Jen spots me first. “Well, hey. Fancy running into you in this corner of the rink.”
I say hi to her as Hayden turns. I should be memorizing details of his appearance for Tamar, but my mind goes blank the second I see him.
“That was a cool spin.”
“Thanks.” I study him as we glide toward the rink door. No evidence of wobbly legs today. “Your skates seem like they fit better.”
“Yeah.” He looks down at his feet. “I asked for a smaller size. You were right that my last ones were too big.”
We wait at the back of the line as students file off the ice. Now is the perfect time to tell him. Step Two awaits.
“Skate fit is super important. I had to try a few pairs before I found the right ones.”
I glance down at my skates, but there’s nothing to look at since they’re under my boot covers. I need to just tell Hayden about the mix-up, but the words stay stuck in my throat.
“Well, maybe if I make it into the hockey league someday, I can convince my parents to buy me my own skates.”
“That’d be cool.…”
“I probably have to get a lot better first, though.”
“It’s hard when you’re only here once a week,” I offer. “My best friend and I practiced on public sessions outside of skate-school classes when we were younger. That’s how we improved a ton.”
“Good idea,” Hayden says. “Of course, I’d need to make a friend for that to work.”
“Oh, um.” I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to making friends.
“I have an idea.” Hayden looks at me. “Maybe we could hang out sometime?”
“Hang… what?” I stare at him. “Like, skate together?”
“Sure. Or hang out somewhere else. I haven’t met anyone since my family moved here. Except you. Maybe I’ll get to know more people when school starts, but that’s still a ways off.”
Hayden’s talking so fast, I can hardly keep track of what’s being said. When I finally catch up, I can’t think of anything to say other than a quiet, “Oh. That stinks.”
“Yeah.” Hayden nods. “Want to swap phone numbers?”
I pat my pockets. My name tag digs into my hip like it’s sending me a pointy message. “I totally left my phone in the coaches’ lounge.”
“It’s cool.” Placing his hands on either side of his mouth, Hayden hops off the ice and yells, “Cyn! My phone!”
My fingers curl around the edge of the plexiglass. Alex’s next class is about to start. I can’t follow Hayden off the ice.
“I’m not your servant.” Cyn appears in a flurry of blue-green hair. She shoots Hayden an irked look, then spots me. “Hey, Alex. That spin was awesome. I would’ve hurled.”
I wave, then drop my gaze. That’s not my name.
“My phone?” Hayden holds his hand out.
“Chill.” She digs through a large bag. “I’m looking.”
“Cyn takes her time with everything,” Hayden informs me. “That’s why I missed half of class today.”
“California drivers are terrifying. Drive yourself next time. Oh, right. You can’t, so maybe stop complaining.”
Despite her comment, Cyn doesn’t seem angry. She and Hayden remind me of Tamar and Eli. She finally pulls out Hayden’s phone and hands it to him.
“Okay, what’s your number?” Hayden asks, ignoring Cyn.
I tell him and he types in my name—Alex’s, actually.
Do something!
“Just A.”
Hayden pauses as he looks at me. “Just the letter A?”
I could say, My real name’s Ana, but I prefer A. It’d be better than him thinking my name’s Alex. But then what about pronouns?
I nod, throat dry. What am I doing?!
Hayden backspaces. “Last name?”
I spell it for him.
“Okay, cool. I’ll text you.”
“Ana!”
I whirl around. Alex gestures at me from the far end of the ice. Chest tight, I glance back at Hayden. His eyes are still down on his phone. I push away from the boards, my arms tingling with relief.
“I should get back to class.” I smile at him, but it feels like I’m grimacing.
Hayden waves as I skate back toward Alex, head down, eyes on the ice.
Three easy steps?
Yeah, I totally blew that.
Chapter Thirteen
It’s spring rolls for dinner tonight. Sit-down dinners are rare in the middle of the week, but Mom’s Mandarin lesson canceled again. It feels like I’ve seen Mom more this summer than I did all last year.
“How was practice today?”
“Good.”
Mom looks like she expects me to say more. It used to be easy to tell her everything on my mind. Now I feel rusty.
We worked on my free program, but that’s not something I feel like talking about. “I landed some triple flips during my afternoon lesson with Alex.”
Mom lifts the cutting board at an angle, using her knife to nudge chopped cucumber sticks into an empty bowl. Unlike her favorite chive pancakes and some of her noodle dishes, this isn’t a recipe Mom learned from Grandma Goldie. It’s something she found online, but I can’t remember the last time we made it together. Nowadays, I usually eat before Mom gets home from work and tutoring, and she makes our lunches after I’ve gone to bed.
“On or off the harness?”
“On. One of the other coaches has a pole harness that he let Alex borrow.”
A harness helps skaters learn new jumps. A rope is attached to the belt I wear around my waist, which usually extends up to a wire track on the rink’s ceiling. Alex pulls on the rope so I can learn how the rotations feel on a new jump. The belt comes off when I’m ready to try without help. The pole harness is almost the same, except it’s not attached to the ceiling. We can practice jumps anywhere on the ice.
“Sounds like fun.”
“It was.” I arrange our food at the center of the table. “I’m super
