"Where have you been all the time lately man?" Jake asks and I sigh climbing into my car with the phone pressed against my ear. "You've been blowing off parties, disappearing immediately immediately after practices.....I thought that meant Sabrina just had you on a short leash. But then I'm talking to her the other day and she says she's barely seen you either."

"I know, I've just been dealing with some family stuff." And avoiding both you and Sabrina as much as possible.

"No, I don't think that excuse is going to work anymore." He tsks over the other end and I sigh. "Is it another girl?" He asks quietly and I roll my eyes.

"Of course it's not another girl, Sabrina would literally castrate me." I tell him and start my car knowing it was a full on lie.

I was even lying to myself by saying mine and Sasha's feelings were restricted to 'friendship'. I don't even know what we are anymore, I know I have really strong feelings for her. I know they're annoying and I keep telling them to stop, but I can't.

We'd been hanging out some, not often enough for what either of us wanted but our schedules and social lives didn't allow for much. They did however allow for a make out in the service hall on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Occasionally in my car or my bedroom.

It was dangerous, like playing with fire. It was so odd, one second we'd be having a completely normal conversation, the next we'd be grabbing onto each other for dear life.

Just a short week and a half ago, we kissed for the first time. I could tell how unsure of herself she was, hell I was terrified too. But now everything was so different, it was intense and wonderful. It felt like taking a drug.

"Well man there's a party tonight, you should come." Jake says as I pull around the block to Sasha's.

"I should be able to make it, I'll just be a bit late." I tell him and with a quick goodbye he's off the phone.

I quietly get out and walk around the back of her house. Then I climb up the lattice in the back yard and onto the roof until I'm crouching outside her bedroom window. I look in seeing her alone on the floor with her foam roller, stretching to cool down.

I tap at the window and she turns to me with a smile. She stands and closes her bedroom door, then starts walking back to the window. I take note of how she looks, she's wearing a skintight tank top and a pair of leggings. Her hair's pulled back into a tight knot, simple earrings. Even when she walks it's like she's floating on air.

"Hey." She whispers pulling the window open and I laugh jumping in after her.

"Hey." I whisper back and she smiles.

"Just a second I really want to stretch out this calf muscle." She says and goes back to the floor rolling her legs out.

"So practice today went well?" I ask and she laughs.

"Not well enough or maybe I'd actually be allowed out to meet you tonight." She says and I sigh. "I'm getting really, really nervous about sectionals next weekend."

"I'm sure you'll do well. You're a gorgeous skater." She smiles at that but sighs.

"I just feel like I'm stuck. I know that when this blows up in his face and I don't place he'll make it my fault. And I don't know what I'll do then, I'll have wasted all this time, money and energy on something that's not going to happen. By the time the next Olympics come around I'll be twenty and they'll be someone younger and more talented than I am."

"There'll never be somebody better than you." I say and she laughs.

"What's with you tonight mister sensitive?" She teases and I laugh scratching the back of my neck.

"Try not to worry about it, if it happens then it's meant to be. If it doesn't you could take it easy for a few months, make some friends?" I suggest slowly and she shrugs. "Maybe eat a piece of cake?"

"Ooh so we're talking super crazy then." She says with a small laugh. She stands up off the floor and reaches her arms up over her head. While she does it her tank top rides up just that small amount so I can see a strip of skin.

Gorgeous, fair, flawless skin. I can see the lines indicating abs, the way her hips curve properly, how small her waist is.

"Do you still have that birthmark shaped like a heart on your stomach?" I ask and she furrows her eyes, suddenly reacting to me filling the silence with a weird, seemingly creepy and random question.

"Laying into the deep stuff tonight are we?" She teases. "Yeah, I do. It's kind of embarrassing." She says shaking her head quietly. She walks over to where I sit on the bed and pulls up her top just enough to show it to me. I reach out my hand and trace it quietly with my thumb. She flinches just slightly and when I look up her eyes are closed, lips pressed together.

"S-sorry." I say quietly and she nods pulling her top back down.

"What are we doing?" She asks quietly sitting down next to me.

"What do you mean?" I ask and she sighs.

"I mean you have a girlfriend." She says quietly shaking her head. "I don't even know what you want from me when you have her."

How could she even say something like that? Sasha was beautiful, not just on the outside but on the inside too. Something Sabrina was incapable of.

"This is wrong." She says quietly.

"That's not true, it's different with you and you know you're important to me."

"But you're not going to break up with her?" She retorts crossing her arms. I just stay silent, not knowing the best way to answer that. "That's what I thought." She says and stands up from her bed. "I can't keep doing this when I don't know what's going on. We haven't talked about anything and I don't know what any of it means."

"Sasha I-I don't....I don't know how-"

"To tell me I'm your girl on the side?" She asks sarcastically and I scowl.

"You know that's not what you are to me." I say and stand up walking over to her.

"Than what am I?" She asks, raising her eyebrows. "Do you realize how much it hurts to....do all this stuff with you when I know you're just going to go back and do it with her?" I watch as tears well up in her eyes. "Wow, I can't believe I actually thought......"

"I haven't hugged Sabrina since the first time you and I kissed." I admit. "And I think about that kiss every single night. I think about the first one we had when we were eleven too. And I don't know how to say what I feel because I don't even know what it is, or what it means. I hate dating Sabrina, I can't do it much longer and I'm sorry things are the way they are."

"It just feels like my head is spinning." She says running her hand over her forehead.

"Don't cry." I whisper quietly and cup her face wiping the tears away. "I hate it when you cry." I saw a whole other side of Sasha the other day. I'd never seen her like that before when people made fun of her, she looked like she wanted to crawl back into her own skin.

"I feel so pathetic." She says quietly. "I haven't cried in years and suddenly I'm crying several times a week, several times a day."

I feel awful right now. I know Alex told me not to make a move on her, that she couldn't be in a relationship and skate at the same time. But she's just always so close, it's nothing like it is with Sabrina. She'll sit and listen to me and I'll listen to her, she just wants to be held. She needs me again, she feels safe with me.

"Crying doesn't make you pathetic." I tell her shaking my head. "It's showing other people you're strong enough to feel things." She just laughs a bit through her tears and nods. "Look I'm really sorry about everything that's been happening. Me showing up and then vanishing isn't fair when all this stuff is going on with your skating." I tell her quietly.

"Maybe we should take a break from the physical stuff." She says shaking her head. "I think it's just confusing me and you."

"If that's what you want." I tell her and she looks at me sadly.

"Don't make this all my decision." She begs.

"Well which is it Sash? Do you want me, or not?" I ask furrowing my eyebrows.

"I want you....but I know it's a bad idea." She says shaking her head. "I know this is wrong and....fucked up but, as it stands my life is insane and you are in a relationship."

"Yeah." I say quietly leaning my forehead on hers. "It was nice while it lasted."

"It was." She says even more quietly. "I'm not saying not ever, just not now." She says running her hands up the front of my chest and I sigh. "Not until something changes."

I nod and hesitate before pulling her into a closer hug. She sniffles and without thinking I pick her up feeling her legs wrap around my waist.

For a long time we sit on her bed with her wrapped around me. Every time she'd suggest we move or change positions I wouldn't let her. If we weren't going to do this anymore I wanted to get in as much of it as possible.

Slowly I move my hands to her polished bun and take out the pins holding it together until her hair falls around her shoulders. I tangle my fingers in it hearing her breathing and feeling our own chests heave up and down.

Saying goodbye to the more physical side of my relationship with Sasha was the most upsetting thing I've ever thought about. Especially when she was counting on me all the time and I really liked being that way with her.

If I was being honest with myself I had incredibly strong feelings for Sasha. But they're feelings I won't be able to keep under control for much longer, and that isn't fair to her. If I care about her I need to let her go.

Eventually I need to go knowing her brothers could come in at any moment Jake was expecting me to show up to the party tonight.

Pulling back from that hug is the hardest thing I've ever done. I say goodbye and climb out the window saying goodnight. She gives me a kiss on the cheek and gives me a tense smile that I suspect is being used to cover sadness.

Soon enough I'm driving to the big party of the evening. I couldn't even get drunk either, I just had to put in appearances. It was no secret that recently I'd been absent from a lot of our nights out. I'm sure I would have received the lecture from Sabrina if I wanted to hear from her anymore. Whenever we talked she was all over me about love and sex and commitment.

I walk through the door and say hello to a few people most ask me where I've been or what I've been up to. I lie and say we lost a family member, that I was helping my parents out.

I find another guy on the team, Malcolm, and we catch up for a while.

"Have you seen the ice queen these days?" He asks and my chest tightens. "She started wearing her hair down, she was always hot but now it's like.....there's life behind her eyes." He teases and I bite my tongue. "It's so weird that a social outcast can be that hot."

"Yeah, yeah she's pretty." I say waving my hands around. "Look Jake asked me if I was going to be here. Have you seen him? Or Sabrina? I told her I'd be here later."

"I'm not too sure." He says with a shrug. "I think I saw Jake heading for the washroom a while ago, it's down that hallway." He tells me pointing me in that direction and I smile.

"Thanks." I tell him and head off that way. I call Sabrina but I don't get an answer. The bathroom is deserted, someone's managed to puke in the tub and I gag, looking away. I call her again but I can hear her ringtone going off.

I walk down the hall until it seems to be coming from behind a door. I get closer, then stop when I can hear heavy breathing and the faint sound of bedsprings creaking. No.

The door's ajar, then I call Jake and sure enough another phone starts going off. I open the door just enough to see something I wish I hadn't.

My friend with my girlfriend. And here I was starting to feel bad for how I was blowing them off all the time. Not anymore.

There's no question who my new best friend and girlfriend would be now. And would you believe they were the same person?