“Hey,” a voice says softly near the door.
I jerk hard enough that the box of wraps wobbles.
Finn.He pauses, hands up, eyes warm and careful.“It’s just me.”
My throat is so tight the first answer doesn’t come out.I try again.“Hi.”
He crosses to the table and sets a coffee near the corner of my clipboard, not moving any closer than he needs to.“I remembered how you take it.”
“It’s...perfect,” I manage.
He watches my face for a beat, the way people do when they’re trying to see if your smile is real.I don’t know what my face is doing.Probably all the wrong things.He doesn’t push.He just nods once and backs away the same gentle way he came in, like a tide receding.
When he disappears, the room feels too large.I stare at the coffee until the lid goes cold.I force a sip to prove something to myself.It’s good.It doesn’t touch the tremor that keeps rolling through me anyway.
Time buckles in the way it does when you’re waiting for something you can’t control.I tape three wrists.I unspool an elastic bandage and roll it neatly again.I double-knot a rookie’s skate because he’s nervous and his hands won’t listen.I say it’s normal to be nervous and pretend I’m not telling myself that too.Every few minutes my eyes flick to my phone like it might rear up and strike.
When it pings the third time, I nearly drop the scissors.
My thumb is too fast.I swipe before my brain catches up with my body.
Walked by a place that reminded me of you.
Funny how memory follows you, isn’t it?
There’s a picture attached.
My chest caves.I don’t open the photo.I don’t need to open it to know it will be a street somewhere.A sign.A color.A lamp.Something that could be anywhere and nowhere, something that isn’t a threat until you hear it in his voice.
You can’t outrun me.
Breathe.
I set the phone down and step back so fast the back of my knees hit the cabinet door, and it thuds.I press my fingers to my temple and count silently, a trick from physical therapy I learned when the panic was more visible, when I needed safe numbers to anchor my body.Four in.Hold.Four out.Hold.Again.Again.Again.
It helps.By a thread.By a breath.Enough to make the room stop tilting.
The door opens again—not Finn this time.The air changes the way it always does when Kael walks in, temperature adjusting around whatever gravity he brought with him.He stops two steps inside the room, eyes moving over my face, down to my hands braced on the counter, to the phone, back to my face.
I hate how much relief floods me and how much fear rides inside it.He is too much.He is also safe in ways I don’t have words for.Those two truths hit each other like colliding weather, and my body doesn’t know which way to lean.
“You good?”he asks.Neutral.Captain-quiet.
“Yes,” I answer.It sounds like a plea.
His gaze shifts.Not a move closer.Not a question.A choice.“Finn said you like the music down a notch on drill days.”He nods toward the rink, toward the speakers that will start pulsing any minute.“Want me to ask Coach?”
I blink.I didn’t know Finn noticed.I didn’t know anyone did.“It’s fine.”
“Is it?”
No.
I nod anyway.
Kael’s jaw works like he’s chewing a thought.“If you need five before you come out—”
“I’m fine,” I snap, too quickly.
