Echo Lake was crowded by the time Kai and I got there. Thank God Hwa didn't come. She said she had plans; I imagine they included burning me in effigy. She'd walked in on the rather heated exchange Mom and I were having about me inviting Hwa. Sorry, I just couldn't picture Goth on skates. I spotted Jisoo and Nayeon circling the perimeter of the lake, their heads together, talking. Kai said, "I'm going to go check out the hockey game, see if we can get in." He sprinted for the south shore where an open match was in progress.

I cut across the lake and drew up beside Jisoo. "Hi, Jen," she greeted me. "How was your meet?"

"Nobody drowned," I said.

"How could you tell if they did?" Nayeon quipped.

Jisoo whapped her.

"I shouldn't talk." Nayeon refastened the Velcro on her ski mittens. "You couldn't pay me enough to wear a swimsuit in public." Her face suddenly lit up. "There he is. See you guys later." She skated off.

Jisoo and I watched her speed toward the shore, where Jackson had emerged from the men's room. Wearing hiking boots, I noticed. I arched eyebrows at Jisoo.

"He doesn't skate," she explained.

"Thank God he's potty-trained."

She smacked me. Nayeon scraped to a stop near the path, spraying Jackson with ice crystals. She threw herself at him, engaging him in a lethal lip-lock.

"Where did she find this kid?" I asked Jisoo. "At Toys R Us?"

"Jennie, that's mean."

I blanched. "I'm sorry. It's just –" None of my business, that's what it was. So what if Nayeon had worked her way through the seniors and juniors and was starting in on the babies? It was no fuzz off my muff.

"She really loves him," Jisoo said. "She thinks she's finally found her perfect match."

"Law of aver

ages," I said, "when you strike out that many times."

"Jennie." Jisoo looked shocked.

I winced. "I'm sorry. I'm just being catty. I hope he is the one." We should all find the man of our dreams, I thought.

We glided by the hooky game and Kai called, "Jennie. Jisoo. They're going to need relievers in a couple of minutes. Tell Nayeon to come, too. It's co-ed."

I pulled up at the gate. Jisoo said, "I'll go tell Kirs. I don't really want to play today."

"You're kidding." I frowned at her.

She took off. Weird. Jisoo had been dying for the lake to open so we could get up a hockey game every weekend, the way we used to. Was she mad at me now for dissing Nayeon's boyfriend? I was just kidding around, sort of. Geesh.

I tightened my my laces and did a couple of knee bends to limber up. As I was slipping my mittens back on, Nayeon sprinted through the gate and scraped up beside me. "Something wrong with Jisoo?" she asked. "She seems kind of distant lately. Ever since Christmas, really. Have you noticed?"

"Um, yeah." I hadn't, actually. Had I been that self-absorbed? That out of it? Jisoo was my best friend. I should've noticed.

Nayeon added, "I'm worried about her. She's hardly said three words to me all week." We peered across the lake, where Jisoo was off by herself skating figures. "Has she talked to you?"

"No," I admitted.

"If she tells you what's wrong, you'll tell me, right?"

"Yeah, of course." Wow. Jisoo really didn't seem her usual cheery self. "I hope it isn't Haein," I thought aloud.

Nayeon's eyes widened, "No way. They's rock solid."

Haein was Jisoo's boyfriend. More like fiancé. They weren't officially engaged, but only because they'd decided to wait. Haein was a year older than Jisoo. After graduation last year he'd joined Americorps and moved to Atlanta. The plan was for Jisoo to follow in the spring.

I liked Haein, snob that he was. Oh, I just had Beemer envy. The guy was loaded. He'd take Jisoo out to these romantic restaurants on the weekends when he was in town and drop a hundred bucks on her. A big night out with Kai meant a booth at Wendy's instead of the drive-through.

I hadn't talked to Jisoo at all beyond our daily lunchtime chatter. Inexcusable. I vowed to catch up soon.

The lodge at Echo Lake provided hockey sticks and helmets, if you didn't bring your own. The blue helmeted goalie raised his hand and called, "Relievers." Three or four players skated to the bench to take a breather.

Helmets were removed and handed around. Nayeon asked, "What colour are you, Kai?"

"Blue," he answered. "I'll be goalie, unless you want to."

He was addressing me, but Nayeon piped up, "You go ahead." She snatched the last blue helmet out of my hand. "I'll be your guard, Kai." She winked at him and tossed me her red helmet.

Did she do that on purpose to irk me? Sometimes…

Kai crooked a finger my way.

"What?" I selected a hockey stick from the rental rack.

"Come here."

I obeyed. He smooched my face between his ski gloves. "Good luck," he said. "You're going to need it."

I kissed him, then dug a skate blade into his boot.

The face-off was won by the red team and we jockeyed the puck up ice. The other five players on my team were decent skaters; I'd seen most of them around or played with them before. Coop, one of Kai's friends, was a wing on my team. He acknowledged me with a grunt. The only other girl with a red helmet pulled up beside me, pivoted to skate backward, and said, "Hi. I'm Lisa."

"Jennie." We touched gloves.

She reversed direction and charged off toward the net. Wow. With those thighs, she had to be a speed skater.

We blew a scoring pop, but only because Coop and this other guy on our team hogged the puck. "Over here," I heard Lisa yell more than once, but they wouldn't relinquish control.

Nayeon intercepted a drop pass between Coop and his buddy and sped off toward our goal. Crap.

I caught up with her in the zone and stole the puck back. Took a wide arc and stick-handled the puck down the side, then saw Lisa hailing me and flip-passed the puck over. Coop caught it in the air and hand-passed it to his buddy.

"Dammit," Lisa snarled under her breath as she scraped up beside me. "I had a clear shot."

"I know." We rolled our eyes.

The game went back and forth for the next twenty minutes or so until everyone was pretty wiped. The score was five to four, in favour of the blue team. "Time out," Kai called. The lodge had sent over a vat of hot apple cider and the players swarmed it. I needed to adjust my sock where it was bunching up at the heel. Lisa plopped down next to me on the bench.

"We're taking out Beavis and Butthead," she said. "We'd be up by at least three goals if it wasn't for those jockey jerks."

"No shit," I said. They were totally dominating play.

"If I can ever get the puck, I'm pretty sure I can smoke the redhead."

That was Nayeon. "Okay. I'll do what I can to draw her off. She's got a bad left knee," I told Lisa. "If you can catch her coming around on that side, she doesn't have a quick recovery."

"Yeah?" Lisa's eyes gleamed. "Cool." She crossed one ankle over a knee and cleared her skate blade. "You're a good player," she said. "You on a team?"

"No. I've been playing in rec league since I was like six. You're a great player. Where do you skate?"

"Mokdong Ice Rink, 914-5 Mok 1(il)-dong, Yangcheon-gu and Sangam?"

I knew it. Nodded.

"You come here a lot?" Lisa eyed me over her stick.

Before I could answer, Kai skated up with two styrofoam cups of hot cider. "Here, babe." He handed one to me. Noticing Lisa, he offered her the other. What a guy.

"No, thanks," she said, smiling. "You go ahead."

The cider was steaming and spicy and I held it to my face to warm and drift up my nose. Lisa stood, stamped her skates on the ice, and sped off.

I wondered about her. No, I didn't. I knew.

In the second half Lisa bided her time. The hockey jocks not only wouldn't pass, they were hooking and stick checking all over the place. There's no checking in open hockey. Everyone knows that.

A crowd was gathering at the edge and someone called, "You guys about done? We wanna play."

Coop shouted, "One more minute!" He whizzed past me. We were still down a goal. In a blur Lisa bulleted out from behind a blue player and split a seam up the middle. She drove toward Coop's back and body-checked him so hard he went flying. Lisa stole the puck from him and sprinted up the side.

I zipped in behind her. Nayeon passed me by, heading for Lisa, but Lisa crisscrossed in front, almost tripping Nayeon. Lisa took the puck behind the net, going deep. Her eyes darted around until they found me.

I dropped into the slot in front of Kai. He was wary. Kai had great instincts and he knew my best moves. As Lisa drove to the neutral zone, she passed to me.

Kai crouched. I decked him and fired in a backhand. Kai dove for it, face first, but the puck slid under him and into the net.

Red team cheered like we'd won the Stanley Cup.

Lisa skated up to me for a high five. As I glided past Kai, still splayed on the ice, I heard him mutter, "Fuck." I bent, picked up the puck, and dropped it on his back. "I think you mean 'puck.'"

He grabbed my ankle and tried to pull me down, but I escaped. He scrabbled to his feet and chased me around the ice, pushing me into a snow bank at the opposite end. We rubbed snow into each other's faces, laughing and wrestling around. Kai pinned my arms and rolled over on top of me. Kissing me. Kept up the pressure until I was struggling to breathe. "Get off," I ordered.

"What?" he said, looking bewildered. He pushed to his knees. "Did I hurt you?"

"No." Yes. I scrambled to my feet. He always has to ruin it, I thought. We could never just have fun.

Coop skated up to us and said to Kai, "We're starting another game. Red team's one short. You or Jennie in?"

Kai queried me. "Jen?"

"I'm done," I said, digging snow out of the collar of my parka. "You go on. I need to spend some time with Jisoo."

He brushed powder off the back of my head, then left.

I found Jisoo at the outdoor fireplace where she and Nayeon were warming their hands. Jisoo said, "Good game. I just saw the end where you scored."

Nayeon murmured, "We'd have won if it wasn't for that dyke."

I slowly turned to face Nayeon. "Excuse me?"

She met my eyes and curled a lip.

"If you mean Lisa, she's one hell of an athlete."

Nayeon snorted. "Yeah, they all are."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Hey." Jisoo put a hand on my arm. "It's getting cold. Let's go in, Jackson said he'd save us a table in the snack bar."

"Speaking of Jackson," I said, removing my stiff mittens. "People are starting to talk."

Nayeon's head shot up. "About what?"

"Guess."

Her eyes slit. She leaned her face into mine and said, "Why don't you tell me?"

Shit. I shouldn't have started this. She might as well know the truth, though. "They're saying you're a player."

Nayeon expelled a short breath. "Really." Her jaw clenched. "Well, whoever they are, they can go fuck themselves." She skated off toward the entrance.

Jisoo sighed. "Jennie –"

"I know," My head lolled back. "Open oven, insert head."

Jisoo ran her skate blade and forth along the ice. "She thinks you judge her."

"I don't." Blood rushed to my face. Do I? Maybe I do. "I'm her friend, Jisoo. I thought she should know. I'm only trying to protect her." Right, Jennie. You're so noble. You should alienate your friends with the truth more often. I let out a long, visible breath. "I'll call her tonight and apologise."

“Thank you,” Jisoo said. She hated when brush fires flared between Nayeon and me. Thank God she was always there to douse the flames. It made me wonder how Nayeon and I had stayed friends for so long. We’d known each other since eighth grade, when she and her mom moved here from Busan after her parents first split. Nay was pretty messed up then. She really wanted to live with her dad, but he’d moved in with his girlfriend and having a kid around would put too much of a crimp in his style. He never called her; not even on her birthday. We got to talking and discovered we had the “fatherless” thing in common.

Nayeon was fun to be around. Wild and crazy, sort of reckless. Unlike me, Ms. Boring and Predictable.

Jisoo started for the entrance and I caught up. “Are you all right?” I nudged her shoulder with mine. “You seem a little distant, to quote Nay.”

Jisoo smiled. “I’m fine.”

“Sure?”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. Gazing wistfully across the ice, she said, “I miss the old days.”

I frowned. “What old days?”

She looked at me. “When we were kids. Coming here. Skating for hours. Playing tag and keep-away. I’m going to miss all this.” Her arm extended to include more than the lake.

We dodged a bunch of rowdy boys who were dogging these girls ahead of us. Making them giggle and scream. I guess I knew what Jisoo meant. Life was easier when we were kids. It wasn’t so much about change and choice and moving on. We lived for the moment. Time was eternal.

I linked my arm with Jisoo’s. “Tell you what. I’ll buy us a banana split with extra whipped cream and two cherries on too. For old times’ sake."

“In your dreams,” she said. “I’d have to diet for a week.”

***

I was just drifting off to sleep Sunday night when Kai called. My eyelids were lead weights after poring over the same page in Beowulf six hundred times. Not one word had registered. “Is Hwa gone?” he asked.

“Yes.” I yawned. “But Woo Bin’s here.”

“I don’t care,” Kai said. “I’m coming over.”

He hung up before I could protest. Not that I didn’t want to see him; but it was Sunday. A school night.

First thing he did after I trailed him downstairs to my room was unzip his jeans. “Jesus, Kai. You didn’t even ask.”

He paused with his jeans around his hips. “Don’t you want to?” he said.

I sighed and plopped on the bed. Scotching up against the headboard, I hugged my knees and answered, “It’s not that. I just…” I stalled.

“What?” Kai searched my face. “What, Jen?”

“Whenever we’re alone, this is all we do.”

He rezipped his jeans. Perching on the mattress beside me, he said, “We don’t get that much time alone, babe. Since you won’t do it in the car and we can’t be together when Hwa’s here. Now school nights are out.”

I got the message. “Remember how we used to talk? For like hours and hours, we’d just talk. We never talk anymore.”

"We talk every day,” he said. “I see you at lunch, and I call you almost every night. We’re together on the weekends as much as possible.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped my head to my knees. Kai stretched out beside me, snaking an arm around my waist and drawing me close. “We can talk,” he said. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured.

“I love you,” he whispered in my ear. “I know I don’t say it enough. I love you, I love you, I love you. Is that what you want to hear?”

It wasn’t. I already knew that. “When did we stop being friends?” I raised my head.

He pulled back a little. “We’re still friends. You are the best friend I’ve ever had.” He studied me. “It’s different with girls, I know. But don’t you think of me as your friend?”

“Yeah, I do. Of course I do. It’s just…” Just what, Jennie? Tell him.

Tell him how you want to go back to the way it used to be. Before the sex, the commitment. Oh, yeah. He’d be stoked about that.

Kai kissed my ear, then my neck, my lower neck. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t respond to him. What was wrong with me? He was great, wonderful, perfect. He was everything a girl could ever want.

Then why, long after he was gone, did I lie awake and ache inside for something more?