When we move to the ice Rose steps out first, with Alfie. She looks like she really wants to offer me her hand to get on, but Edmund does it for her. I’m just glad somebody is, because everything Rose taught me back in October has flown out the window. I step onto the ice with shaky legs and almost drag Edmund down with me. “You’re doing great, just go slowly,” he encourages me.

Ahead of us, Alfie takes Rose’s hand, and they talk while skating right at the paparazzi like they don’t even notice they’re there. Totally casual action shots.

I slip and crumple into a heap, and Edmund lets out a gale of laughter as he tries to hold me upright. “Sorry,” I groan.

“It’s okay. I spent half my time on the ground when I learned.”

“How old were you?”

“About four.”

I look at him flatly, and he holds me steady as I scrape myself off the ice.

The regular skaters are congregating again, and this time most of them are holding phones up. I try to ignore the attention and focus on getting a skating rhythm going. The only thing worse than learning how to skate—again—is doing it while people record you to put it online forever.

“Hold on, I’m going to hold both of your hands,” Edmund says, and he starts skating backward, pulling me along. I get a flashback to Rose doing the same thing. I look over at her, and she’s looking at me. Alfie has linked their arms together, and he’s talking at her a mile a minute. When our eyes meet, she smiles, but it’s a little sad.

Then I remember the cameras, and I wrench my eyes away from her and back to Edmund.

“So how come you’re from Colorado and you can’t skate?” Edmund asks me. “I thought it snowed there.”

“It does, but my friends were more into snowboarding and skiing and stuff. You know how you sort of just end up with the same hobbies as the people around you sometimes?”

“Totally,” he says. “That’s how I became vegan. My friends were all vegan, and the more they talked about it, the more I realized they had a point. Also, the food’s just as good if you know where to go. Have you tried other milks before?”

“Like, not cow’s milk? Nope.”

“Okay, there’s a bubble tea place I have to show you. You’ll be a convert. It gets sort of this hazelnutty sort of flavor—do you like hazelnut?”

“I love hazelnut.”

“Then lock it in.”