JENNIE

"What do you think you're doing?"

Stopping halfway into crunch number 108, I didn't need to look to my side to know who was standing there. I'd recognize that annoying, condescending, bossy voice in a crowd of a thousand. Only one person could aggravate me so easily by asking a question.

"Minding my own business. The one thing you don't know how to do," I muttered, rolling up the little bit I had left to keep my ab workout going.

"Jennie," came Lisa's sharp tone again.

I ignored her. Going back up into another crunch, I watched out of the corner of my eye as she closed the door behind her.

I did another crunch just as she came walking toward me, those big feet in bright blue running shoes landing centimeters from my side.

I didn't look up at her, and I wasn't going to. I knew what she was looking at. It wasn't my body that was covered in sweat that she was eyeing, and it definitely wasn't the fact that I wore a pair of loose basketball shorts that belonged to my brother that were riding high up my thighs. The fact I only had a sports bra on had nothing to do with what she wanted to focus on either.

She was looking at the cast boot I had on my left foot. The left foot I had propped up on a pillow right beside my right one, which was planted flat on the floor, knee bent. The black boot that was a reminder, every single minute of my day, that I had fucked up and fucked up big-time.

I did four more crunches, staring straight up at the ceiling.

I swallowed so hard my throat hurt.

I had done the same thing so many times over the last two weeks, I was surprised I could still talk. Not that I'd been doing much talking since I'd been let out of urgent care. I hadn't been doing much of anything other than working out in my room, watching videotaped practices of Lisa and me before, and sleeping.

The tip of Lisa's shoe nudged my rib, and I ignored it.

"Jennie."

"Lisa," I said, making my voice sound as uncompromising as hers.

She nudged me again. And again, I did nothing.

She sighed. "Are you going to stop so we can talk or what?"

"I'd rather not," I answered, forcing myself to keep my gaze away from her.

I shouldn't have been surprised when she quickly dropped into a deep squat, hovering just to my side, so close there was no way to ignore her. Unfortunately. Because when I went up to do another crunch, her palm went to my forehead and gently pushed my head back down so that I lay there, on my back.

Looking around and past her, I focused on my ceiling fan.

"Meatball, that's enough," she said, her hand still on my face.

I waited a second and tried to go up into another crunch, but she must have been expecting it, because I couldn't even get an inch off the floor.

"Enough," she repeated. "Stop. Talk to me."

Talk to her?

That had me flicking my gaze in her direction, taking in that face I hadn't seen in over two weeks. That face I had gotten used to seeing six days a week but had somehow become more like seven days a week from all the extra time we spent together. That face that the last time I had seen, had been beside me as I sat on an exam table, listening to the doctor tell me that, best-case scenario, I might be back on my feet in six weeks. But no promises. Grade 2 sprains to your ATFL and your CFL are problematic, the doctor had warned before dropping the recovery time period on me.

Eight weeks had never seemed so long before.

Especially when you couldn't forgive yourself for being a reckless moron.

It took everything in me to ask her, keeping my voice steady, "What do you want to talk about?"

She stared at me, those brown eyes as intense as ever, and I watched her chest expand with a breath I knew was a steadying one. She was annoyed.

Tough shit for her, I was more annoyed than she was.

"I've tried calling you," she said, like I didn't know she'd called me at least six times every day for the last twelve days. Today alone, she'd called twice. And like every time my phone rang, I didn't pick up. I hadn't picked up. Not once. Not for anyone. Not for my siblings, not for my dad who had left moments before my fall, not Coach Lee, not Galina. Nobody.

I kept my gaze steady on her as I answered. "I haven't felt like talking. Nothing has changed. I don't get the boot off for another two days."

And then, after the doctor gave me the okay to take the boot off, I'd be replacing it with an Aircast air-stirrup ankle brace. The physical therapist I'd been driving myself to for the last nine days had been optimistic I was healing "just fine."

But fine had never been good enough for me.

Especially not when it had been my own damn fault I was in this situation.

But Lisa blinked, and she sighed again, and I knew she was this fucking close to losing her shit. The thing was, I didn't care. What was she going to do? Yell at me? "I know nothing has changed, dumbass."

This asshole….

"Get your shit together. You're coming with me."

It was my turn to blink and then stare at her blankly. "What?"

A long index finger poked me right in the forehead. "Get your shit together. You're coming with me," she repeated, taking her time with every word. "You hurt your ankle, not your ears."

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not."

The smile that went over her mouth basically creeped me out and instantly made me wary. "You are."

I stared right at her, ignoring the weird sensation in my belly as I did.

That creepy smile didn't go anywhere. "You haven't left your room in two weeks other than to go to physical therapy."

I said nothing.

"It smells like you haven't showered in two weeks."

I had. Two days ago.

"Have you even been sleeping?" That finger gave my forehead another poke. "You look like shit."

It was that, that had me gritting out, "Yes, I've been sleeping." She didn't need to know not very well.

She didn't look like she believed me, but she still said, "You need to get out of here."

"Why?" I asked before I could stop myself, sounding just as angry as I felt.

"Because there's no point in you moping around in here, acting like GI Jane working out randomly, Jesus Christ, Jennie."

That had me smacking her hand away from my face and sitting up straight, turning my upper body just enough so I could look her in the eye. "I'm not moping, ass. I've been working out. I can't just sit around and rest and totally let myself go."

"You're not working out so that you don't let yourself go. You're working out because you're pissed off and in a bad mood. You think I don't know you?"

I opened my mouth to say no, I wasn't working out for that reason, but she'd see right through my bullshit. Instead, I said, "I'm not in a bad mood. I haven't taken anything out on anybody. You can't call it being in a bad mood if I'm not being mean to other people."

"All right, then what do you call it when you're only being mean to yourself?"

I hated it when she asked me things I didn't know how to answer.

Lisa's face twisted up into this frustrated expression. "Your mom has invited you to do things with her, and you ignore her."

"I did not ignore her. I said no." I blinked and felt another wave of irritation. "Has she been snitching to you?" When? How?

"It's still rude and mean," she explained. "And your brothers and sisters have tried calling, but you're ignoring their calls too. I bet Galina's called and you haven't answered her either."

It was true. It was all true. But I wasn't about to admit or deny it.

"You're not doing this shit to yourself, Jennie," she let me know. Like she'd made this decision for me and I was going to fucking listen.

She could get the fuck out.

Something swelled up in me that almost took the breath right out of me. "I'm not doing anything to myself, Lisa. I'm minding my own business. Hanging out by myself. I don't see what's so wrong with that. I'm healing. Resting. Like everyone told me to do."

The blink she gave me made me feel bad. Really. But before I could apologize for snapping at her, she went back to frowning. "Don't get an attitude with me. We both know you're hiding, and I'm not letting you do it any longer. I was waiting, hoping you'd get out of this funk on your own, once you realized you didn't completely tear the ligaments or get a fracture like we had been worried about… but you're not, so I'm dragging you out of it if I have to. I'm done waiting for you to quit being a baby, and I'm not cutting you any slack, even if this is the first time you've pulled some shit like that."

It wasn't the first time I had pulled some shit like this. She hadn't seen me back when Kai had left. It had been just as bad, but this time felt worse than then.

I poked her in the forehead the same way she had me and said one thing. "No."

Lisa blinked those brown eyes, her eyelids hanging low over them, and she grit out, "Jennie, you're about to get your ass up, get out of this house, and go to mine. You're either doing it on your own, or I'm doing it for you. You get to choose."

"I'm not leaving the house."

She shook her head. "You're leaving the house."

"I'm not leaving the house."

"Yes, you are. You choose. You do it or I do it."

I poked her in the forehead again. Twice. "No."

Her nostrils flared. "I'm going to count to five, and you have to make a decision between now and then, or I'm choosing for you, and you know what I'm choosing."

"Lisa, I don't want to go with you."

"I don't give a shit. You could have left with anyone else in your family, but you didn't, so now you're coming with me."

Rage filled me in no time. Instantly, and I hissed, "No, I'm fucking not!"

Apparently, I wasn't the only one about to get pissed off, because she hissed back, "Yes, you fucking are!"

"I don't want to go with you, how hard is that for you to understand? I don't want to be around anyone right now or anytime soon," I fucking snapped, sounding like so much of an asshole, it made me cringe on the inside.

Her eyelids swung even lower over her eyes, so they were barely slits. "Why? Are you over me now?"

I jerked my head back. "Over you? What the hell are you talking about?"

That angular jaw of her went tight. "Are you over me? Are you pissed off at me and don't want to be my partner anymore?"

What in the fuck was she talking about? I gaped at her. Blinked. Then gaped a little more, because what the hell was wrong with her? "I don't understand what you're trying to say, Lisa."

Her nostrils flared, and her eyes stayed just short of closing as she asked, "Do you not want to be my partner anymore?"

"Why would I not want to be your partner anymore?" I asked her, sounding angry.

"Because of what happened!" she shouted.

"Why would I not want to be your partner? Because I fell like a dumbass? How is that your fault, idiot?"

When her face had started turning pink, I had no idea. But by the time I realized it, it was all rosy. "Because I could tell you were distracted and didn't give you a chance to get focused. I landed too close to you."

Was she seriously blaming herself? "You didn't land that close to me, stupid."

She shot me a look that could have burned my eyebrows off. "I did, Jennie. I landed way too close to you."

"Oh, shut up. No, you didn't. I landed wrong because I was distracted. Because I screwed up. That wasn't your fault."

She glared at me so hard, it made my blood pressure go up. Why would she think something so stupid? Why would she blame herself? How did that make any sense?

"You really thought I didn't want to see you because I blamed you?" I spat, looking at her like she was a jackass, because she was.

She still glared at me, telling me that answer was yes.

"You're so dumb."

"I'm dumb? Then why haven't you answered your phone?"

It was my turn to have my face close off, and I shut my mouth and shrugged my shoulders instead.

"No. You don't get to shrug at me and think that's enough of an answer. I've called you over and over again. I thought you were pissed off at me. I thought you didn't answer because you were mad at me, so now I want to know why you didn't other than you blaming yourself for being distracted."

I rolled my eyes and looked away, shaking my head. "It doesn't matter."

"It does matter. It matters a lot."

I lifted my shoulders again.

"Jennie."

Why couldn't she just leave me alone?

"Jennie."

Why would she think something so stupid?

"Jennie."

I grunted and turned back toward her, hissing, "Because what the hell would I tell you, Lisa? I'm sorry? I'm so fucking sorry? That I didn't mean to sprain my ankle and ruin everything?" I basically yelled at her. Horror filled me from the tip of my tongue down to the pit of my belly. Why was I yelling at her? And why the hell was I telling her this? Why didn't she already know it?

Her mouth opened, and she looked at me like I'd punched her in the stomach. "Jennie—"

"I'm sorry, Lisa," I croaked, horror and helplessness pulsing through my body. "I screwed up. I keep screwing up. I don't know why I'm yelling at you. You didn't do anything. It was me." My voice cracked, and I felt my hand fist. "I fucked up. It was my fault. Not yours."

I could feel a shout coming up, clogging my throat. Ripping me inside out. And I hated it. I didn't want it to come out.

"Stop it," she said, slowly, those eyes bouncing all over my face, something in them still looking like they were in shock. "Get your shit together. You're coming with me."

I looked into her eyes and sucked in a breath. "No."

"No. You want to make it up to me? Get your things for a few days and come with me. I'm not leaving here without you, and I will take you kicking and screaming. If you yell something about being kidnapped, I'll tell anyone who listens that you're on drugs."

I stared at her.

"You owe me the next six weeks, Jennie. Get your shit together now. We're going."

"Lisa…."

She stared at me.

Anger and pain twisted my insides into a thousand knots. "I'm really sorry."

It was her throat bobbing that caught my attention. Her response was a slow, "I know."

I had fucked up. It made my chest hurt. "I didn't mean to."

Her throat bobbed again. "I know."

"I've landed that a thousand times."

Again. "I know, Jennie."

"I don't know what happened."

If it wasn't for the breath on my chin, I wouldn't know she had let a long, low breath out. "I know you don't," she basically whispered, so at ease from how she'd just been speaking to me a second ago.

I almost choked. Almost. "I promise I'll do whatever I have to do to get better."

But it was Lisa who choked. Lisa who blinked, one, two, three, four, five times, fast, fast, fast. Her eyelashes fluttered from how fast she'd done it. Like something got caught in her throat that she couldn't do anything about.

"Everything and anything. I swear. I know we'll have to skip most of the Discovery Series and the WHK, but maybe we can still do Skate North America—"

It was her hands that cut me off. Those hands that I was so familiar with, I could pick out from a crowd by touch. The hands that had held mine, held me, so many times I couldn't count.

But they had never held my face before. At least not the way she did right then. Because her palms went to my cheeks and she cupped them.

And then she cut me off.

With her mouth.

Her lips pressed to mine. Surged to mine. Covered them. Hard.

And then she kissed my upper lip between hers while I was still trying to figure out what the fuck was happening.

Lisa was kissing me.

Kissing me.

Her mouth went to my eyes suddenly, and she pressed her lips from one of my eyelids to the other, quick, fluttering, so light I could barely feel it. One brow bone and then the other. And I just sat there.

I sat there and I didn't move away or push her away or tell her no.

Her mouth went over my cheeks, warm and everything wonderful in the world. "You tried to get up," she said to me in a voice so low I barely understood her words. "You tried to get up and keep skating, and I swear I almost started crying right then."

She kissed one cheek and then the other, soft, her mouth brushing over the bridge of my nose as she moved around.

"Only you would sprain the shit out of your ankle and try to get up to keep going," she said to me, her voice hitching. "You kept saying, I'm sorry, Lisa. I'm sorry, Lisa. I'm so sorry, and I told you to shut up because if you kept saying it any more, I would have been the one…." Her breath came out stuttered and choppy over my face, and her hands moved from my cheeks to cup my ears.

Her mouth shifted over mine, grazing it, so light and sweet, something in me constricted.

Friends could kiss in relief. She wasn't shoving her tongue in my mouth or copping a feel. She was just happy I was fine. She was just kissing me because… why not?

She cared about me.

People had kissed for much less, knowing each other not even a little bit.

I let Lisa kiss the places she wanted to, telling myself it was fine, that she'd been scared for me, because she had been. She had. And with that one thought, all I could focus on at that point were her words. Her hurt. All shit I had caused.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," I repeated, because I was. I was so sad it hurt me that we were here. It hurt me that I had let her down. "You've only had to pull out of a few events before me, and now I'm making you do it. I'm sorry, Lisa. I didn't mean to fall."

Lisa's head shook in front of me. "Stop saying that."

"But I am," I whispered. "It's my fault."

"It was an accident," she finished for me, sharply. "There's nothing to be sorry about."

"But I ruined—"

"You didn't ruin anything. Shut the hell up," she said.

"We're out for six more weeks if everything goes well," I reminded her, like she didn't know.

"For two months total, Jennie. Not the whole season. Not forever," she also said, like I didn't know that.

"But we've worked so hard—"

"Meatball, it doesn't matter."

I sucked in a breath at the reminder of how we were losing so much time out of the one and only year we had together. Eight less weeks that I'd get to be around this person who meant the world to me. Before she left me for someone else and I was on my own, the captain of my own destiny or whatever the hell it was called.

And I blinked.

"Don't start. It's only two months, and we were doing great. It was easy for us. Too easy." She pressed her warm cotton candy pink lips to mine like she'd done it a thousand times before and would do it a thousand times again. "If anyone can come back from this in six weeks, it's you."

It would be me. Of course it would. But I couldn't say the words then, as I stared into those eyes of hers, our faces inches away from each other. All I could do was nod. And after a beat, then five, I said, "We'll win."

Her gaze went even more intense as she said, with no hesitation, "You're goddamn right we will." She pressed her mouth, so quick, so hard against me, I didn't have a chance to react until she pulled back an inch and said, hoarsely, her fingers threading through the damp hair right above the nape of my neck, "I'll drag you back on the ice if I have to, Jennie. I swear on my life."

Something about her words made me shake on the inside. Maybe it was the conviction. Maybe it was the anger. The passion. The reality that she wasn't leaving me any room to not do what she said.

Mostly though, it was something else completely.

I loved her.

I loved this person so much that losing her 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 person 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 her to go eat a thousand mounds of shit.

This was my partner. This was more than my partner. She was my other half.

And the only thing I could do to thank her for this gift she'd given me, this knowledge that she thought I was invincible, was to make sure we won.

I'd give her the thing she had wanted me for in the first place.

I'd give her my fucking all.