Page 30 of Side By Side
“I was?”
“Yes,” Chandler said with a small smile. “I wanted to kiss you, so I did. I’m not sorry for that unless I should be. I thought, with the whole friends thing and then the cheek kiss, that you wanted to kiss me.”
“I did,” Belle replied.
“Then, I’m not sorry for kissing you. I am sorry for what happened after that.”
“Okay. Well, thanks for that.”
“That’s it?” Chandler asked.
“What am I supposed to say?”
“I don’t know. Literally anything other than, ‘Thanks for that,’ I guess.”
“Chandler, you walked into my ice rink after twelve years, and I’m supposed to do what here, exactly?”
“I don’t know, Belle. We were friends once.”
“No, we weren’t. I always had a crush on you.” When Chandler smiled in response, Belle added, “Don’t smile at that. I was fourteen. I didn’t know any better.”
“Hey!” Chandler laughed.
“My bun was too tight on my head or something; had me making poor decisions like giving cheek kisses in public locker rooms.”
“So, you did that more than once?”
“Nope. Just with you. I don’t plan on making that same mistake twice.”
Chandler nodded and said, “So, this is your office, huh? The famous cot you sleep on sometimes?”
“Chandler, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m working, so whatever you needed to talk about, can we do that so I can get back to it?”
“Is this what you want for yourself, Belle?”
“What?”
“Working here? Sleeping on a cot?”
“I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that to you before. You make it sound like I sleep here every night. I don’t. I told you that I have an apartment. It has a decent bed.”
“But you wanted to be on the team as much as I did.”
“I did, yeah.”
“And you just left. Not only did you leave the program, but you also stopped skating, and you’re here.” Chandler looked around the small room. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? That you ended up here.”
“I didn’t end up anywhere. I’m twenty-six, not dead, and I choose to be here. I get to skate whenever I want. I coach little kids sometimes, and that’s always fun unless they cry. Then, it’s less fun. I get to play hockey with my friends. I get time with my dad. And this place will be mine when he’s gone one day, hopefully very, very far off in the future. My whole life doesn’t revolve around figure skating anymore. I think that’s a good thing.”
“So, you don’t miss it at all?”
“Competing?”
Chandler nodded.
“I guess I miss some part of it, yeah. I miss the rush. It matters when you’re competing for something, so you have this adrenaline thing. And I miss the pressure – only the good kind, not the shit they sometimes tried to put on us that we didn’t need to be dealing with as kids – but I’m good here, Chandler.”
“You don’t regret leaving at all?”