She skated backwards slowly, slowly widening the space between them and the treeline. It would be two years soon, two years since she first arrived in Switzerland to this place, and with all that time she was still in awe of itâs natural beauty. The mountain climbed craggily upwards, the evergreens were so dark green they looked nearly black against the blinding white of fresh snow. The air was so clean, and it could be so quiet this far from the shadow of the schoolâ even now, as she watched Pete inch carefully forward, she could believe for a moment that they were the only ones left in the world. She watched his face contort in concentration, biting back a smile.
Are you in love? Momo had asked it once, wine drunk and giggling, sitting cross-legged on the floor while she braided her hair. She thought of it a moment, thin fingers deftly weaving the glossy black strands. Pearl wanted to be loved, to be cared about. She needed it like sunshine, and she smiled at her friendâs question, not answering. How sentimental she could be, someone might think, such a charming quality. Itâs only until they realize that she had to be to survive. Clinging to these small tender moments, she keeps herself afloat. Peter didnât have to say it. It was enough that she could feel needed, and it was good to feel that way. Like she was important to someone, like she mattered.
He didnât mention his mother much, and never before so easily.
Over the years, Pearl had found it simpler to pretend for others like her own parents were not dead. When people asked about them she replied in the present tense. She didnât correct anyone when they asked. She made believe like they far away, but not gone. Death made people feel awkward. They fumbled for the right words to say with the same moon-faced apologetic expression. She wouldnât erase them. It wasnât moving on either, but at least, she tried. This was her burden to bury, to keep safely tucked away. Out of sight. It was hers to keep manageable. Shiny, contracture scars that required tending from time to time.
Pete was different. He didnât board grief away, he sat with it. He carried it with him, and it was corrosive. It rusted like old sheet metal left in the rain. Anyone who looked at him could see the damage it inflicted, the dark shadows and the dark eyes and that heavy hopelessness that he pushed uphill, like Sisyphus. She knew his family history in broad strokes, a timeline delivered in monotone. Sheâd done her best to spare him a pitying look when heâd finished telling it, she knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of one. It was a raw seam, his past, and she didnât press on it. No, it still needed time to heal.
She looked up, hiding her surprise to listen intently, giving him her usual dose of wide-eyed attention. âHow old were you?â She was trying to picture him on ice skates, years younger and padded shapeless and miserable in hockey gearâstill recognizable by that same characteristic frown. It pulled a smile to her lips. âDid you play any sports at all as a kid? How did they squeeze âKovalenkoâ onto the back of a jersey?â Pearl turned from in front of him to his side, slowing to be able to skate hand in hand at his pace.Â
Did you play any sports at all as a kid? Peterâs mouth twitched. âYeah, tons. Thatâs why Iâm so athletic now.â By his side, Pearlâs movements were light and balletic. Her steady pace was his metronome- he tried to keep in time with her, moving with smoother, shorter strides. He was beginning to get the hang of it, he thought. The trick was momentum. Not too much, nothing beyond your control- but there had to be something outside yourself propelling you forward, something to keep you in motion as you lengthened one leg and then the next and then the other again, the timing of the blades moving past each other in a way that was constant and equal. Momentum. If you did things immediately, the act didn't have time to gather weight. Much in the same way, that night in Zurich on New Yearâs Eve, when theyâd walked up and down the winding cobbled streets where withered Christmas garlands were still hanging and come back to the hotel room, shivering, carrying the snow in on their coats and hair, slightly drunk off champagne and soon kissing in that way that was slow and deliberate, when heâd felt his heart beating like it was the only thing inside of him and heâd finally worked up the courage to reach for the buttons on her blouse, momentum hadnât allowed him to overthink anything that followed. It had kept him in the present, kept him doing one thing until it lead to the next and the next. He hadnât even noticed when his anxiety, that constant low-voltage hum, had finally fallen quiet.Â
âI think I was like, eight or nine. She thought itâd help me make friends, but I wasnât about that slipping-and-sliding shit from the get-go.â Peter shrugged within the bulk of his jacket. âI didnât even last long enough to get a jersey.â A short silence settled. Only the quiet scrape of their blades filled the air. The passing mention of his mother had shifted a weight in his stomach and Peter felt uncomfortably aware of it now; he knew there was still a sinkhole in the middle of him that he could fall into and be swallowed by. He knew he had to be careful when around itâs slippery edges. Saying nothing else about his short-lived ice hockey career, he squinted at Pearl, eyes scrunched against the bright glare of sunlight off ice. A breeze kept lifting her fine hair, tugging it free from her scarf; Peter reached over to sweep some away from her face and allowed himself another half-smile. âSo correct me if Iâm wrong, but knowing how to skate- thatâs a Canadian citizenship requirement, right? Did your parents get you a tiny pair of toddler skates as soon as you could walk?â
He would never admit this to her, and felt shitty for even allowing himself to feel it, but itâd been something of a relief to hear about her parents. One of the main reasons he didnât tell people about his mother was because there was no way to comprehend that kind of a loss secondhand. No one knew what to do with another personâs grief, so they handled it like it was something fragile and cumbersome that theyâd rather not be holding. What you ended up with was too much sideways sympathy. Condolences, prayers, and sad looks across grocery store aisles; all of it as well-intentioned and meaningless as pamphlets about mourning.
The first time sheâd asked what his parents were like, Peter had felt a certain resistance- not an urge to lie, exactly, but to side-step the truth like he had so many times before. Theyâd both been existing outside their own separate pasts at the time, still simple to each other, still filling the role of strangers over coffee. It was unsustainable, he knew. But he also thought there was a slim chance that he could convince her that he was worth the trouble before she found out what the trouble was. When he did finally tell her about his motherâs cancer, his fatherâs absence, his life in Detroit, then Edgeworth, he kept strictly to the facts, laying them down as casually as playing cards. Pearl had slid her small hand across the table and placed it over his. Iâm sorry. He was used to that. But her eyes had been waiting for him, and when he looked up, they articulated something too knowing to be pity. Something gentle and grieving. Heâd understood then, even before sheâd told the story of the dark highway and the mangled car, that they were both members of the same club. The fee to join was to be hurt beyond belief. Theyâd both paid up front, in full, for a lifetime membership.
The sun was lowering by the time they completed an entire circle. Peter did a careful, wobbly pivot to show off that he had, in fact, gotten more comfortable on the skates- then they stood face to face, still joined by one hand. The light was hazey now, late and golden, slanting into her eyes; his gaze was drawn there and held. From the few photos Peter had seen, he knew his eyes were exact replicas of his fatherâs. Dark, like coffee before cream. In bad lighting, they were almost black. But Pearlâs eyes were a color that belonged entirely to her: a soft, washed green that looked translucent when the light hit it, reminding him of sea glass held up to the sun. They were eyes that spoke for her, voicing all her thoughts and emotions. Eyes that opened up her face- unlike his, which seemed to block all entry.â¨
Peter squeezed her hand just as she had squeezed his before. âThanks for this.â In a week, itâd be a year, so he was thanking her for much more than just this.