help me bury a body, eat dinner with, or watch television with, it would be you, every time for everything.”

“And I love you.” He’d said it again. “I love you so much I spend all day with you, and it still isn’t enough for me,” he kept going. I stopped breathing. “I love you so much, if I can’t skate with you, I don’t want to skate with anyone else.”

“Because I’m okay with you having ten other people be your favorite. But you’re always going to be my favorite person,” he finished. “Always. No matter what.”

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeated.

“I love the way you smile,” he said with a dreamy, sleepy expression. “I want to tell you to do it more often, but I don’t.” I took in every inch of that flawless face. “Why?” He didn’t even have his eyes open as he responded. “Because you don’t give it to everyone.” His cheek rested against mine, that sweaty chest did the same as he said, “And I don’t plan on sharing you.”

But it was the NEVER GIVE UP, JASMINE that had me squinting. Because it was my dad holding it. He wasn’t jumping up and down like the rest of them, but he was smiling. He wasn’t embarrassed. He wasn’t bored. But he was there. And that was more than I could have wanted or expected. And it was what I needed. Another little piece of glue to my mind and my heart.