Hidden Sights - Chapter 10 - Ice Cold

I paced back and forth while I waited for her to arrive. If I had been home you could bet that I would cooking up a storm, something I always did when anxious. Although the house was blessedly empty with Mint at the hospital visiting Flax and the others at a concert at the park I didn't know how long that peace would last. As much as I wanted privacy for this I wasn't going to take the risk of interruptions.

I tired to convince myself I wasn't nervous. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was what I wanted but the very act of it was fear inspiring. Having this time, these minutes that stretched in hours, made it all the more unbearable. Would it be enough? Would I be? I knew that she loved me but did she love Ice more? That I didn't know and it was time to find out.

Her gentle footsteps sounded across the lawn and I turned instantly taken in by her beauty. She ducked her head as she got closer hiding the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"Ok you're right this is the biggest waterfall I've seen close to town."  She glanced up catching my gaze. Her voice softening she said, "I'm glad I got to see it before I left."

I grabbed her and pulled her close. "I missed you."

She giggled shyly at my words, pleased but embarrassed at the same time. “It's only been one night silly.”

“One moment is too long without you.”


The love in her eyes was unmistakable, even for someone as clueless as I am. It gave me the strength I needed to ask the question, to seek the answer. Hands trembling I reached into my pocket. My heart was thumping so hard that it filled my ears and was all I could hear. Slowly I sank to one knee and raised my face to hers.

Only she wasn't looking back. Turned away from me speaking quietly but quickly into her phone she had seen none of my supposedly romantic gesture. "It's ok," I told myself fighting the sinking feeling in my stomach. "It was just bad timing that's all" I waiting, fretting, for her to finish the call. It seemed to take an eternity but eventually she hung up and turned back to me an odd sadness in her eyes. I opened my mouth to speak but she beat me to it.

"Per," her voice choked full of emotion that sent a thrill of fear through me. "Oh Per I will miss you."

Before I could react, before the words could even sink in she was already walking away. She was nearly at the curb when my body jolted back to life. "Nilla! Wait!" I called after her praying she wasn't to far away to hear. For once luck was with me and she paused at the sound of my voice. I ran to her breathless as I reached her side. "You're leaving? Why? For how long? When will I see you again?" The questions tumbled out of me more and more desperate as I watched the sinking of her head.

"I'm not coming back, not any time soon."

"Why? How can you just leave? Just like that?"

"Ice called. There's been...a situation. We need to go now."

"But I need you here! Nilla I love you, I want to spend my life with you! Don't tell me you don't fell the same way, I know you do."

Her lip trembled and she kept glancing at me and then quickly away as if afraid to meet my eyes. "Per I...." Her words cut off as her voice faltered. "I have to."

Something inside me snapped. I couldn't take it, couldn't take not knowing. "What is this hold he has on you? Do you love him is that it? Did you never love me?"

The tears that had threatened before now flowed down her cheeks in torrents. "I can't. Oh Per how I wish I could tell you but it's not my story to tell. I wish I could stay could be with you but I can't. He needs me." I could see the conflict tearing at her face and I could see the moment I lost. She reached her hand to me, tentatively, pulling back just before her fingers brushed my cheek. "There will never be anyone else for me."

I let her go then. The life left me as she did and I sat huddled on the water's edge to numb to move. The morning turned to afternoon and a summer shower swept over the lake. I let it come, let the waters wash over me. It didn't matter, nothing did any more.

I didn't hear her this time. She stole up behind me and sat behind me without a word. Numbly I looked up. I wanted to be happy to see her but I knew if I was, if I opened up, I would hurt again. I was no match for the likes of Ice.

"Thought you were leaving." I mumbled now feeling the cold of my wet clothes for the first time.

"I came back." she said simply. I grunted but didn't speak. I figured either she would tell me why or she wouldn't and no amount of asking on my part would convince her if she didn't want to talk.

With a big intake of breath she started and I wasn't prepared for what she had to say.

"Ice hasn't always been Ice. He grew up here in Sunset Valley actually but back then he went by the name Toffee Crisp." My eyes widened at the name, I remembered Toffee. He was always tagging after Mint and Flax when we were growing up. Seeing my recognition she nodded and continued. "Did you know he was in love with Mint back then? He doesn't know I know, he told me not long after we came back here one night went he got drunk. She was his first love but she never even noticed him. And before he could tell her how he felt she left."

"Do you remember when he left town?" it was my turn to nod. I remembered a night not long after I stared high school. The dark night lit by the bright fire.

"After his parents we killed in that awful explosion he left town. For a long time he blamed Flax. He thought if Flax hadn't convinced them to go out pulling pranks then his parents would have been out looking for him. But after a while he blamed himself. He believed that he was doomed to have those he loved leave him. It was the start of his freezing over. It wasn't to last though, not this time. He met a girl."

"For the second and last time he fell in love. She was his world and his muse. He wrote her songs, songs to make any love sick girl swoon in delight. Songs that were never to be sung to the public. You see he was noticed, signed and about to make an album when he found out. It turns out that while he was getting noticed by agents she was also getting noticed....by Flax."

"It was then he dyed his hair, changed his name to Ice and locked the love songs away from the world swearing revenge on Flax. By the time I was assigned to him he had gone though six assistants. I was terrified when I started but slowly I began to see that the cold exterior was a shield. He closed himself off and vowed never to get hurt again but in doing so he forgot how to love. I kept out of his way, weathered his temper and eventually he began to open up to me. It was then that he did the most surprising thing of all."

"As an assistant to a lesser known star I didn't have the biggest salary. I knew I should have sold my dad's house years before but it was all I had left of him. The bills piled up and eventually it was too much. The day the bank was to foreclose on the house he showed up."

"He handed me a box much bigger than it needed to be but beautifully wrapped. Expecting a trinket of some sort I opened it as he walked away. Inside was the deed to my father's house and a note which read, 'We all need a little something to remind us of family.' I knew then that no matter how much he railed against me that he cared. And so I stuck by him and no matter what the people at the agency threw at me he always stood by me."

I didn't know what to say. So I settled for the first thing that came to mind. "Why tell me now?"

She laughed softly. "Ice could see at a glance what was wrong with me. He sent me away. He told me to tell you everything, said it didn't matter now."

I nodded not really understanding. "You're still going to go back to him aren't you?"

"I have to. Don't you see, we're all each other has."

I reached out slowly seeing for the first time what was behind her pain earlier, the fear of loosing the only person she could count on in life. I smiled at her knowing what I had to do now. "Not any more your not. I'm going with you."