His gaze fell on Zack, who was helping Angel set up a board game on the freshly-cleared table.
“Don’t worry,” Katie said softly. “I won’t let him leave before you’re done.” She nodded at ‘s Aaron’s phone. “I don’t think that’s going to get any easier the longer you wait.”
AARON WENT OUT ONTO the screened-in porch to call Ari. It was the same place—and the same time of day—he and Zack had hung out the first time Zack had come to the farm, back in June, but it was hard to believe that. Instead of a marvelous sunset sky and warm summer breezes, there were dark fields and a wind that nipped in through the screen. The night was clear, and stars shone brightly in the sky. Not as brightly as they did at home, where there really was no human habitation around for miles, but still much more brightly than in the city. The landscape was even quieter than the island was, though. On the island there was the constant sound of wind and water. Here, the profound silence was punctuated only by the occasional sound of a car on the far-off highway or a burst of laughter from inside. The quiet felt lonely, and Aaron was hit by a sudden burst of homesickness.
He opened his text messages, didn’t bother to read Ari’s most recent volley, and hit call instead.
“Finally.” His twin answered immediately. “I was starting to get worried.”
“If you’d been really worried, you would have called Brendan.”
“Maybe I did.”
“Ari!” Fuck, was that why Katie had told him to call? But no. She and Brendan didn’t do triangulation like that. For that matter, neither did Ari.
“What? I know something happened. And you’re not telling me what it was,” Ari said.
“How’s home?” he asked. Aaron tried to picture her there. Was she outside by the water, looking up at the same stars he could see? Or was she inside, warming up in front of the cobblestone fireplace in the living room?
“Very, very cold. Now. What happened?”
Aaron sighed, resigning himself. “Has it ever occurred to you that my life is plenty eventful simply because I have a life that involves a lot of events?”
“We both know that’s not what I mean,” Ari said.
Aaron wondered if she had told their parents about any of this. “Fine. I was in St. Petersburg, this was the last day, after the gala—”
“Yes, whatever, skip to the thing.”
So Aaron did, and, in as few words as possible, told her about the seals in the Neva. When he was done—including the exchange he’d had with the man on the street—Ari made an irritated sound in her throat.
“When things happen like this, you have to tell me.”
“Why? It was just one of those weird things that happens sometimes when wildlife and humans share a habitat. I wouldn’t call you if I found a raccoon by my apartment, which, by the way, happens all the time.”
Aaron was still annoyed, but more than that, he felt unnerved. Being out here, in the dark, on Katie’s farm—it wasn’t as wild as the island, but there was still a strange sort of energy here. The same energy, in fact, that he’d felt that night in Saint Petersburg. The kind that made him feel like anything could happen.
In the distance, a dog—an actual dog, the farm that adjoined Katie and Brendan’s had two of them, Aaron had met them—barked. Which didn’t really help.
“There are so few of us,” Ari finally said.
“There’s just two of us. We’re twins.”
“You know that’s not what I meant, and you don’t act like it sometimes,” Ari said sharply.
The blow, Aaron knew, was calculated to hurt, and it did; he hunched in on himself and tried to take deep breaths of the cold winter air to dispel the hot wash of guilt and shame he still felt for leaving the island in the summer. But he’d given up so much already. He couldn’t make up the time he’d decided to give to skating instead. That had been true for years and years now, so long it was nearly his whole life. If he lost his focus now, none of it would have been worth it anyway.
“I don’t have time for this,” he snapped. “I’m trying to go to the Olympics. The seals are just seals, and I’m just a man. But I have to focus.” No matter how weird my life is.
“I’m not trying to get you to not go to the Olympics.” Ari’s voice rose in frustration. “I’m trying to make sure you come home again.”
“I am coming home! Next week,” Aaron said.
“For a few days.” Ari sounded sullen.
“That’s all I have time for,” Aaron said, all but pleading. “Can’t it be enough?”
“I think that,” Ari said, “is up to you.”
THE CALL WAS NOT AS unsettling as what had happened in St. Petersburg, but Aaron still felt the need to gather himself once it was over.
He was so tired. He’d spent so many months working to bring his true self—his island self—onto the ice. He had two Grand Prix silvers and a Grand Prix Final bronze to show for it now. He was a force the federation wouldn’t be able to ignore when it came time to pick the U.S. team. Nationals would be the final determining factor there, but he’d done the work he needed to so far this season and done it well.
And now Ari wanted him to swear he would one day return to their island for good. Which he should have been able to give an immediate and unqualified yes to, but even the idea of it made him tremble. His life was global, expansive, and public. The island was essential to him... and such a small, private place. Could he exist on that island without the rest
