She didn’t need to.
I saw everything in the way her fingers tapped restlessly against her thigh. The way she exhaled through her nose every few seconds like she was holding something back just to keep it together.
“You shouldn’t have been there,” I said finally. “With him.”
Not judgment. Not anger. Just truth.
Her head whipped toward me like I’d slapped her. Her eyes—sharp. Defiant. Alive.
“I wasn’t yours to protect,” she said.
It hit deeper than I expected.
Not because she was wrong.
Because she wasn’t.
I let the words hang there like smoke curling in the dark—acrid, uninvited, undeniable.
“I’m not trying to protect you,” I said after a long moment. “Just stating facts.”
She scoffed. Quiet. But not empty.
There was something else beneath the sarcasm. A tremor. She was fire, yes—but I knew fire. Hers wasn’t burning for the sake of destruction. It was burning to survive.
“Facts?” she said, leaning back, eyes locked on mine like a challenge. “Is that what you call it? Your bets? Your games?”
“Games?” I repeated, shaking my head once. Annoyed. But not just that. Intrigued. “This isn’t the same.”
“Isn’t it?” she snapped. “You think just because you skate fast and hit hard, you get to act like this gives you some kind of claim over me?”
“I don’t want claim.” My voice was sharper now, edged with something I didn’t care to name. “I want clarity.”
Her breath caught. Not much. Just a slight pause. But I heard it. Felt it.
“You think you can swoop in and play the savior?” she said. “You don’t know anything about me.”
She was right. I didn’t.
But I wanted to.
“Maybe not everything,” I said quietly, eyes on the road. “But you’re worth knowing.”
It was too honest. I knew it the moment I said it. I hated the sound of it in my mouth.
Too real. Too close.
The silence that followed was no longer heavy. It was charged.
She didn’t speak. I didn’t look.
But something between us had shifted.
Not softened.
Tightened.
Wound around us like wire drawn taut—and neither of us was ready to cut it loose.
