Where The Ice Gives Way (Charlotte and Blake) novel Chapter 229

Chapter 229 Where Grief Can Sit

Charlotte

I lock eyes with Charlie across the distance.

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His smile is shaky, his hands twisted in front of him. He stands in front of an older couple, two people I vaguely remember bab

us when we were little. There are people from our lives now, and people from our lives then.

People who are here for us today.

“Blake…” I whisper, not really knowing what else to say.

His hand tightens around mine. “Is this okay? I just thought…”

“This is perfect,” I say quickly, before he can start doubting the thing he has made for us. “Thank you.”

His eyes soften, and he guides me across the snow toward Charlie. When we reach him, Charlie looks at me with wet eyes and a

smile that hurts to see.

“You knew?” I whisper.

He nods once, swallowing hard. “Blake asked me if it was okay.”

Something inside my chest cracks as Blake takes my hand and places it in Charlie’s, before stepping away to stand near his parent

Charlie’s fingers curl around mine, and for a while, neither of us says anything. We stand together at the edge of the lake with our hands locked tight, staring at the bench facing the ice.

Two plaques sit fixed into the wood. Mum’s name. Dad’s name.

Seeing them there makes too many emotions whirl around inside me. Mum’s name hurts softly, like a bruise pressed by careful

fingers.

Dad’s hurts differently.

Because I don’t know how to miss someone who also scared me. I don’t know how to love someone who ruined so many things.

More and more memories have been coming back to me lately. Little snippets that slide in when I’m least expecting them.

Lee his face above the water.

New his fure below it.

in the many breaks apart, I see the horror on his face. The fear. The

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Chapter 229 Where Grief Can Sit

panic of a man trying to stop his daughter from drowning.

I don’t know what to do with that.

I don’t know how to put all of that into one small plaque and say goodbye.

Charlie’s hand squeezes mine, and I know he feels it too.

Gareth steps forward then, hands folded in front of him, voice calm and steady as he welcomes everyone.

He says this isn’t about perfect lives, or pretending pain didn’t happen. It is about giving two children, who have carried too m for too long, a place to sit with the love that came before the hurt.

My throat closes.

Then the older woman steps forward. Her hair is silver now, but when she smiles, I remember her kitchen with a yellow kettle. Charlie sitting on the floor with wooden blocks. Mum laughing as she came through the back door with snow in her hair.

The memory hits me so hard I nearly step back.

“Your mum was always moving,” she says softly. “Always dancing around the kitchen, always singing under her breath. She loved t

ice, but more than that, she loved watching the two of you on it. She used to say Charlotte skated like she was listening to

something no one else could hear.”

A breath breaks out of me, and Charlie ducks his head, his thumb rubbing hard over my knuckles.

The man beside her adds a story about Mum teaching us to balance on skates when we were tiny. Apparently, Charlie kept trying to

race before he could stand, and I kept yelling at him for ruining the lesson.

That earns a quiet laugh from the group, and even Charlie and I find some joy in it.

The laughter doesn’t last long, but it’s real while it’s there.

A few others speak of little memories and small pieces of Mum I didn’t know anyone else still carried. Every story feels like

someone handing me back a tiny piece of her.

I break quietly as I listen, and Charlie wraps his arms around me, holding me the way he has held me through every storm we

survived together.

blake waits until Charlie lets me go, and then I turn and step into his chest. His arms close around me as I bury my face in his

jacket.

don’t know how to say thank you for this,” I whisper.

You don’t have to,” he says into my bait.

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Chapter 229 Where Grief Can Sit

The words settle over me like the falling snow.

After everyone leaves, Blake takes me to dinner at a small place in the middle of town with warm lights, quiet booths, and chi

good enough to make me forget my heart hurts.

Charlie goes with Sophie and the older couple for a while. I can tell he needs it. Stories. Names. Proof that Mum existed outsid

ache we kept tucked away.

Later, when the sky has gone dark, and the town has quieted, I ask him to take me back to the lake.

He doesn’t question it. If anything, I think he knew it was coming, because he already has my skates in the car.

I sit on the bench and lace Mum’s old skates slowly, my fingers brushing over the worn leather. The lake stretches out in front o

me, dark and silver beneath the moon.

The plaques catch the faint light behind me.

Blake steps onto the ice with me, careful at first because he is much better at hockey than he is at moving slowly. I laugh when h

wobbles and reaches for my hands.

“Do you need me to teach you?” I ask.

“I know how to skate.”

“Do you?”

I take his hands, and we move together under the moon in slow circles across the cleared part of the lake. My heart still aches, but

it’s not the same as before.

We skate along the ice for some time before voices drift through the trees.

“…I just wanted to show you something,” Charlie says, his voice low.

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