Fake Dates & Ice Skates: (The North University Series Book 1)

Since my parents’ divorce, five years ago, Melanie Hackerly has been on the quest to establish herself as a woman that can never be shaken. The woman that can conquer all. She wanted to be the type of person people write articles about, the type of woman that could have hundreds of girls lining up to play her in a biopic. That was her plan for so long that when she was injured and went into teacher training, she’s still found some loophole to get her to whatever stage she needs to be on in five years.

As kids, Austin, and I, never really saw anything wrong with my parents’ relationship. They seemed happy. Whole. We had weekly family outings; birthdays were always a blast and we had regular vacations. There was nothing that we could see to tell us they weren’t in love.

Their love was nothing idolise and aspire to; it just was. They kissed and said goodbye on their way to work, they always tucked us in until we reached our teens until one day they just fell out of love. It was quick and simple. There were no arguments or name-calling, they just stopped. My dad told me it wasn’t our fault – because it never is – and they went their separate ways.

Soon after, my mom remarried to another recent divorcee, Mike, who has two kids from his last marriage. My mom moved out of our family home into a Spanish-style house just out Salt Lake in Centreville. My dad still lives in our family home, our childhood bedrooms still covered with the same One Direction posters I’ve had for as long as I could remember.

I know I’m not supposed to take sides in the divorce but if anyone were to ask, I’d say I’m on my dad side. No doubt. It’s not like my mom has done anything wrong particularly. She hasn’t deceived us in anyway, but it felt like for a lot of my life, she wasn’t a mom to me. She was always my coach before ever being a mom.

My dad was the only one who let me be a kid. He let me read instead of working out. He let me eat ice cream after dinner, get dirty at the park and he let me wear my pyjama’s all day when mom wasn’t there. He didn’t parade me around like a show pony, he just let me be. That’s all I ever wanted from her.

When they split, Austin was nineteen, so she wasn’t living at home anymore while she was at NU. My parents had shared custody of me, so I alternated between staying with mom and staying at dads. I always called dads house ‘home.’ It’s where I felt most comfortable. When I was with mom, it just felt like I was third wheeling.  Mike’s kids were living on their own since they were older than Austin and me. So, every time I was there, they were all over each other. It felt like I was constantly interrupting their extended honeymoon. Like I was an unnecessary flea floating around them. Like I was watching her new life unfold without me in it. Luckily, as soon as I got into NU, I was able to move in with Kennedy and Scarlett. Still, pulling into her driveway now, their house feels foreign.

*

“What are you going to do about skating?” my mom asks, pouring me another glass of orange juice. I knew the other shoe would drop. She’s been dancing around mentioning it for the last half an hour.

Mom’s house is a lot smaller than our old one. Everything fits so neatly together, here. Our old house was a mess of toys and random furniture pieces that my dad wanted to get. It was always chaotic, and I loved it that way. Our refrigerator was filled with pictures that Austin and I drew, things that we made at school and photos from our vacations. But here, everything is so neatly put together that you would never expect anything more than two divorcee’s living here. The kitchen and living room are connected, with a large French door leading out to their patio with the pool and hot tub. We’re sitting out on the patio, enjoying one of the rare sunny days left of September.

“Well, although it shouldn’t be my problem, I’m going to figure something out,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“I just…” I sigh, running my fingers around the edge of the glass. “You’re the dean. Shouldn’t there be something you can do about it? Like, use the school funding to pay for the rink maintenance and the performances?”

She gasps as if I’ve insulted her. “It’s not that easy, Amelia. North has been running this way since I went there. The buzz was always around skating, so the donations made up for the funding. I can’t change it now. It’s tradition.”

I just nod.

There’s nothing I can say that would get her to listen to me. There rarely ever is. I hate it when she calls me Amelia. I was born Amelia Wren Hackerly, but my first name never really fit. It felt like something I could never grow into. As soon as I could talk, I forced everyone into calling me Wren. Still, very few people in my life call me Amelia or Emmy.

“Forget I said anything.”

Uncomfortable silence settles over us. I can’t remember the last time my mom and I had an actual conversation. About something other than figure skating and the school. Something real. Sometimes it feels like that’s all she needs me for; to tell her how I’m practicing my triple Lutz, tell her that I train all day, every week, until my body feels like it can’t function normally. Until I’m so exhausted and sore that I forget to eat. “That’s my girl,” she would say, completely unaware that I have force myself out of bed every day to please her. This is how she has trained me. To only care about skating and to see everything else as an afterthought.

“It’s as if no one is dedicated to the sport anymore,” she murmurs after a while, sighing loudly. I can feel her eyes on me, but I keep mine focused on the pool in front of me, not braving the intense stare from her. “Was I interrupting your plans when I called you here?”

I turn to her, shocked at her sudden change in topic. “No. Sort of. Kind of,” I stumble.

“Well, which one is it?” she asks, her tone sharp.

“I was on a date,” I say with instant regret. I’m not sure why I said it, but I guess it’s kind of true? Why not get straight to the point? I might as well have thrown up all over her by the way her nose scrunches.

“Oh. That’s, uh, exciting,” she says uncomfortably.

She had loved Augustus, naturally, because he always put skating first. I was the commodity. Never the first thing he thought of when he woke up. I was the afterthought, just like my mom would have wanted.

“Can I ask who it is?”

“It’s not serious. I’ll let you know when it is. You might have a grandchild very soon,” I say, shimmying my shoulders, knowing it’ll get a rise out of her.

“Wren,” she snaps. “Don’t make jokes like that, it’s not funny. I’m too young to be a grandma already.”

“Right. Not the fact that your daughter is also too young to have a child,” I say suppressing a laugh. Her face knits in confusion. Another wave of silence sweeps over us. I’m about to get up and make an excuse to leave before she starts talking again.

“When was the last time you spoke to your sister?” she asks.

I try to shake my brain for an answer. Last time I heard, Austin was in Russia, still working on joining The Paris Opera Ballet living with her boyfriend, Zion. The second she finished at NU, she enrolled into another program in Russia where she has been for the last four years. We haven’t spoken that much because the time difference is insane but I’m not complaining.

Austin was basically a second mother to me in a better way. She always pushed me to do better, train harder and stay sharp. She was basically my mom’s echo but in a softer way. She understood how we all worked together.

She never openly addressed our strange dynamic, but it made the whole ‘growing up under mom’s eye’ thing feel less lonely. That’s something I don’t miss.

As much as she was kind, it felt like I was getting pushed around in every direction. I do miss her cooking though. Mom was never any good and neither was dad, but Austin was spectacular. We often joked about her being a chef, but she knew she had to stick to ballet. She thought she had to set an example.

“I can’t remember,” I admit.

“Hmm. She’s been distant and I’m worried. Check in on her soon for me,” mom says. I wonder what gave her the reason to be distant from my darling mother.

“Okay, sure, I’ll just get the next available flight to Russia,” I joke. She throws me a daring look. “Fine, I’ll call her when I can.”

“Thank you.”

I get up out of my seat, signalling that I’m ready for the conversation to be over. I get to the patio door and slide it open before I hear my mom call my name. I turn back and she’s still facing away from me.

“And Wren, please take this skating situation seriously. I know you like to joke instead of facing your reality, but your reality is you might not be skating when the new year comes around. We both know you were never any good at school.”

I bite my tongue. I bite it so hard that it makes my head hurt. I walk out the door with my head held high, but my eyes are prickling with tears. The only reason I was ‘never any good at school’ was because of her. Because she didn’t let me do anything other than skate around on the ice. She robbed me of my childhood the second I could walk.

When I’m strapped safely in my car, I allow myself to break down. To cry out all the tears I’ve held in since this whole situation happened. It feels like I have the weight of the world on my back. If this thing with Miles doesn’t work, I could be completely ruined. I will have to dive into something else that I’ve only ever done as a side piece. As an escape. Falling into that is scary.

Even though my creative writing is part of my course it’s not equal with skating. I skate basically every day of the week and I only take four creative writing classes. It’s figure skating eighty percentage of the time. If I had to do a full major, I don’t know where I would start.

I let myself cry until I’m back into my old neighbourhood. I ignore the urge to go to my dad’s house and breakdown again in front of him like I have a million times before. Instead, I cross the road to Gigi’s house and it’s instantly as welcoming as it has always been. Walking up her porch feels like second nature. We spent so many summers on her lawn and her backyard, playing with the sprinklers outside and making forts in her bedroom.

“Wren, what a surprise!” Dianne exclaims when she opens the door wider to let me in. I’ve always wondered if any of Gigi’s family age. Her mom is a stunning blonde woman who reminds me so much of a Polish Blake Lively and she’s looked the same since I was born. I tried to clear my face while I was in the car to look presentable, so she doesn’t blink twice when I shrug off my coat and my shoes. Mr Dixie, an overweight ginger tabby cat runs in between my legs and then saunters down a corridor. “Gianna! Emmy’s here, kiddo!”

I walk further into the hallway, instantly comforted by her cosy bungalow. I don’t come here as often as I should. Gigi doesn’t like loud environments, like me, so we only have a few safe places for her; her house being one of them.

Each wall is filled with pictures of baby Gigi and all of her replacement Mr Dixie’s over the years. At first it was a secret that her mom replaced Mr Dixie after his first disappearance, but Gigi knew. She was way too smart to know that the cat she had since birth had run away from her. More than once.

Their house is filled with all sorts of achievements and awards from Gigi’s childhood. Since she’s an only child, her mom never misses an opportunity to celebrate her. It’s not long before my best friend materialises in the hallway in her Twilight pyjamas with a paperback in her hands. Her dark brown hair is in two low space buns with her navy headphones hung around her neck. When she sees me, she smiles shyly.

“You should have texted before you came over,” Gigi sighs.

“I know. I’m sorry to spring this up on you but I was in the neighbourhood, and I wanted to hang out,” I reply, twisting my fluffy socks in the carpet.

“You still could have texted.”

“I know, Gigi and I’m sorry. Can we hang?” I ask. Dianne nods and ushers me closer to her and the corridor. Gigi huffs and walks closer to her bedroom. We’ve been doing this song and dance for as long as I can remember. I’ll show up, Gigi will tell me to have called first and then we hang out. Even when I do call first, she’s still surprised when I turn up, yet she stays in her pyjamas.

“Why were you in the neighbourhood?” she asks when we reach her woman-cave. Her room is filled with Marvel posters and moon lamps. It’s probably the safest place I have ever felt. There’s something about the dark blue and purple and slight smell of violets that make this place feel like another home.

Gigi sits across from me in one of her many beanbags while I sit on her plush mattress. She is the epitome of a warm fuzzy feeling you can only get around certain people at particular times. With her, you’re lucky enough to get that feeling all the time.

“I was visiting my dad,” I lie, not ready to get into another misunderstanding about my relationship with my mom. Even though she’s seen the way we operate first-hand, she still believes that we can just make up and move on.

“You’re lying. You’re dad’s not here this week. If I get some pierogies, will you tell me?” Gigi asks, twisting her fingers through the strands of hair that have fallen in her face. I forgot how close my dad still is with her family.

“Deal.” She sends a text to her mom who arrives within a few seconds with a comforting plate of pierogies. She watches me eat one first, moaning when I swallow. She smiles before picking one up herself. “I might be kicked off the skating team and I’m freaking out.”

“What do you mean you might be kicked off the skating team?”

“No one is interested in it anymore and because NU is so shitty, we can’t even afford to pay for it ourselves without the donations,” I mumble around chews.

“And you can’t do anything about it?” Gigi asks, her words almost sounding like a statement.

“Well, no. I’m dating a popular hockey guy to get people interested in me again but-”

“So why are you freaking out if you’ve got a plan? You should only be freaking out if you don’t have a plan,” she cuts me off, shoving more food into her mouth.

“Because it’s a shitty situation, Gigi,” I explain. She chews thoughtfully, not saying much while a few minutes pass.

“How have I dated more people than you?” she asks, and I burst out laughing. The way her mind works is so fascinating. “I wasn’t trying to make a joke. I’ve managed to get into multiple relationships with both men and women at the same time it has taken you to date two guys.”

“So, what, G? What are you trying to prove?” I ask when I can talk without laughing.

“I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just stating a fact,” she replies, taking a sip from her water bottle. “Anyway, who is this popular hockey player?”

“Miles Davis.” Her face pauses for a second, her dark eyebrows knitting together before softening. Her eyes widen suddenly.

“I know him,” she whispers, pulling out her phone to scroll through it. She turns her phone to me and there he is. A perfectly ridiculous picture of Miles wearing his jersey in a group photo with the rest of his team. I have to smother the stupid grin pulling across my face.

“How?” I whisper-laugh.

“Just because I don’t go to college with you guys, it doesn’t mean I don’t have a social life. A lot of my readers are from NU, and you know how I get when I fixate on something,” she explains flippantly. I don’t push her on it anymore. We’ve always worked like this. “What’s he like?”

“He’s nice but he…” I draw out, not sure whether or not to tell her. As much as I trust her with my life, maybe it’s best for me not to tell her that it’s fake. I have a feeling she wouldn’t understand. “He’s nice.”

“You said that twice. So, is he nice or are you just saying that to cover up the fact that he is not nice?” Before I can open my mouth to answer she makes up her own one and nods to herself. “Anyway, does he know that you’re using him to skate?”

“I’m not using him, Gigi. But – The thing is-” She cuts me off my standing up out of her blanketed corner of the room.

“Okay. As long as he knows that then I’m okay with it. Thank you for coming to tell me that,” she says, and I nod, unsure as to how to go about this. “Now can you get out because it’s getting closer to my time in the night, and I don’t want you here for that.”

“Do you have to kick me out every time? You need to update me on your schedule changes, so we don’t have to do this ritual every time,” I groan, standing up from the bed. She blinks at me. “Okay. I’ll speak to you later. We need to hang out with the girls soon.”

“Fine. As long as it’s not anytime within the next week because I need to work on my book. Strict deadlines and all,” Gigi explains, walking me out of her bedroom. A slight pang runs through me at the mention of her dedication to her writing. Even with every other force in the world tries to tell her that a nineteen-year-old can’t write, she still preservers. She has the biggest smile on her face while she ushers me out of her house.

After an enlightening talk with Gigi, I trudge towards my locker room on the campus rink and change into a black leotard with tights and fluffy socks. I bring my skates to the rink and luckily no one is here. It’s still early, around seven, so most people are on their way home from practicing or hanging out anywhere but here. I do a small warm up around the ice, my legs and my hands feeling shaky from all the crying I did earlier. Talking with Gigi helped. It always does. But even now, hours after seeing my mom, I can’t shake what she said out of my head.

I practice through all my spins and turns until my head hurts. I practice my triple Lutz until my hands hurt from falling and squeezing them into fists. I replay ‘Cloud of love’ until I’m sick of it. I skate and glide until I’m crying again, feeling pathetic and stupid. Weirdly enough, I actually want Miles to be here and say something witty to make me laugh. Friday can’t come fast enough. I practice until the darkness settles outside and I know I’m going to get kicked out soon.

When I get home into bed, I close my eyes and I dream of him.