This is a deleted scene from an early version of ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT. In honor of the winter weather today, I thought I'd post it. I was never an ice skater, but parts of this remind me of a boy I once knew who was a skater.
ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT is available here from Amazon.
ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT is available here from Amazon.
***
My nose
and cheeks tingled with the cold the second I pushed open the car door. In ten
minutes, I’d look like Jack
Frost’s twin sister, but I didn’t care. No way Jake was going to beat me today;
I’ve been working too hard for him to out skate me this time. I pulled on my
gloves and grabbed my skates off the back seat. He was hot on my heels, but I
didn’t even look back at him as we sprinted to the dock to lace them up.
“Bet you an extra-large chocolate chip
scone you can’t beat me to the middle!” he yelled, sliding down next to me and
throwing off his boots.
I rolled my eyes, and bumped his shoulder.
“Seriously? We’re not ten anymore.” But the second I finished my laces, I took
off, pumping my arms to pick up speed. We’d done this race a gazillion times,
but it never got old. I could do it with my eyes closed. It didn’t even really
matter who won—it was just what we did when we skated on the pond.
I raised my arms in victory when I got to
the spot we always called the finish line. “I am the winner!” I started my
victory dance, knowing he’d have done the same if he’d been first. I took a
bow, and twirled around gracefully on my skates, just in time to see him come
speeding at me. The moment before he careened into me, he stopped short,
sheering ice everywhere. “You really are still ten, aren’t you?”
“Only when I’m with you,” he said, as he
glided along the ice in a perfect figure eight.
“Ha! Aren’t I the luckiest girl.”
When the sun dipped below the tree line,
something about the weird shadows chasing Jake around the pond make me stop and
watch him. With a pretend stick in his hand, he raced toward an imaginary goal.
“He shoots! He scores! And the crowd goes wild!”
His energy and joy wafted toward me like a
palpable breeze, and everything melted away. No coach, no parents nagging me to
do the right thing, no team counting on me to lead them to victory. None of
that was going anywhere, but for now, I’d block it all from my brain. I’d just
enjoy myself.
The ice on this part of the pond was about
two and a half inches thick but the way the light reflected off the smooth
surface, made it seem like it went on forever. The first time it cracked it
sounded just like thunder, rolling far away in the distance. “It always freaks
me out when it does that!” I said to myself, knowing he was too far away to
hear. I skated in a few lazy circles, before Jake’s fancy moves drew my
attention again.
He spelled his name and twirled a few
times. The guys on the team would never let him live down some of the girlier
ice dance moves, but he really was amazing on his skates. His stupid hat
trailed behind him like a tail. It was so long, it could double as a scarf and
wrap around his neck four times. He turned and waved the pompom on the end in
my direction. It was the smallest of gestures, but suddenly I felt my face
flush. It was like someone turned up the heat—like I was almost breaking a
sweat. If I’d been near a chair, I’d have sat down.
“What’s up? Why aren’t you skating?” He
stopped a few inches away and squinted at me like he could see into my soul.
“You feel okay? You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Before I could answer, the thunder came
from directly beneath us. In that second my only thought was if we were taking
a plunge into the icy depths, we were going to take it together.
My next thought hit me like a hockey stick
to the gut.
Oh
my god, I’m in love with Jake.
In that instant, waiting for the surface to
break open and the icy water to swallow us whole and knowing beyond any doubt
that I loved Jake Gomes with my entire being, my reflexes reacted and I gripped
his forearms like a life preserver.
He grabbed my arms in return and, I saw
panic flash across his face.
We stood face to face, linked. Panic
gripped my heart as I waited for the inevitable. My brain tried to get my feet
to move and skate to shore, but I couldn’t let go of Jake arms.
He relaxed first. “Pen, what the hell’s
wrong with you today? The ice is totally thick enough here. It’s not cracking.”
But as he said the words, he pulled me into his chest and held me for a long
time. I could feel his heart beating through his parka and I knew I’d scared
him. I buried my face in his coat. I couldn’t look at him; if I looked at him,
my eyes would betray my heart. As terrified as I was of my heart, I’d never
felt safer in my life wrapped in Jake’s arms. Like I’d come home. After being
away for a very long time.
He finally loosened his grip and looked
down at me. I might have been crying or maybe my eyes were watering from the
cold. And I wasn’t sweating anymore; my body shook with fear and cold and
confusion. How could I never have known
that I loved Jake Gomes? He took off his glove and wiped my cheek. Why had I never noticed that his eyes are
turquoise? I’d been looking at him since we were seven, but I’d never
noticed.
My heart had just started to calm down from
my earlier panic, but as Jake leaned toward me, my pulse quickened in my ears.
I’d never imagined kissing Jake. I have no
idea why I never imagined kissing Jake. Kissing Jake was amazing. I wished we
weren’t wearing parkas because I wanted to get so much closer to him. He pulled
away first, and started skating backwards away from me. He looked more scared
now than he did when the ice cracked. “I’m sorry.”
I felt like I’d been punched again. I
whispered, “Why are you sorry?”
He looked surprised. “I…I mean…I didn’t
mean to kiss you.”
I skated forward, closing the gap he’d created.
“I’m glad you did.” I wasn’t trying to be sexy, I just wanted to be kissing him
again. In hindsight, maybe I was too enthusiastic. I misjudged the distance and
caught him off guard. We both lost our balance and went down hard onto the ice.
When he started laughing, I started
breathing again. I wasn’t sure what to do with this new Jake. The Jake who
kissed me. The Jake with the beautiful blue-green eyes. The war in my head
raged. This was the same Jake who had been like my brother for the last eight
years. There was no reason to be nervous. “Thanks for breaking my fall,” I
said, holding out my hand to help him up. I could pass my shaking hands off as
being cold, right?
Jake grasped my hand and pulled me back
onto the ice next to him. He pulled my hat off and ran his fingers through my
hair, and then, finally, he kissed me again.
