Page 89 of Nowhere to Hide
Two minutes. Roughing.
It should be more — the puck was long gone — but I wonder if the wall of Halden noise has him spooked. Regardless, Rowan skates to the box and sits against the wall, helmet still on, his mouth set in a line that isn’t going to soften.
Ivy leans into me. “Hey.”
I look at her.
“Is he okay?” she says.
“He’s fine.” I try for a smile, and I can feel how wrong it sits on my face.
“Sloane,” she says.
“He’s fine, Ivy.”
She watches the ice right as a St. Adrian’s forward puts one in the net and silences The Den. Then she turns to me, and her eyes — Rowan’s blue, a shade more electric, and with none of the restraint — have already figured something out and are deciding whether to say it.
“Is my brother being an asshole to you?”
“No.”
“Are you guys okay?”
“We’re fine.” I sound like I sounded in Moreno’s office. “Everything’s fine.”
She doesn’t push. “Should I leave it?”
I nod.
“Okay.” She squeezes my knee.
I sit there, blinking too much and trying not to cry.
The horn goes. One-nothing.
The Den empties quickly, dejected students and alumni in no mood to stick around after losing a rivalry game in such demoralizing fashion. But Ivy and I stay put, watching the players leave the ice with their heads down.
Rowan is the last one off. When he sees me, he stops, then skates over. His hair is plastered to his temples, and there’s a thin scratch across the side of his neck I don’t remember being there. He puts his glove up against the glass.
I stand, walk down to the boards, and put my hand against his on my side of the glass.
As his eyes find mine and hold, I suddenly feel terrible about locking him out. I want to tell him about the kitchen, and I want to tell him what Mason knows, and I want to tell him I stood at the sink and tried to put my mask back on but it hasn’t worked.
But I hesitate for the same reason I did at Ironwood House and every day since.
Telling him here would be pulling the pin on a grenade.
He’d go straight at Mason and burn everything down — including himself — to get him.
So I keep my hand where it is, and I don’t move, and I don’t smile. But the tears come anyway, even as Ivy’s arm slides around my shoulders and I look at him through the glass for one more second.
“C’mon,” she says, very softly. “Let’s go.”
I take my hand off the glass and turn away.
twenty-four
ROWAN
