Rusty

- Chapter 5 -

Desirae

Competition day, the day I've been anticipating yet dreading for weeks. My parents even flew out for this, they live in England. We moved here before I was born and then they moved back when I met Jax. Jax,  who just so happens to follow me on Instagram. I actually didn't even know.

"You can't loose focus." Elle says, the whole way here she gave multiple inspirational speeches. Well she thought they were inspirational, if anything they made me more stressed out.

"I just have other things on my mind right now."

"You need to put them aside if you want to win." She sighs, clearly pissed off already.

"Okay." I nod, not in agreement just to get her off my back for 5 minutes.

"Desirae? Are you in here." A voice calls from the hallway.

"Mom! I'm in here." I shout so she hears me.

"Hi, darling!" She greets me in the doorway and I walk into the dressing room and she follows behind me.

"How are you, mom?" I ask, after she lets me go from a hug.

"I'm good, honey. How are you?" She smiles.

I smile back to her, "I'm good, I'm living with Ophelia right now." She looks at me concerned for a second, I don't know why. She always liked Ophelia.

"Ophelia? But you lived with Jax, didn't you."

"We broke up, years ago." I sigh, she clearly forgot. Which immediately reminds them why I stayed here.

"Oh, then why is he here? He said he was here to watch you." She questions, I do not have a clue why he is here.

"He is? Did he say anything else."

"Not really, we asked him how he was. He never said anything else about you." She pauses, "So I don't know why I didn't piece it together."

"You never do, mom." I sigh again, "Your always oblivious."

"We are not doing this today, Desirae. We will talk later." Then she turns and walks away.

Thank God honestly, I don't know how my relationship with her got so messed up. But I can't focus on this again, especially not today. This is too important.

"Your up next, come on. You need to start going." Elle says as she comes round the doorway. I look at the bench behind me and sit down. I tie my laces one last time to make sure they are on perfectly.

"Coming." I respond and follow her to the rink.

"Next up Desirae Grey." The announcer says, and I glide towards the middle of the ice.

I take a deep breath in and start counting to 10, once I've finished my music starts and I start spinning, doing crossovers, small jumps and skating backwards. Easy things, but it all leads up to my final showstopper. 

Keep focused, straight back and good posture. Three things I've told myself all day. I need to land this to win.

It's all lead up to this, and that's when I see him. Sat two rows in front of my parents all smiling. Which confuses me, he just so happens to be sat near my parents. I loose focus for a second and stumble a little while skating backwards. Then I start getting ready for my double axel.

I've successfully landed it twice. Which doesn't fill me with much confidence but I need to remain focused on landing it.

And I do.

I do a little happy dance in my head and scream a little.

Then I finish, all my worries have disappeared and I feel at peace again.

Once I've waved to Ophelia and Lila I skate off and go straight to Elle to hear about how I did.

"Well done Desirae, that was good." She nods and starts to walk away.

"That's it? That's all your going to say to me." I ask, probably in a pissy way but surely I did better then good. "Yes, that's all. I'll see you on Tuesday." Then she walks away.

"Desi, can we talk." I swear he always come out of nowhere, yes. Jax is in front of me. Again.

"Sure, give me 10 minutes to change?" I say, faking a smile since I feel so defeated.

He looks at me, "Are you okay."

"We're going to talk in a minute, Okay?" I ask.

"Okay." He nods in agreement.

"Thank you." I sigh in relief.

--------

I took 15 minutes to get ready, if he left I wouldn't be surprised. I would have.

"Jax, you still here?" I call out, the rink is empty and the Zamboni is on the ice cleaning it for the next public skate session.

He waves from the door of the cafe, signalling me to go over there. "Can we talk outside, it's freezing in here." I ask, putting my jacket on.

"Sure, let's go." He walks past me and towards the door at the side of the rink. "Where do you want to go." He asks.

"Just here, this is fine." I respond, putting my bags on the floor.

"What did you want to talk about, Jax?" I ask him, resting my body against the wall. "About us and how we ended."

"There is no us, there hasn't been for years." I respond flatly. "I know, I'm sorry for the way I left." He pauses almost to question what he is going to say, "I should have let you come with me, we would have been married now."

"Yes, we would have. But you left." I respond. "Can you please hear me out, before you start responding." He pleads with me, similarly to how I begged him not to leave me. "Okay." I say.

"I wanted you to stay here, I didn't want to to come for a reason. That reason you need to believe, I can't have you making assumptions. Please?" Now he is begging, "I promise, honest." I say softly.

He smiles at me, "I didn't want your life to be for me, I didn't want you to give up everything for me."

"When I said yes to marrying you, that's what I signed up to do. I would have gone to the ends of the earth for you." I tell him, with everything I'm saying being true, but yet he isn't lying either.

"I didn't want that for you, I didn't want you to be an extension of me. That's why I left without you. You would have nothing, no job, no friends not even Ophelia. I know you care about her."

"I love Ophelia, but I loved you more." I say, literally on the verge of tears.

He sighs and looks at me and then the wall and back to me again, "I know we can't go back to how we were but please, can we be friends."

"Okay, I can do that." I nod and walk away to my car.

This is going to be the hardest friendship to keep.