His voice softens. “What happened?”
I swallow once. Twice. The third time doesn’t go down right.
“My friend,” I say. “He’s dead.”
Faulker goes still.
“How?”
I shake my head. “Training.”
Military training. The cage finally shutting.
Faulker’s face shifts—anger, sadness, confusion, all in one breath. “Do you need?—”
“No.” The word rips out of me. “No,” I repeat, quieter. “I don’t.”
I force myself to take a bite of eggs.
They taste like nothing.
Faulker watches me for a long moment. Then he nods. Not approving. Not condoning. Understanding. The same kind Mikhail once offered without asking for anything back.
I finish breakfast. Stand. Walk to the rink.
I skate alone until my lungs burn. Until my legs shake. Until the cold numbs the part of me that can’t hold the news.
I hit the boards over and over. Shoulder-first. Hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to break if I tried.
Each impact is a sentence:
He. Is. Gone.
And when I finally collapse onto the ice, sweat freezing on my back, breath shallow?—
I whisper, barely audible. “You got out. I didn’t.”
I feel the ice under my palms. Cold. Unyielding. Honest.
It is the only thing left that still answers me. In my chest, something seals shut. A door I will never open again.
Mikhail is gone.
And the part of me that belonged to him dies quietly in that empty rink.
Chapter Twelve
Promises to the Dead
Grief is supposedto be loud. People cry. Scream. Punch walls. Drink too much. Cling to others. Mine arrives like snowfall. Quiet. Inevitable. Layering itself over everything until the world looks different, and no one else notices.
I don’t go to the funeral. I don't have the means, and if I did, his family wouldn’t want me there. And if I saw the closed casket, I’d want to rip it open just to prove he didn’t vanish the way the text made it sound.
Instead, I go to the rink. Because the ice is the only place where pain doesn’t ask for permission. I skate until my legs give out. I skate until my body screams louder than my mind. I skate until something inside me becomes sharp instead of shattered.
Faulker tries to help. Not directly. He’s not stupid. He doesn’t ask how I’m feeling. Doesn’t push. Doesn’t offer pity.
Instead, he shows up to every practice with that irritated German energy and mutters things like: “If you are going to be in emotional denial, at least pass cleanly.” And: “Your formis suffering. I will not allow grief to ruin my line partner’s mechanics.”
