Scars On Ice | Charlie Conway

t h i r t y - s i x

That evening, Aspen was nursing a glass of lukewarm water when Caine slid into the kitchen, his socks gliding haphazardly against the hardwood. At first, he hardly spared his sister a glance, almost not realizing that she was there at all. But then he heard her fingernail clink against the glass of her cup, and he sent her a wary glance over his shoulder. "Aren't you a bit young to be staring longingly into a beverage?" he quipped.

Aspen hardly forced herself to meet his gaze, and she put even less energy into laughing. "It's been a long week," she answered dryly. She didn't feel up to going back and forth with him, even if it was just playful banter.

Caine snorted as he retrieved a half-empty gatorade bottle from the fridge. "Tell me about it," he muttered with a sigh. He set his drink aside and hoisted himself onto the counter, his gaze lazily landing on his sulking sister. He raised a single eyebrow, as though challenging her to actually give him an answer.

"I've been leading one of my best friends on for three years," Aspen blurted with no hesitation. The words tasted venomous on her lips, but she was grateful to have finally said them aloud.

Without missing a beat, Caine raised his bottle to his lips. Before taking a swig, he shrugged lightly, and offered, "The love of my life is dating a senior."

A sudden silence filled the kitchen, with Aspen meeting her brother's brown eyes for the first time since he entered. Her lips pulled into a taut frown as the corners of her eyelids sagged tiredly. "Mei and Nigel?" she asked, though she didn't need an answer.

Caine nodded, not bothering to try and hide it or sugarcoat the situation. His siblings had been the ones to advise him before, and he had taken their advice. The only problem was that by the time he got around to telling her how he felt, the dance had ended, and she had no intention of leaving Nigel's side.

"Roland?" Caine returned. Aspen's cheeks flushed, and the nod that she gave was much sadder than her brother's had been. Caine bobbed his head as he raised his drink to his lips once more, a faraway look in his eyes. It seemed as though he had known her answer just as much as she had known his.

Aspen had a feeling they were both wondering similar things. Caine just didn't have the gumption to ask for himself.

"Did everybody know?" Aspen finally managed to force out after a brief period of congested silence. Elle had. She knew that. There was nothing else that Elle could have possibly been trying to tell her, no other reason for her to have been waggling her eyebrows at the pair of them all year. She had a suspicion that Peter must've known, too, as the uncharacteristically sad look in his eyes had been plaguing her mind for days. But who else?

Caine sniffled a bit, taking his sweet time to consider her question. He made a face. "I wouldn't say everyone," he prefaced, his words coming out in a slow, thick drawl. A look of sympathy brushed over his face. "But personally I don't think he hid it very well. Though maybe he wasn't trying to hide it at all."

Aspen rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes, pressing hard enough to see stars. She wanted to purge her brain of every Roland-related thing that had occurred in the past week. She wanted to erase his emotions, to undo the hurt she had unconsciously done. Yet part of her also wanted to love him the same way he loved her, right from the very beginning.

But that was a lot of wanting for impossible outcomes.

It was weird to think that she had been so happy three days ago. It was strange to think of the comfort that sitting with Delanie and Charlie brought her just a few hours earlier. Everything felt like it was falling apart around her, and yet she seemed to have this little pocket of sunshine that kept her on her feet and grounded.