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it was when you started taking the most basic things for granted that life decided to teach you that you’re an ungrateful idiot.
Nothing good ever came out of me throwing my own ass a pity party. Nothing.
Some days I deserved a medal for being so patient with idiots. If only they had a competition for that, I could have won.
You are who you are in life, and you either live that time trying to bend yourself to make other people happy, or… you don’t.
honestly, the more people I met, the more I didn’t want to meet more.
“I think you should do it, but I don’t think you should sell yourself short. There’s no one else he could ask that’s better than you. Even if it’s only for a year. He’s not doing you a favor by asking. You’re doing him the favor. And if he’s dumb enough to screw this up somehow—” She smiled. “—I’ll be your alibi if something happens to that fancy car of his. I know what it looks like.”
Things don’t always work out the way we want them to, but no girl of mine, especially not you, is a quitter,”
“I’m going to take a picture of your license plate so if my body comes up missing, they’ll check your car for my DNA.” “I have bleach,” he returned immediately.
I blinked, and every single word I had learned over the course of my life stopped existing.
Ivan Lukov, the greatest frenemy in my life after my siblings, had made me hot cocoa.
one of the best lessons I’d ever learned figure skating was that when you fell, you got right back up and acted like nothing had happened to begin with. You made things important, or you didn’t. And if you got up and smiled and held your head up high… you still had your dignity. And I was going to squeeze the shit out of my dignity with both hands.
There was something wrong with us. And I didn’t hate it. Not even a little bit.
know you don’t want to, and I know you feel bad, but you need to get up, little hedgehog. You need to cool down.”
“I mean… I guess you’re pretty cool too.” Those ebony eyebrows went up. “You guess?” “I guess. Your skating is pretty good. And you’ve been really nice to me today. Yesterday. I don’t even know what day it is,” I mumbled. “You can be on the list too, if you’re going to make it awkward.”
“I’m a catch.” “A catch and release.”
“Meatball, you know I can. I’m not scared of you. You like my face too much to punch it.”
But your body doesn’t always listen to what you tell it. I was well aware of that. But it still felt like a betrayal when it didn’t hold in the tears I was trying to keep a rein on.
His head dipped down to my ear and he whispered, “And when we win a fucking gold medal, he’s going to be watching you, thinking he couldn’t be prouder of you. He’s going to walk around telling everyone his daughter won a gold medal, and you’re going to know you did it without him. That you did it when so many people didn’t believe in you, even though those people don’t matter. The ones that matter are the ones who have always known what you’re capable of.” He swallowed so loud I heard it. “I believe in you. In us. Regardless of what happens, you will always be the best partner I’ve ever had.
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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.
This was my partner. This was more than my partner. He was my other half.
“I want to know why we hate her.” Why we hate her. Ivan. Fucking Ivan.
“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.”
“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.”
