Unknown:I’m not cruel, Samantha.
I close my eyes. The way he writes my name is a touch. It pins me to the mattress—careful—so I can’t bolt from my own body. I want to argue that obsession and cruelty are cousins; I want to admit I’ve never felt safer than when he is dangerous for me, not at me. I do neither. I set the phone on my chest and try to memorize the ceiling cracks so my brain has something to hold that isn’t him.
By the time I’m dressed, the sky has brightened into a color optimists would call hope and I would call glare. I bypass every red sweater in my closet not because he told me not to wear red, but because he told me I could. I pull a navy turtleneck over my head—the exact shade of a sky that refuses to lighten—and tell myself it’s just warm, just practical, just nothing. My hands linger at the dresser. The ribbon waits. I loop it once around my wrist and tighten. It slides out of the knot to lay against my pulse like it prefers the place where truth is loudest.
At the rink, the lobby smells like coffee, skate guards, and the metal taste of winter off people’s coats. The garlands have settled into their roles and the bows are less obnoxious in the daylight, as if strings of lights can teach anything to behave. I pass a cluster of kids bouncing in place while a mom wrestles with laces; their laughter ricochets off the high ceiling and lands in my chest with a sweetness I’m embarrassed to need. December might be deadly in my head, but outside of it there are still small joys with chapped lips and chocolate moustaches.
“Storm Cats Christmas Gala,” the banner over the glass reads in block letters. The font is festive against its will. I press my palm to the glass and imagine the room filled with people in velvet andsequins, everything glittering just enough to hide the ache under their wool coats. I imagine him in a suit. I imagine not imagining. I fail.
The office greets me with an inbox that looks like a dare. I empty it one RSVP at a time, alternating between yes, no, and the special box for people who think maybe means you owe them a favor later. I call the florist and change the wreaths from symmetrical to not because perfection is a lie and I want the door to admit it before anyone steps through. I text the DJ and ask for a playlist that doesn’t treat the evening like a supermarket aisle. He replies with a snowman emoji and a thumbs-up, and I wonder what it’s like to live with uncomplicated thoughts.
Between calls, the phone lights up and I don’t look immediately. I let it glow like a lighthouse, pretending I’m a ship that never lost her way.
Unknown:West hallway. Two minutes.
My heart forgets time and then sprints to catch up. The west hallway is the one between the maintenance closet and the pro shop, the one that never smells like popcorn or soap, only cold and quiet and rubber. If my father is on the ice, his back will be to that hallway. If the team is in a meeting, there will be a hush over everything, the rink holding its breath the way it does before a national anthem.
I typebusyand erase it. I typenoand delete the letter before it can take a shape. I type nothing, shove the ribbon deeper under my sleeve like it might behave if I can’t see it, and leave the office with a speed that would look like guilt if I had to explain it.
The west hallway is half shadows even in daylight. One of the overhead lights has been out since last season; the maintenance guy swears it’s the ballast and then sighs like ballast is a personalinsult. My boots whisper over the matting, and I breathe like I’m hiding and hunting both. I round the corner and stop because stopping is the only thing my body remembers how to do.
He’s there.
Helmet off. Hair damp and darker from the shower. Hands in the pockets of a black team hoodie that makes his shoulders look like they were designed by a person who has never met moderation. He doesn’t lean against the wall and he doesn’t cross his arms because casual is a costume he refuses. He stands like a warning sign no one bothered to translate.
The part of me that should assess risks goes silent. The part of me that craves goes loud.
“Hi.” I say, and the tiny normal word sounds like it learned to stand on two legs in a house fire.
For a heartbeat he just looks at me, not moving, like the hallway is a narrow strip of ice and he’s waiting to see if I try to walk it or fall. Then his mouth does the thing it does when he’s about to say something that will require my full attention—the half-lift, not quite a smile, more like a private agreement he intends to make public.
“You wore my sky.” He says, eyes dipping from my hair to my shoulder to the thin slice of navy at my throat and back up. The rasp in his voice turns the sentence into an abrasion. “Good morning, Samantha.”
My name in his mouth again. It should be illegal to like the way someone says something you’ve heard a thousand times. I swallow, and the ribbon presses a thumbprint into the soft skin inside my wrist like it wants to anchor me to the moment where I could still run.
“You can’t textme directions like you’re my GPS.” I say. I mean to sound flippant but land on breathlessness. “You can’t text me at all.”
“I can do a lot of things I shouldn’t.” He says simply. He takes one step forward, then stops, hands still in his pockets, as if I’m the one with pull and he knows it. “I don’t have to.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I know.”
The hallway vibrates with the energy of everything not being said. For a second I hate him for choosing this strip of silence, for not hiding in noise where this could be dismissed as an accident. He gave me a hallway as if he knew I’d make a cathedral out of it.
“What do you want?” I ask, the question is bigger than both of us and exactly the size of my mouth.
His gaze flicks to the sleeve where my hand hides the ribbon. The smallest tilt of his head happens—the kind you could miss if you were a person who didn’t turn obsession into a syllabus. His eyes climb back to my face. “A lot.” He says. “Right now? Thirty seconds.”
“Of what?”
“Your honesty.”
I laugh, too sharp. “That’s asking me for a different organ.”
He smiles without moving his mouth. “I already have the one that matters.”
“Arrogant.”
