Tuesday practice is back on, and the Oval is freezing after the snow, the kind of deep, bone-cold that settles into the building overnight and makes the ice feel harder and the air feel thin, so my fingers go numb in my gloves even after warm-up.
Maya and I are working on our new lift entrance for sectionals, the one where I have to change my grip mid-turn, and it's not going well because I keep dropping my left shoulder at the last second and tipping her to the side. After the third try where she has to hop down early to save her ankle, she plants her hands on her hips and looks at me with that coach face she does.
"You're distracted," she says, not mad, just stating a fact like she's reading it off a score sheet. "You thinking about your boyfriend?"
"He's not my boyfriend," I say automatically, too fast, before my brain even catches up to my mouth, and my voice echoes a little in the cold rink.
She grins, slow and victorious, like she's just won a point she didn't even know we were playing for. "You didn't say who."
My face gets hot instantly despite the cold, and I push off hard and do a full lap alone just to cool it down, just to get away from her knowing look, and my blades carve loud, angry lines into the fresh ice while my breath comes out in white clouds.
At 7 a.m. on the dot, hockey takes the ice for their slot, and I stay to stretch like I always do, sitting on the rubber flooring by the boards with my legs in a split and my jacket zipped up to my chin. Roman is out there with his line, wearing his dark practice jersey with the tape coming loose on his socks, and he looks fast today, faster than usual, cutting hard around the cones and laughing at something Jamal says.
Ten minutes in, he goes into the corner with Tyler to battle for a loose puck, and they get tangled the way they always do, shoulder to shoulder, both of them refusing to lose, and Tyler hits him weird, at a bad angle, not dirty, just unlucky, and Roman goes down hard into the boards back-first. The sound is loud even over the music, a dull, heavy thud that I feel in my teeth and in my chest, and he stays down for a second too long with one glove pressed to the ice like he's trying to remember how to get up, like the wind got knocked out of him.
I'm on my feet before I realize it, skates still on, at the boards with my hands gripping the top so hard my knuckles go white, my heart suddenly hammering so loud I can't hear the music anymore, I can't hear anything except the blood rushing in my ears.
The trainer skates out and helps him up, one hand under his elbow, and Roman skates off slow, holding his left shoulder tucked close to his body, his stick dangling uselessly from his other hand, his head down. He looks up as he passes our bench and sees me standing there, and he tries to smile, a tight little wince of a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"I'm good," he mouths at me through the glass.
He's not good. I can tell by the way he's holding his arm, by the way his jaw is clenched tight, by the way he's skating like every glide hurts.
After, I don't go to the locker room to change, I wait outside the hockey locker room with my skate guards on and my jacket zipped up to my chin, pacing a little hole in the rubber flooring while other guys come out laughing and shoving each other. He comes out ten minutes later, last one, with his jacket half on and his left arm held close to his body, his hair still wet from the shower and dripping onto his collar.
"Just a bruise," he says when he sees me, like he's trying to convince both of us at the same time, his voice light.
"Let me see," I say, and my voice comes out sharper than I mean it to, sharper than I intended, because my chest still feels tight.
He looks surprised, eyebrows up, but he glances around the empty hallway and lifts his shirt a little right there, just enough to show his shoulder. It's already turning purple, a dark bloom spreading under his skin, angry and deep, and my stomach turns over looking at it, a sick swoop.
"You need ice," I say, and I'm already turning toward the door, already thinking about the little freezer in our room.
"I know, Mom," he teases, but he winces when he tries to pull his jacket the rest of the way on, and the joke falls flat and he sucks in a breath.
Back in the room, I make him sit on the edge of his bed and I get the ice pack from the little freezer we share, the one that barely works and is mostly full of his frozen burritos, and I wrap it in a thin towel so it won't burn his skin. My hands are shaking a little and I hope he doesn't notice.
"Take your shirt off," I say, focused on the ice pack so I don't have to look at him, so I don't have to look at the bruise again.
He raises an eyebrow, and I can hear the grin in his voice even without looking. "Orlov, are you trying to get me naked? Should I be concerned for my virtue? Is this your evil plan finally coming to fruition?"
My face burns so hot I know it's red all the way to my ears and down my neck. "Shut up. For the ice. So it actually works and you don't get frostbite."
He laughs, that low laugh that makes my chest feel tight in a completely different way, but he pulls his shirt off with his good arm, wincing the whole time, his teeth gritted. I try not to look, I really try, I stare very hard at the ice pack in my hands and at the floor and at the wall, but I fail, because he's right there. He's got muscle everywhere from years of hockey, shoulders and chest and stomach that move when he breathes, and a thin white scar on his collarbone from an old surgery he told me about once when he was half asleep.
I sit next to him on the edge of his bed, close enough that our thighs touch, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his skin, and I press the ice to his shoulder as gently as I can. He sucks in a breath through his teeth at the cold, his whole body tensing.
"Sorry," I whisper, my hand shaking a little against his skin, and I'm not sure if I'm apologizing for the cold or for not catching him or for caring this much.
"It's okay," he says, and his voice is softer now, quieter. "Your hands are cold anyway. Like always. Little ice hands, that's what you are."
We sit like that for ten minutes while the ice melts and drips onto the towel and onto his jeans, while the room is quiet except for the radiator hissing. Me holding the ice pack to his shoulder with one hand, him leaning back on his good hand with his head tipped back and his eyes closed, his breathing slow. Close enough that I can see the freckles on his nose, close enough that I can see the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks, close enough that I can smell his shampoo.
"You didn't have to wait for me," he says quiet, eyes still closed, like he's talking in his sleep or like he's afraid to look at me.
"Yes I did," I say, because it's the only true thing I can say out loud without my voice breaking.
"Why?" he asks, and he opens his eyes and looks at me, really looks, his blue eyes searching my face like he's trying to read something written there in a language he doesn't know yet.
Because I couldn't breathe when you hit the boards. Because my heart stopped and the whole rink went silent and all I could hear was that thud echoing. Because I like you and I'm scared and happy at the same time and I don't know what to do with any of it. Because the thought of you getting hurt makes me feel sick in a way that has nothing to do with being roommates. Because I've been writing your name in my journal for weeks and I don't know how to stop.
I don't say any of that. I can't. The words get stuck somewhere between my heart and my mouth, they jam up in my throat and sit there heavy and useless and terrifying.
"Because you're my roommate," I say instead, which is true but not the whole truth, not even close to the whole truth, just the safe, small part I can let out.
He looks at me for a long time, his blue eyes searching my face, and I wonder what he sees, if he can see the rest of the sentence I'm not saying. Then he nods, slow, like he's accepting the part I'm willing to give him for now. "Okay," he says, and he doesn't push, he just lets it be.
Later, he falls asleep with the ice pack still on his shoulder, his head tipped to the side and his mouth a little open, his breathing deep and even. I take it off careful so I don't wake him, my fingers brushing his warm skin as gently as I can, and I pull his blanket up over his chest and tuck it around his good shoulder. He doesn't stir, just sighs in his sleep and turns his face into the pillow.
I go to my desk and open the drawer, and I take out the journal and sit on the floor with my back against my bed so I can see him while I write. I open to the page, to my list that is getting longer every week, a list that is starting to look like a map.
*Safe.
Roman.
Mom.
Maya.
Papa.
Party.
Stayed.
Stay.
нравится.
Scared.
Happy.
Snow day.*
Under *Snow day*, I write a new word, my handwriting shaky because my hand is still cold from the ice:
*Hurt.*
Then under that, because it's just as true and just as important, I write:
*Stayed anyway.*
I close the book and put it back and get into bed, pulling my blanket up to my chin. Across the room, Roman is breathing slow and even, his left shoulder rising and falling under the blanket, the bruise hidden but I know it's there.
I stare at his shoulder in the dark, at the shape of him under the blankets, and I realize I'm not just scared of him getting hurt on the ice, I'm not just scared of the sound he made when he hit the boards. I'm scared of how much I care that he did, of how fast I was on my feet, of how my whole body reacted before my brain could catch up and tell me to be cool.
I'm scared of how much it would hurt if it was worse than a bruise, and I'm scared of what that means about how I feel about him, and I'm scared because for the first time that scared feeling isn't making me want to run, it's making me want to stay right here and hold the ice pack as long as he needs me to.