Long Lost, стр. 39
“Were you crying?” Fiona asked.
“No,” said Arden, in a congested voice.
“Yes, you were. You still sound all sniffly.”
“Being at the rink all day makes my nose run. You know that.”
“Does it make your eyes water too?”
Arden threw herself back against the couch cushions. “I’m fine, Fiona. Go back to bed.”
“You’re not fine.” Fiona slipped the backpack strap from her shoulder and lowered it to the floor beside the couch, hoping her sister hadn’t seen it after all. If she could just get Arden to go upstairs, she should still be able to slip out. “If you were fine, you’d be asleep right now. Aren’t you supposed to get nine hours of sleep a night when you’re training? That’s what Mom always says.”
“Yes, I’m supposed to,” said Arden. “There are lots of things I’m supposed to be doing right now.”
“So maybe you should at least try to rest. Not just sit there watching videos of yourself.”
Arden made a sound that was a mixture of a snort and a mean laugh. But then she sniffed again. Fiona saw her swipe a hand over her eyes, quickly, like she was hoping Fiona wouldn’t catch it.
“What’s wrong?” Fiona asked, growing impatient. “Did you only get second place at that last competition or something?”
Arden gave another snort. “The Longfellow Open? I didn’t even place.”
“You didn’t?” Fiona absorbed most things about Arden’s life just by being present, smacked by the constant waves of figure-skating talk like an anemone in a tide pool. She must not have been listening when her family discussed this competition. Or maybe Arden hadn’t wanted to talk about this one. “What happened?”
“I just didn’t skate well, okay? The judges didn’t like my new program. It wasn’t smooth enough or heartfelt enough or whatever, and I had to skate right after the girl who ended up taking first in the whole thing, and Mom wasn’t even there, and I’d just had that stupid fight with you, and I missed two jumps, and I’ve been doing horribly at everything ever since we moved here. That’s what happened.”
Fiona thought of the untied knot in the skate lace. The medal hidden under Arden’s bed. The tiny things she’d done to counter the big thing Arden had done. “What do you mean, since we moved here? I thought you wanted to move here.”
“Mom and Dad wanted to move,” said Arden. “And yeah, it’s nice to be closer to the rink. But . . . I don’t know.”
“What?” Fiona pushed.
“I don’t want to talk about this, okay?” Arden sagged forward on the couch, and a faint beam of moonlight through the latticed windows brushed her face. Her cheeks were wet. Her hair was mussed. “Just leave me alone, Fiona.”
“But . . . you’re sad,” said Fiona.
And she had wanted Arden to be sad. She’d wanted Arden to feel a tiny bit of what she felt herself. So why was there a cold, tugging sensation, like a needle with a long steel thread, twisting through her heart right now?
“But I shouldn’t be sad,” said Arden. “Because it’s my fault. We moved here because of me. To this weird old house in this creepy little town, with some Searcher maybe wandering through the woods, and now everything’s going wrong, but I shouldn’t say anything about it, especially not to you, because it’s my own fault.”
At least Arden was blaming the right person, Fiona thought. She glanced at the window, wondering what time it was by now. She couldn’t be so late that Charlie gave up on her and scrapped their whole plan. But she couldn’t bolt out the door right in front of her sister, either.
Her crying sister.
“Well, it’s like Dad says,” Fiona told Arden. “New things just take some getting used to. I’m sure you’ll feel back to normal soon.”
“By then it will be too late.” Arden wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Fiona couldn’t believe that perfect Arden was wiping nose drips on her own clothes. “Too late for what?”
“Everything.” Arden flung out her hands. “For my whole career.”
“You’re thirteen,” said Fiona.
“I know!” Arden burst out. “For a skater, that’s not young. Skaters have a certain number of years. Competitive years. I messed up the Longfellow Open. I’m still not nailing my new program. Even my practice sessions are sloppy. Carolyn thinks—” She stopped, her voice catching. “Carolyn thinks I might not be ready for my next test. But I need to pass that test to move up to junior level, so I can get to senior level, or I’m never going to make it at all.”
“Make it to what?”
“To Nationals. To the Olympics. To a career.” Arden swiped the tears from her eyes. “It will all just fall apart.”
Fiona had seen Arden’s meltdowns many times. She’d seen her scream over ill-fitting skate boots, costumes the wrong color, mean whispers from other skaters. But she’d never seen her sister look so . . . what was it? Defeated. That’s how she looked now.
Arden, who won everything.
The tugging in Fiona’s heart pulled harder.
“Arden, you don’t have to make it to the Olympics.”
“If I don’t, then what was all of this for? All the years of practicing. All the money Mom and Dad spent. Making everybody move here. Making you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” Fiona murmured.
Maybe she said it too softly. Because Arden’s face crumpled.
“I just feel like—” she began. “I feel like everything is piled up on top of me. And I’m dropping it. I’m failing.” Arden buried her wet face in her hands.
Fiona watched her sister for a moment. Then she stepped forward, placing one hand awkwardly on Arden’s shoulder.
Arden stiffened. Fiona’s hand fell away.
“Forget I said anything,” said Arden. “I’m fine. I’m fine.” She sniffled once more, brushing the hair back from her face. She whipped toward Fiona. “You never said what you were doing down here.”
Fiona stepped backward. “I couldn’t sleep either.”
“But you had your backpack.” Arden’s eyes narrowed. “Were you going to sneak out again? At night?”
“No,” said Fiona, futilely.
“There’s