"Better," he coaches, and I feel the word land in my own body—ankle, ribs, lungs—like an instruction I didn't know I still needed.
We stay until our fingers go numb inside our gloves and Aubrey's cheeks are bright as fresh apples. The hot chocolate line is blessedly shorter by the time we step off the rubber and onto tile. I pass our order through the window—two with cinnamon, one with an irresponsible amount of whipped cream—and we huddle near the lobby while sugar restores everyone's faith in humanity.
"Did you tell him?" Aubrey demands as if educational plans are the kind of gossip she lives for.
"I did," I say. "He did not faint."
"Wow," she deadpans. "Growth."
Silas steals a sip of my cocoa, and I let him because he's been very brave about whipped cream rationing. "We celebrate tonight?" he asks.
"How?" I tease. "Don't say extra drills."
"Pizza. Couch fort. One blanket each," he says, saintly.
"Two," Aubrey counters automatically.
"One and a half," I broker, because negotiation is a muscle, too.
We leave before the Zamboni comes out, because there is no universe in which Aubrey watches a Zamboni seal the ice and then agrees to go home. Outside, the wind lifts my hair and then lets it fall, playful instead of punishing. The sky is the pale gray that promises either snow or nothing and refuses to clarify. Driving out of the lot, I feel that old urge to check the mirror three times. I check it once. The road behind us is just a road.
At a light, my phone buzzes. A calendar notification slides across the screen—Athletic Training Info Session, two p.m., Steele Valley College. It sits there like a dare, then like an invitation, then like a plan.
"Tomorrow?" Silas asks, reading my face.
"Tomorrow," I say.
He drums his fingers on the steering wheel like he's keeping time with something only he can hear. "I'm free at two thirty. I can swing by after if you want to debrief."
"I want to buy a notebook and eight highlighters and label tabs I won't need," I admit.
"Hot," he says, completely straight-faced, and I laugh so hard Aubrey tells us we're embarrassing.
Dinner is easy. Homework is mercifully short. The couch fort meets OSHA standards. We pile under blankets—one and a half each, as negotiated—and watch a movie none of us are really paying attention to. Aubrey falls asleep halfway through, her head on my shoulder, cocoa-sticky fingers curled against my arm.
After we get her to bed, I find Silas at the kitchen table with his phone open to the calendar, scrolling through the next few weeks with a furrow between his brows.
"What are you doing?" I ask, leaning against the doorframe.
"Trying to figure out how to make the next month look like a thing I can carry instead of a thing I have to chase," he says. "Your class schedule, my road trip, Aubrey's tournament, the custody hearing. It's a lot of good mixed with a lot of hard. I don't want to drop any of it."
"Then we calendar what we can and handle the rest as it comes," I say, moving to sit beside him. "One thing at a time."
He taps a square on next Tuesday. "Info session."
"I'll go," I say, and the certainty in my voice surprises both of us. "I'll submit the application right after."
He looks up slowly, something like gratitude and awe mixing in his eyes. "You sure?"
"I'm sure," I say, and it doesn't feel like I'm tempting fate. It feels like claiming something that's mine.
We sit there for a breath, the ordinary kind, and let the decision settle where it wants to live. Not in fear. Not in the past. In the column labeled next.
Before bed, I check the door once—eyes only, muscle memory. The lock is engaged. Outside, a dry crack of far-off thunder makes me glance up, instinct older than logic. No storm follows. Just winter clearing its throat and moving on.
In the bedroom, Silas is already under the covers, but he's propped up on one elbow, watching me with that soft look he gets when he thinks I'm not paying attention.
"Hey, Katibug?" he murmurs as I slide in beside him.
