I close my eyes and wait for them to come, will them to fill me up again, but they’re not here. And now that I’ve finally noticed their absence, the hole inside presses on me like a real thing.

Since I’ve started training again, I’ve felt that kind of fluttering anticipation not when I thought about this competition, but when Dani sampled my new cupcake creations, or when Bug put the final circuit board on his robot. When I finally figured out how to carry a tray full of drinks without spilling a drop. When the Wolves skated toward the net during the semis, feet shushing hard against the ice, arms arched as they prepared to take the winning shots. When Josh’s lips brushed against mine in the firelight as we hid from the storm.

“Paige Adamo,” the announcer calls. The girl hugs her friend and skates to the ice, music setting her feet on fire, strong and energetic. I want to hate her for everything she said, for everything she is, but I can’t. She’s beautiful, and her routine is breathtaking.

“Amazing program,” I tell her when she slides back into the box. She grabs her water bottle, taking a swig as her coach hands her a towel.

“There’s no karma in figure skating,” she says, looking right through me. I raise my eyebrows, but she’s right. When you’re a solo skater, everyone is the competition. Even when you’re in a local club together, you know that one day, it will come down to the solo, you against your friends. You against the world.

The competition. The grueling schedule. The pressure to be perfect—a porcelain ballerina, dancing beneath the glass of an unimaginably tiny snow globe. It was all part of the gig.

For so long I wanted to blame my father’s affair for my decision to throw the Empire Games and pull out of regionals. I wanted him to be my reason to be mad, my excuse for hanging up the skates and seeking refuge in a bowl of batter. But maybe a small part of me was already there, one skate over the line, ready to leave. I remember it now, all the impossible expectations made bearable only by my pure love for the ice and my friendship with Kara.

I touch the silver rabbit pin on my shoulder, the metal warm and smooth. When I skated with Kara, we protected each other, supported and cheered for each other, our friendship a never-empty well of encouragement. More than the ribbons and trophies and talk of bright futures, our friendship is what made it all worth it. All those five a.m. practices, the blisters and bruises and bone-tiring workouts—as long as we were in it together, we could do anything.

It was never about the competition, just like she said in Amir Jordan’s bathroom in the first hours of the brand-new year.

“Hudson Avery,” the announcer calls. In my parallel life, the crowd would fall silent; in the stillness before their next collective breath, the butterflies would return. They’d carry me onto the ice and I’d perform my routine as planned, immaculate. Nail a perfect score. Paige Adamo would scowl and pout and stab her toe pick into the ice, but the judges wouldn’t waver. It would be unanimous.

The Capriani Cup scholarship would be awarded to …

“Hudson Avery,” the announcer calls again. I stand and grip the rail in front of the box, steadying myself. This is it. The chance I’ve been waiting for all winter.

“Hudson Avery, please report to the ice,” the announcer echoes. The crowd begins to fidget. Murmur. I close my eyes and wait for those butterflies. If I don’t go now, I forfeit. I give up everything I worked so hard for these last few months. Fillmore. Baylor’s. Wolves. Cupcakes. Friends. Family. Life.

My heart finally fills, but it’s not with butterflies. It’s flashes of the Wolves, the new friends I made as I helped coach them into a real team, the joy they shared after each hard-won game. Flashes of everyone at Hurley’s pulling together on a busy night to keep the customers fed. Flashes of the pictures Dani took in the kitchen, me with my cupcakes, how they saved me after my father left, gave me something into which I could pour my heart and creativity, something that brought people a few minutes of happiness on an otherwise dark day. Flashes of Mom and Bug and what it means to be part of a family, part of a team—my home team.

And then the truth, clear and crisp as the winter sky the morning after a storm: I never really left the ice. I never will. Ever since I blew the Empire Games, I thought I was hiding out in the diner, staying below the radar until the mistakes lost my trail. But I wasn’t. Tonight, here, this is where I’m hiding. Not from my past. From my present. From my real life and everyone I care about.

This competition belongs to Parallel Life Hudson. We’re not fused—our paths diverged a long time ago, long before that night in Rochester.

I open my eyes and slide out of the box, but instead of skating to the center of the ice, I give the organizer the cut sign, grab my blade guards, and hobble back to the locker room. Commotion floats through the stands as the announcer receives word of my forfeit and locates the next skater’s bio and music, but soon the crowd settles, ready for her to appear.

After I pull on my leg warmers and boots, I peek into the arena one last time. The skater, a tiny blonde in a black-and-silver dress, is in position. She waves to two people in the stands who are out of their seats with pride. The music starts and her face turns serious as she poses for her first step, toe solid on the ice. Maybe she’s found my butterflies, or some of her own. Maybe she’ll win the scholarship and go on to train and compete and win the Olympic gold, looking back on this night as the one that changed everything—the once-in-a-lifetime golden ticket moment that made all of her impossible dreams come true.

I hope she does.

“Good luck,” I whisper, touching the silver rabbit on my shoulder. The skater glides into her first loop, and I slip unnoticed out the back door.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Friend of the Devil Cupcakes

Red velvet devil’s food cupcakes topped with red, orange, and yellow swirled buttercream icing peaks and a thin red apple curl

I pull into a spot close to the Hurley’s entrance and kill the engine. It’s so quiet I can almost hear the snow fall, big fat flakes plopping on the pavement, the windshield, the roof of the truck. The lights are on inside the diner, but the blinds are drawn, and in the muted hush, I feel it—that edge of wrongness. I shouldn’t have come back here. Mom will never forgive me.

I sink back into the driver’s seat and slip the keys into the ignition. My heart races and my breath fogs up windows as I reverse out of the spot. I’m leaving tonight. Now. I’ve got my snow-stomping boots and my backpack and everything I need to escape Watonka, escape New York, escape everywhere. Train or not, this time …

It’s the old man that stops me.

Earl—the regular from my first day of training. The one with all the dimes. I recognize the blue sedan as it pulls into my just-vacated parking spot. He sees me when he gets out and nods—not a wave or a smile, not a greeting, but something else. Something that in its utter simplicity says only, I know, Dolly Madison. I know all about it. We lock eyes for an eternity, conversation floating soundlessly through the winter air, and then the moment vanishes, footprints covered quickly by the snow as he shuffles up the path and disappears inside.

I pull into a different spot and slam the truck into park. No way I’m leaving them again. Not now. Not after everything.

Earl leans on the front counter, tapping his foot to the jazz riff floating from the kitchen. The knitting club is there, along with three other occupied tables, familiar patrons chatting in a low collective hum as silverware scrapes against plates. Clink clink. Storm’s coming back around, believe that? Clink clink clink. We’re putting the house on the market this spring. Clink clink. Etta’s boy’s back from Iraq. Getting married next month….