The wind shifts over the lake, pelting my eyes with frigid wetness. Storm’s coming. Fifteen minutes, tops.

Just as I’ve done a hundred times this winter, I recheck my laces and slide out to the center of the runoff, but suddenly, it doesn’t seem far enough, daring enough, challenging enough to prove I have what it takes. The wind howls in my ears and I swear I can hear old Lola again, pushing me, reminding me how hard it is to stand out, to truly compete.

Ignoring the warning in my head, I rush forward, faster, racing to the edge where the shallow meets the lake. The cold seeps through my clothes and I glide out farther, slipping over the border from safe to unknown. Across the lake, Canada vanishes beneath a white curtain. The forbidden thrill of imminent danger rises hot from my toes to the top of my head, propelling me farther still. I close my eyes and throw my head back, big impossible flakes landing on my face and blotting out the sound, and for a moment, everything is still. I’m trapped in a giant snow globe, bound to the surface of the ice, nothing left to do but wait for someone to upturn and shake the world, set me back on my feet, and watch the sky fall.

Maybe I’ve always been waiting for that.

“Hudson!” My name floats on the wind, but it’s far away, or maybe just an echo in my head from a time when things were better, and I ignore it, skating closer to the white wall of the storm against every ounce of logic in my mind. Hudson Avery, do you have what it takes? …

“Hey—back! You’re—far and—I can’t—the ice …” The words are distant and broken; bright red berries dropped in the snow and carried off by the winter gulls. I barely comprehend that it’s not a memory, that someone is speaking to me. I close my eyes. My body wants to keep going, the ghosts of Fillmore beckoning me into the abyss like some evil thing.

“Hudson!” It comes once more, then again, loud and distinct. “Hudson Avery! Come back here!”

Josh.

The words reach me deep inside, shake me out of my fog. I open my eyes and turn toward the sound of his voice, so suddenly grateful he’s here. Whatever we are now, whatever we aren’t, God I missed the sound of his laugh, the swish of our skates as we carved up the ice together.

This is it. Now or never. I have to tell him. I have to skate right up to him, look into his eyes, and confess. I listen to your music every night. I close my eyes and replay that postgame hug like a movie and feel it even now, weeks later, my insides still buzzing with the memory. I smile when I picture you doing those crossovers, eating my cupcakes, making my brother laugh. I don’t care that you’re unreadable and I don’t care what anyone says about me and Will and you and Abby, because I can’t stop thinking about you….

I take a deep breath and set my toe pick against the ice, ready to rush back to shore, back to safety and Josh and whatever comes next. But in that simple movement, the minuscule transfer of pressure from one foot to another, the whole world changes.

I feel it before I hear it, ice moaning softly under my feet. Then there’s a crack, a quick snap like the breaking of a brittle bone.

My stomach bottoms out and Josh shouts across the distance, his voice cutting through the pulse of blood, the whoosh of my life passing before me. The ice creaks again and I can’t move. Legs immobilized, breath a series of small white bursts as Josh skids to a stop on the lake, just out of reach.

“Hudson, listen to me.” He’s close now, voice gentle. Soothing. The promise of a warm bath and a crackling fire. “You’re fine,” he says. “You have to trust me. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“I can’t come any closer. You have to come to me. As carefully as possible, lie flat on your stomach.” Josh gets to his knees and motions for me to lie down. “Do it now.”

I hold my breath, certain that taking in any more air will upset the balance, that the weight of one more snowflake will send me plummeting. I kneel slowly. The lake moans and I stop, hands flat in front of me as the water rushes beneath, humming through solid ice.

“Stretch out a little more. You have to get on your stomach.”

“I can’t.” I mouth the words. Anything louder will shatter the ice.

“Yes, you can. You’re okay. Keep your eyes on mine. Look at me. Look—Hudson—no, right here. I’m getting you out of this, okay? I promise.”

“But my arms are sh-shaking. I c-c-can’t—”

“Do it, Hudson! Stop screwing around! Just shut up and do exactly what I say!”

The panic in his voice sets me on high alert. I take a deep breath, hold it, and press myself flat against the ice.

“Use your arms and legs to inch forward. Go slow. Keep your eyes here.” He points to his eyes and I follow his instructions, moving a millimeter at a time, gaze locked on his for all eternity.

“Reach, Hudson. Just a little more. Come on!”

My resolve fades and I shiver again, inside and out. Cold and fear suffocate me from all sides. The ice cracks against my ribs like fingers reaching up through the cold and I start to cry and I wonder if the deep blue-gray eyes of Watonka Wolves varsity co-captain number fifty-six Josh Blackthorn will be the very last thing I see before …

“Gotcha!” Josh wraps his hand around my wrist and pulls, dragging me as he inches backward. His grip is tight, energy seeping into my limbs. I rise to a crawl, slow at first, faster as we shuffle on hands and knees toward the safety of the runoff. When we reach the edge where the ice ends and the ground begins, Josh stands and tugs me so hard that he slips backward into the snow. I collapse on top of him. I know I should get up but my arms and legs won’t cooperate and all I can feel is his heart banging against mine like the first time we met, tumbling together on the ice. I’m still crying and he’s shaking beneath me as the wind rushes us, full force.

“I just … I thought you …” He’s breathing hard and jagged, holding me firm against his chest. “Jesus, Hudson. What were you … why did … God.” He takes my face into his gloved hands and I close my eyes, cutting off the tears.

The wind roars across the ice and chokes me with another gale, wet and sharp on my skin. Josh grabs my hands and pulls us up and together we fight our way through the swirling white gusts, collecting my backpack and boots, clomping through deep, heavy snow to the rusted outer building of the mill. We don’t stop until we’re inside, shielded from the bitter bite of the wind, thrown suddenly into blackness.

“We have to wait it out,” Josh says, trying to catch his breath. He pulls off his hat and rubs the snow from his hair and we both look around, eyes adjusting to the dark.

The ground floor is mostly empty. Steel bones jut out from walls lined with white veins, ever-widening cracks where the outside light leaks in. When the wind blows, puffs of snow slip through the gaps, piling up on the floor like loose powder.

I sit on an old wooden crate and change out of my skates, grateful for my boots and an extra pair of wool socks stuffed in the bottom of my bag.

The mill feels hollow and haunted, black inside, the faint clangs of old metal ringing like a ghost ship adrift at sea. The sadness of the place snatches at my soul and I shiver.

Ten minutes ago, Josh saved my life.

“Why did you come?” I ask. “I haven’t seen you out here lately, and things have been … we haven’t talked in a while.”

Josh pulls off his gloves and blows hot breath into his hands. “Not since you stopped working with the team. Will isn’t saying anything about it, so I decided to stalk you today until you tell me what’s going on.”

“So you are a stalker. I knew it.” I smile. I missed this—our easy and familiar banter, still there beneath the sparks.

“I stopped by the restaurant but the pink-haired waitress—Nat, I think?—she told me you’d left already.”