“Can I—” I start, then stop.“Can I touch you?”
He freezes, eyes going darker, softer.“You never have to ask me that,” he says, and the way he saysneveris a vow.
“I want to,” I say, because the asking is part of the healing too.
He swallows.“Yeah.”
I reach for his wrist, the same place I touched yesterday, the place where his pulse beats hot and insistent beneath skin.My fingers land lightly.His breath stutters.His hands stay loose at his sides, open, honest.
“See?”I whisper.“Not afraid.”
He closes his eyes and lets out a breath that trembles all the way down.When he opens them again, the storm has moved off the horizon a little.
“You’re shaking,” he says, and there’s no judgment in it.Only notice.
“I’m trying to stop,” I answer, half-smile, half-grimace.
He looks at my hand on his wrist, then at my face.“You don’t have to.You can shake and I’ll still stand here.”
Something tight gives under my ribs.I don’t know whether to thank him or cry, so I do neither.I just keep breathing.
“Tell me what you need right now,” he says.“Not forever.Right now.”
Right now is easier than always.Right now I need to feel like the ground is real.Right now I need to know he won’t walk away because I’m messy and late to trust.Right now I need to believe someone will catch me if I tip too far toward the past.
“Walk me back,” I say.“But slow.”
He nods immediately, like he was only waiting to be told.He doesn’t take my hand.He turns his body toward the corner and keeps the distance I set, matching his stride to mine so precisely we must look choreographed.At the end of the corridor, where the brighter light starts again, he stops without me asking and checks my face.
“You good?”he asks.
“No,” I say.“But I’m better.”
He accepts that like it’s a win.“Better counts.”
We turn the corner.The hallway widens.The noise of the rink filters back in—the scrape of blades, a burst of laughter from a rookie trying to imitate Finn’s deke, a whistle that could only be Kael’s.We’re almost to the mouth of the main corridor when Atlas slows, like there’s one more thing he hasn’t decided whether to say.
“If he—” He stops, jaw flexing.“If whoever it is texts you during practice again...”
My stomach dips.He noticed.Of course he noticed.
“I can’t stop them,” I say.“Not yet.”
“No,” he agrees.“But I can stand where you can see me.”
I look up at him, and the offer lands with a surprising amount of grace for how blunt it is.Not fixing.Not prying.Not demanding.Standing.
“Okay,” I say.
His mouth tips, barely.“Okay.”
We step back into the main hall.Finn is there, close but not crowding, a question in his eyes he doesn’t voice.Kael leans against the end of the bench, pretending to read a chart, attention cast like a net that misses nothing.
I feel a pull toward each of them in three directions at once.It should tear me.It doesn’t.It makes the ground steadier, oddly.Three anchors, three warnings, three chances.
Atlas shifts, the tension in him not gone so much as contained.He tilts his head toward the rink.“You want me where you can see me or where you can’t?”
“Where I can,” I say before the past can choose for me.
