“Okay.” He echoed, and in the repetition there was a shape I recognized: agreement that didn’t mean surrender.
Silence spread wide as the rink. It wasn’t empty. It was full of every possible next move.
“I’m not asking you to choose.” I said into it, because the fear was a stone in my mouth and I needed it out. “Not today.”
“I already did.” He said, and the steadiness of it steadied me instead of scaring me. “I chose not to let go.” He tipped his chin toward the ice. “I chose to stand where you can see me in the morning.”
The relief of that nearly buckled my knees. The weight of it nearly did too.
“I don’t know how to be both.” I admitted. “Daughter. And—” I couldn’t find a word I trusted. “This.”
“Alive.” He said. “Be that.”
The compressor kicked on, a low growling hum. The glass fogged where my breath touched it and cleared again. In it, I could see us standing close enough to hear each other’s truth and far enough not to mistake it for a guarantee.
“I can try.” I said.
“Good girl.” He said, soft enough that it warmed more than it was branded.
I smiled despite the ache behind my eyes. The morning had found us. We were not hiding. It didn’t make any of this simple. It made it real.
“Walk me to the front.” I say.
He nods. We move together along the glass, past our doubled selves, past the door where players step onto ice and become wolves. The lobby looks soft and ordinary, vending machine humming, the trophy case full of names that still hurt to read and always will. At the door, we stop.
“Text me when you get home.” He said.
“I will.”
“And tonight—” He paused, the only sign of calculation I’d seen on him all morning. “I don’t step in your house unless your father looks me in the eye and leaves the door open behind him.”
My throat clenches. “That might take time.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He ensures me.
He pushes the door open and the cold morning freezes in. I step into it like I am learning to stand up in a new gravity. I don’t look back until I’m across the lot. When I do, he is still there, one hand braced high on the frame, watching in a way that didn’t make me a target, just a fact.
I raised two fingers in a wave. He dips his chin in a nod.
The drive home feels longer than usual, even though the streets are nearly empty. The steering wheel is cold against my hands, and the silence in the car makes every thought louder. Triston’s words still burned in my head:“I’m not going anywhere.”They steady me even as they make me ache.
When I pull into the driveway, Dad is already on the porch. He has a mug in his hand, steam curling into the air, but his shoulders are too straight for it to be about coffee. He’s been waiting.
I step out, gravel crunching under my shoes, and I brace myself. He didn’t speak until I was halfway up the steps.
“You went.”
I nod. There was no point in lying. “I told you I would.”
His jaw tightened, but his voice stayed even. “And?”
“And I told him daylight.” I made myself meet his eyes. “I told him not in your house, not in your rink. I told him not in the shadows.”
Dad studied me for a long moment, like he was searching for the crack in my armor. “And he listened?”
“Yes.” I say softly. “He listened.”
The silence that follows is heavy, but it isn’t the kind that demands more words. It was the kind that admitted nothing about the future but accepted the present.
