The test was done quickly. Lyric and her mom went to the hospital and their blood was drawn like it was something that happened every day. The doctors said they would be in contact as soon as the results were in.

But Lyric was feeling very antsy. She wanted to know. She hated not knowing. What if the doctors forgot to call?

When she thought she might be on the verge of hyperventilating, she reached for her phone to call Michael. He would be able to talk her down. He had always been very logical where she was emotional.

She dug around in her bag, but couldn’t find her phone. Flipping over on her bed, she checked her charging cord. It wasn’t there either. She tried to remember the last place she had used it.

“Where…” With a groan, she remembered.

The rink.

She hadn’t used her phone since her grandmother’s call. She could now remember the feeling of it slipping from her hand. Had she picked it up again? She couldn’t recall.

“Damn.” She did not need this. Or, on second thought, maybe she did. It was something to do.

Running downstairs, she grabbed her dad’s keys. The rink would be closed now, but her dad was friends with the owner, so he had a key to the front door. The idea had been that Lyric could practice her skating anytime she wanted without people watching her and commenting on how she was Johnathan Rivers’ daughter.

The parking lot was empty when she got there. So was the lobby when she unlocked the door.

“Hello?” She called out, closing the door behind her. There was no answer.

Lyric started to look around. She didn’t know where the lost and found was, or if they even had one here. She really hoped they did. Now was not the time to tell her parents she needed a new phone.

As she passed the door to the actual rink, she thought she heard something. “Hello?” She called again, reluctantly pushing open the door. Maybe the owner was taking advantage of the fact that he owned his own skating rink.

The sound she had heard was in fact skates on ice. It was mixed with a sort of soft, broken singing. When Lyric looked, she saw the boy from the concession stand gliding smoothly across the ice.

She was about to call out to him and wave him down so that she could get out of the cold when she saw his muscles tense. She realized in horror that he wasn’t wearing a coat. He wasn’t even wearing a sweater. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

And then he jumped.

Lyric’s breath caught in her throat. She watched, mesmerized, as the boy spun in the air and landed with a calm sweep of his leg. For a moment, even the cold of the rink was forgotten.

The boy reached the far end of the rink and turned around. He faltered when he spotted her standing by the door. All sound stopped, and Lyric realized that he had been the one singing.

“We’re closed right now.” The boy called, skating toward her now.

“I have a key.” Lyric fumbled for the key in her pocket. She didn’t want the boy to think she had broken in.

The boy looked at the key for a moment. “You’re a friend of Rick’s?”

“My dad is.” Lyric was quick to correct him.

He just hummed in understanding. He pushed open the door in the boards and stepped off the ice. While he put guards on his skates, Lyric noticed that they were different from her dad’s. The blades were longer in the back, and the front edge was jagged.

“How do you not trip and fall?” She blurted without thinking.

The boy looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Have you never seen figure skates before?”

Lyric stared blankly at him. Skating had always just meant hockey. Sure, she had heard people call skates ‘hockey skates’, but she had no idea there were other kinds of skates.

“The picks are for doing jumps.” The boy explained. He shut the door behind him and smiled kindly at her. “So, are you here for a private skate?” His tone was professional, but there was a hint of amusement in it.

Lyric shook her head. “No, I was just looking for the lost and found.” The chill of the rink was starting to get to her and she shivered. “I left my phone here.”

“Ah.” The boy’s face lit up. “I remember you now.” He motioned her to following him back to the lobby.

He immediately went to the concession stand and pulled out a medium sized plastic box. The only thing inside was Lyric’s phone. He handed it over to her.

“Thanks.” Lyric checked for texts and missed calls. The only ones were from Michael, but she wasn’t in so much of a hurry to talk to him anymore.

“It’s not broken, is it?”

Lyric looked up at the boy and shook her head.

“That’s good.” He truly looked relieved. “I saw you drop it and thought for sure that the screen was shattered.” He tried to chuckle, but he looked more worried than happy. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, you looked like you had gotten some pretty bad news. Is everything alright.”

“My grandmother’s sick.”

“I’m sorry.”

And he looked it too. Lyric felt herself relax a little. The boy was a stranger, but he was sympathetic. Lyric looked back down at her phone.

“She has leukemia.” She muttered. The reality of it was hitting her now that the surprise had had time to fade away. She felt a lump in her throat she knew she was on the verge of tears.

“Hey.” The boy was beside her, placing a hesitant hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. Medicine today is amazing.”

Lyric looked up at him and managed a smile. “Thanks.” She wiped at her eyes and took a deep breath. “I should probably get going.” She stepped away from him and toward the door.

When her hand landed on the door handle, she paused. Turning back, she saw that the boy was still looking at her. “My name’s Lyric.” She offered, feeling that if he knew about her grandmother’s illness, he should at least know her name.

He smiled back at her. “Luke.”