The silence in my place is loud. My phone is face down, but I keep wanting to pick it up and type something I have no right sending. Let me make sure you are okay. Tell me you didn’t mean it. But I don’t send any of it. Instead, I write it in this notebook no one is going to read but me, and maybe Dr. Shah if I decide to hand it over. I write it so it lives somewhere outside of my chest.
Tonight, I wanted things I’m not supposed to want. For her. For me. For us. A word I’m not allowed to use. I wanted her to look at me on that dance floor and choose the feeling instead of the fear. I wanted her to let the world blur out around us and keep holding on. I wanted her not to flinch when I told her I’d burn down that ballroom if it meant makingthings easier for her.
She didn’t flinch at that, by the way. She told me not to say it, but she didn’t flinch.
What kills me is that she believes she did the right thing.
She probably did.
She probably went up to her apartment and told herself she protected herself and her future. She probably listed all the reasons I’m a bad idea until the ache quieted enough for her to breathe. She probably reminded herself of every time the world punished a woman who let herself be seen wanting something.
I’m not angry at her for choosing safety. I’m angry at the world that taught her she has to carve herself up like this to keep what she’s earned. I’m angry that, for the first time in a long time, something felt like home for both of us, and the smart move was to shut the door.
I told her this wasn’t goodbye, and I felt her whole body react to that. She walked away, but she did not slam the door. She didn’t tell me to stop caring. She didn’t say she’d never feel this again.
She said she can’t afford to choose it. So here is the truth I’m not going to say out loud to her yet. I’m already choosing it. I chose it when I stepped onto that carpetwith her and let the cameras see me. I chose it when I took her hand in front of a man who wanted to humiliate her. I chose it when I called her the story and not the spin. I chose it in a kitchen at Momma’s house when she welcomed Alycia into the family, and my body lit up like someone had just promised me something I didn’t think I was allowed to have. I chose it when I told her I wasn’t done.
I don’t know what it looks like without putting her job on the line or turning her life into a circus. I don’t know how to fight for something without making her feel like I’m pushing her over a cliff she already told me she’s afraid of.
All I know is that tonight hurt in a way that feels like truth, not a mistake.
I can work with truth. I just wish it didn’t feel so much like losing her while I am still holding on.
For now, I guess this is the only place I get to be honest. On a page, in a room she’s not in, with my hand still aching for a dance that ended hours ago.
Tomorrow, I’ll see her and pretend like nothing cracked open between us. I’ll make jokes and be the easy Hendrix brother again. And underneath all that, I’ll keep noticing every moment my body settles around her.Because whether she can afford to admit it or not, tonight proved something I can’t unsee.
We’re already real. She’s just not ready to believe it yet.
~ Kyle
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kyle
The rink is too bright this morning, making the ice look like a sheet of white fire instead of frozen water, harsh enough to expose every place I am falling apart. Skates carve sharp, angry lines as I push harder into my stride. Hard left, hard right, pivot, stop, explode forward again. My muscles are screaming for a break, but I don’t take one. The pain is the only thing that keeps the rest from swallowing me whole.
“Morning, little brother,” Cole calls as he glides past, tapping my stick with his. “Are you trying to set a land-speed record or die during warmups?”
A puck comes flying toward me from the left, someone yelling my name, but I am a step slow getting my stick down. It ricochets off the boards behind me. I curse under my breath, low and ugly. Another mistake. The only thing I have managed to do consistently for the last two days.
Cole skates up alongside me, shoulder brushingmine before he peels off again. “Hey.” His tone drops. “You good?”
I don’t answer. My chest is too tight to speak, and even if it weren’t, the words are not there. They haven’t been since the car ride home from the gala when she walked away from me.
I dig my toe pick in and stop hard enough that a spray of ice dust hits my shin guards. The sharp breath that rips out of me fogs the air. Inside, everything still feels like I am breathing smoke. Beau and Cooper stand near the crease, watching the drill with narrowed eyes. Today, they’re not my brothers. They’re my coaches, trying to get a restless roster ready for our next game against the Wolverines. None of us, me included, wants to lose this one. Especially not after winning the Cup last season. We cannot afford mistakes.
“Let’s go! Defense, start your gap-control reps. Forwards, rotate through at half speed first.”
A familiar tension pulls across my shoulders, the kind that usually sharpens me, narrows the world to a single point. Today, it only makes the ache in my chest spread wider.
The drill isn’t complicated. We start at the blue line, skate backward with control, read the forward’s approach, and match his pace and angle him toward the boards. I’ve done it so many times it should live in my bones, but the second I line up and settle into my stance, something feels misaligned. My body and mind are not speaking the same language.
Cole takes his place behind me in line, nudging theback of my skate with his stick, the gesture bordering on obnoxious if it weren’t so familiar. “Don’t embarrass me. We all know I’m Coach’s favorite.”
“You’re not his favorite,” I mutter, shaking out my arms as I wait for Cooper’s signal.
“I’m definitely his favorite.”
