Page 97

Asher tilts his head and assesses me, lips pressed together. Then, he pulls his phone out of his pocket, taps a few times on the screen, and hands it to me. “Here.”

I frown. “What is this?”

“Remember her finsta? The one I told you about. I didn’t show you before because I didn’t want to betray her trust or anything, but with recent developments…it kinda feels right.” His voice quiets. “You say you know nothing about her life, so look.”

Heart in my throat, I take the phone and stare at the list of people he follows. Is this a joke? I glance up and find him watching me with an amused smile.

“I don’t follow a lot of people,” he says. “Can you find her profile? I’m curious.”

Gah, I shouldn’t be surprised. I flip him off and then scroll through his following list until one profile catches my eye. A smile spreads across my lips before I can stop it. If I’m wrong, I’ll be very surprised.

I tap on the username heartisaheavyburden_always and instantly know I was right. A quote from Howl’s Moving Castle, her and her mom’s favorite anime. The profile picture is a mirror selfie, but only her phone case with Tengen Uzui on it is visible, along with black-and-pink polished nails. It’s so her. She has five hundred followers here and over three hundred posts. Damn, she posts a hell of a lot more here than on her official profile.

A weird twinge in my extremities makes me fidget. I really am a bit stalkerish, aren’t I? I know how frequently she posts. I know her schedule. Hell, I wake up every morning to watch her on the ice. After the way we left things three years ago, I shouldn’t be surprised she isn’t thrilled with the idea of being anywhere near me, but I want to change that. I need to know if she still cares.

With a deep breath, I focus on the images on screen. Her smile, so beautiful and open, lights up her face and turns every picture into a fucking masterpiece. I can’t take my eyes off her.

In one recent picture, she’s holding a bouquet of peonies to her chest, eyes closed, her plump lips stretched into a big smile. The caption says, “When your dad knows how to cheer you up.” Below it, there’s a comment from Uncle Xander that says, “Anything for my baby girl.” She’s always loved peonies because they’re her mom’s favorite, but she likes irises more, the ones that are more violet than blue.

Her feed is filled with posts and reels from the rink in Boston, according to the captions. Several feature her beside people I don’t know.

Elena is in a lot of the pictures, reminding me of the conversation I overheard between Mom and Aunt Bella a while ago. Aunt Bella was scolding herself for not being there for Isla, saying Elena is more of a mom to her and that it hurts to see her daughter so little. I was still deep in my feelings, pretending I hated her then, but the sadness in her tone was impossible to forget.

Images of the books and manga she’s read. Pictures of her laptop screen with movies and TV shows playing. Her trips all over the world. Dozens of competitions and the Olympics. The anime convention Ash mentioned, where she’s dressed as Mitsuri Kanroji from Demon Slayer. It’s a carousel post, full of shots of her in front of several booths. There’s a girl with her dressed as Frieren from Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. The lanyard around her neck says Ellie.

Is she a friend from Boston? It hurts more than I realized it would to know she has friends I’ve never heard about.

When a bouquet of violet irises appears, I pause. Not because of the flowers, but because the person holding this bouquet and grinning is familiar. That guy Isla skated with a couple of times when we were fourteen—Dean Williams. The picture makes my hackles rise, but the caption takes it one step further, making my stomach roil.

Thank you for the flowers, bb Happy anniversary to you too

As I reread the caption, a dark, ugly cloud forms in my mind, poisoning my thoughts. She posted the picture in January, a month before the Olympics. Was he her boyfriend? Is he still her boyfriend?

“You okay?” Asher’s voice rips me out of my downward spiral. Damn, I forgot he was here. “You look like you swallowed a whole damn lemon.”

No.

Not even close.

I’m fucking spinning out.

Rather than admit it, I force out a “Yeah” and hold out his phone. “Thanks.”

He studies me silently for several seconds before he takes his phone and stands. “Talk to her, man. I think you really need it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the stalking needs to stop. At least for now.”

Groaning, I fall onto my back. “I’m not stalking her.”

“Sure. Keep telling yourself that,” he mocks, turning on his heel.

After the door shuts behind him, I continue lying on my back for several minutes, staring at the ceiling. Maybe it was a bad idea to look at her private profile. Sure, it gave me glimpses into her life, but that singular image was enough to make my blood boil, and now, questions ricochet in my head. The two of us aren’t on speaking terms, so I can’t ask a single one.

I dig my own phone out of my pocket and navigate to her public profile. It’s still blocked, just like it has been for three years. I flex my jaw, one finger hovering over the Unblock button. I could undo it so easily, but what’s the point? There’s no way I’m gonna send a follow request to her finsta. She’d never accept it. Not after I acted like an idiot and deleted years of messages on a whim, thinking it would also delete the way I feel.

It didn’t. Neither did deleting the hundreds of pictures saved to my camera roll. I regretted it a week later, because while I deleted every single memory of her, of us, the pain and anger didn’t go away. If anything, it only made me miss her more.