Page 97 of Off the Edge

On the floor, I fought with the barrier ribbon tangled around my leg.

Everyone was staring. Some phones were out. Great. Another public disaster for Team Canada. Go me.

The only person who wasn’t looking? Ren.

He had his bag on the security table.

“Ren!”

His head turned, and he looked over his shoulder at me sprawled on the floor, surrounded by alarmed people with security on their way. Finally! Surprise broke through his stoic expression. He grabbed his bag off the table and started to carve his way back through the line of people toward me.

“What are you doing?” He reached out.

I took his hand and let him haul me to my feet.

He reeled off something in fluent Japanese that stopped the security people and sent them back to their posts.

“What am I doing?” I brushed my clothes down and tried to right the ribbon barrier properly. “What are you doing?”

We stood outside the line now, while some airport staff corrected my mangling of their barriers. “I’m so sorry . . .” I told them.

Ren’s hand landed softly on my arm and guided me a few steps away. He kept it there and smiled down at me. “Did you run all the way here?”

“No. Some of it . . .” I probably looked a mess, and could feel heat warming my face. “What the fuck, Ren?” I smacked him lightly in the chest, which he probably didn’t feel through his thick coat. “You’re leaving me?” I asked quieter. There were a whole bunch of people waiting in line just a few steps away with nothing better to do than listen to our discussion, and as I’d just made a fool of myself by proving I wasn’t going to be entering any kind of hurdle sport anytime soon, they already had a reason to stare.

He swallowed and briefly looked away. “I’m not leaving you,” he said softly, his dark-eyed gaze slowly coming back. “You know why I can’t compete.”

He said it so calmly, so rationally. “But you deserve to be here.”

“I don’t know if I do, and that’s why I can’t compete, Cam. I don’t know whether it’s my talent that got me here or my father’s corruption. It wouldn’t be right.”

Damn . . . I shoved my hands into my pockets. “But he had nothing to do with your skating. That’s still you.”

We still spoke in hushed voices, standing close, trying to keep the conversation private in front of a hundred bored people.

“Honestly? I don’t know that.” Pain briefly crossed his face. He wasn’t hiding it now.

“Yes you do.” I held his gaze. “You know you belong here. You’ve always belonged here. Your father just muddied everything up, but you earned your place here with or without him.”

His cheek flickered. “Are you still in?”

“Yeah, yeah . . . I’m still competing. Thanks to you. I mean, it was close. They hauled me in there again, told me to leave, and I was halfway out the door when Dame Ashborne called.”

He smiled, but it was tinged with that same deep sadness he’d been carrying around for this whole Games. “Good.”

“You saved me, Ren, now will you let me save you?”

He smiled, as though he was sorry. “There’s nothing to save. I’ve made my decision.”

“You’re just gonna go?” My voice creaked on the last word because my heart was getting involved now, and I could tell he wasn’t going to move on this. Nothing I could say would change his stubborn mind.

“Yes.”

“What about Tamsyn?”

“I told her everything. She understands. She doesn’t like it, of course, but she understands.”

I rolled my lips together and nodded. “Okay . . .” I dug his lanyard out of my pocket and handed it over. “This is yours, I guess.”