Chapter 6
The rink starts to fill up shortly after the
hockey team leaves the ice—Dante has almost forty-five precious
minutes to himself before the first of the skate club members come
out to circle around the track with him. Josey and her girlfriends,
they giggle as they follow behind Dante. But he’s fast, faster than
they are, and he skates rings around them over and over again. He
doesn’t even see them, really—all he sees is the ice and the track
markers, all he feels is the blood pumping in his ears, the heart
beating in his chest. He’s going for speed here, trying to see how
many laps he can do before he gets winded, and he makes thirteen
and a half in five seconds over two minutes, that’s his best time
in the 1500 meters. He keeps going, takes another two laps before
he
