If you knew what it felt like to have your entire life upended, that was exactly what Isabelle felt like right at this moment. From finding out you had one brother to finding out you have six more felt almost surreal, she was beginning to wonder wha...
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Maddox Oliver
"That kid lives and breathes hockey," I comment, skating closer to Roman, he had his eyes stuck on the kids. Well he was mainly watching Jude just in case, it was clear Isabelle and Theodore were comfortable on the ice.
The two of them were skating laps around the rest of us. Theo had gone to grab his hockey stick and a puck from his bag and was happily performing tricks around us as he skated, giving Jude and Finn pointers on what they were doing wrong.
Isabelle and Jude were off by themselves, Isabelle was trying to teach Jude how to skate but her sweet little giggles filled the rink whenever he fell. I don't think she even realised all of our attention was on her. We watched as she tried to pull Jude back up but he was almost doubt size so the two of them kept sliding everywhere. Isabelle seems to give up on Jude and brushes the ice off her tights then leaves him as she skates towards Roman and me.
She had a large smile on her face, larger than I had seen from her since she had been here, it was clear she fed off Theo's emotions as this was the most at peace he looked as well.
"I thought you said you were an athletic family," Isabelle teases Roman.
"I think there may be a difference between being athletic on the ground and standing on a paper-thin blade on a sheet of ice, baby."
"There isn't much difference," Isabelle argues, somehow twisting herself into some fancy-looking jump and twirl thing and still managing to land on her feet. I watched her terrified but she looked like she had been doing it her whole life. "My old skating teacher used to say if you treat your skates as inanimate objects then you'll just fail but if you treat them as extensions of your feet then you can fly."
Once again Isabelle does some fancy-looking trick on the ice, launching herself into the air and landing on one foot.
This child was going to give me a heart attack, I moved forward to her but Roman placed a hand on my arm stopping me.
"She knows what she's doing, Madds." I glare at my older brother, what if what Theo said earlier was true and she falls and breaks her head open? Roman gives me a look and I stand down but keep my eyes trained on my baby sister. "Did you do many lessons, Isabelle?"
Isabelle blows out hair, pushing out the pieces of her that had fallen into her face. "It was basically mandatory, everyone back home lived and breathed anything that had to do with skating, Theo loved it. I did it because I wanted to play with my friends on the frozen lakes. I've done everything from figure skating lessons to hockey lessons and everything in between."
Never mind, if I thought Isabelle skating here was dangerous it sounded so much worse to hear my eleven-year-old sister was skating on a frozen lake with a bunch of other eleven-year-olds.
Roman gives me an exasperated look, we had spent our whole lives stuck at the hip, and he knew exactly what I was thinking. I was always the overprotective one and he was the one who knew how to push us to reach our full potential, he knew when to hold back and when to push and that was something I never had. If I could have wrapped up my little brothers in bubble wrap I would have.
