All Chapters of Skating With Hearts : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

I shoved my hands into my hoodie pocket as Jasmine and I drifted down the long white-walled hallway that circled the hospital building. The fluorescent lights above hummed faintly, and our footsteps echoed against the linoleum floor. Every so often, we passed by wide rectangular windows that gave us a peek into the lives unfolding in those rooms. The experience we got was heartbreaking and profound at the same time. The first one we stopped at and observed subtly had a man with an oxygen mask strapped over his face. His chest rose and fell unevenly, each breath a small war. A woman—probably his wife—sat curled up in the chair beside his bed. Her hair was messy, her eyes swollen like she hadn’t slept in days. She just kept staring at him, gripping his hand, as if letting go would mean losing him completely.“God,” Jasmine whispered beside me. She hugged her arms across her chest. “Look at her. She looks like she’s… falling apart with him.”I tilted my head. “Yeah. That’s how it is som

I pulled out of the hospital parking lot slowly, the headlights cutting through the damp night air. Boston medical centre faded behind me in the rearview mirror, but the Campbells’ faces clung stubbornly to the front of my mind. Mr. Campbell’s forced smile, Elaine’s frail hand in mine, the way Jasmine avoided looking at me directly as I said my goodbye—they all sat heavy in my chest. I couldn't help thinking once again how life had a way of flipping without warning. One day, you’re convinced you’ve got forever with someone, and the next, you’re sitting across from them in a sterile hospital room wondering where it all went wrong.It was really crazy. As I drove, my thoughts revolved around the two women who had been the most important to me. For a long time, Jasmine was everything. I didn’t just love her—I breathed her. Then she left and broke up with me, thinking distance would dull the connection we had. But here I was, years later, driving back to campus with her name and her mot

Nine hours earlier…The leather couch wasn’t much softer than a bench, but exhaustion had knocked me out cold the moment I crashed in Coach Donovan’s room last night and so I had not really felt it. For a fleeting moment, I thought the sunlight spilling through the half-closed blinds meant I had woken into some kind of peace. But then some moments later, I heard the uneven rhythm of Coach’s breathing. It was not the steady, deliberate pattern of a man in control, but short, frustrated huffs, the kind someone makes when pacing inside their own head. And I knew that I was in no kind of peace at all. I blinked my eyes open and sat up, scrubbing my face. Coach Donovan was already dressed in a pressed shirt and slacks, but his tie hung loose around his neck. His hands were on his waist, his jaw tight, his brows drawn together like he was holding back an explosion.“Coach?” I croaked, my voice still heavy with sleep. I blinked rapidly as surprise and anxiety started to spread through me.

I stared at June, jaw slack, as she dropped the phone on the bed like it had burned her.“What was that?” I croaked, reaching out and snatching it from her hand before she could do more damage. My head pounded from the sudden movement, but the frustration and exasperation boiling inside me drowned out the ache.June raised her brows, all smug and unbothered. “What was what?”“You practically acted like a bossy girlfriend right now!” I pressed the phone to my chest, glaring at her. “Why would you talk to him like that?”She shrugged, tossing her scarf onto her desk and crouching by her bag. “Because, Sky, you were about to faint from looking at the phone when he called. Somebody had to do the talking before he thought you were being weird.”“I wasn’t—” My voice cracked, which didn’t help my case. “I wasn’t being weird. Oh goodness.”She glanced at me over her shoulder with a knowing smirk. “You’re literally blushing right now.”Heat spread up my neck. “I’m sick! My face is hot because

I woke up to a dim light filtering through the curtains. My eyes felt heavy at first and I wondered what was going on but as the blur cleared, I realized something that nearly made me jolt upright.It was actually two things.First was that I was not in my room. The second was that Skylar was still in my arms.Her head rested on my chest like it had been made to fit there, her hair spilling down over me in soft strands. My arm had gone numb from holding her but I didn’t dare move. My heartbeat was doing somersaults as I looked down at her. What the hell had I done? I wondered. I had only meant to rest my eyes for a while. Just for a few minutes. Perhaps an hour or so. Yet here I was, waking up with her still nestled against me. And I had slept through the entire night like this.That wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn't. Not when we were fake couple.Yet, we had. I stared down at her face. Peaceful. That was the thought that came to my mind. She looked so damn peaceful. Her bre