It still hurts remembering our past.Complicates stuff, makes me think.
I hate thinking, it fucking hurts.
Katharina and I… we text.Short, neutral.A joke here, a reminder there.Nothing more.But it’s something.More than I deserve after how I treated her before my crash.
A knock.Sharp.
I freeze.No one knocks here.Leitner barges, Lukas shouts up the stairs.The knock comes again.
I hesitate.My heart does something my knee can’t—jolts, stutters, refuses to move smoothly.
When I open the door, it’s her.
***
Katharina
The door closes behind me, and for a moment I just stand there, coat still on, eyes skimming the room.Rehab gear stacked by the wall.Nutrition bars scattered across the table beside a pile of unopened mail.No photos.No softness.Just function.
"This place looks like you fired your physio and your cleaner."
Thomas leans on a chair, mouth twitching like he might smile."Only one of those is true."
I step further in, slow, the space foreign under my boots.I've never been here before, yet I feel the pull to move as if I had.My eyes land on the book, my book, face-up on the cluttered table.A knot pulls in my chest.He doesn't read.He wouldn't keep this out unless he wanted to see it every day.
"I figured a little education never harmed anyone," he says, catching my gaze too quickly, the joke too thin.
I smile but say nothing.Some things don't need to be called out.
The silence scratches.I move toward the kitchen.Open the wrong cupboard, then the next, until I find the cups.The machine hisses too loud as I make coffee, my motions rehearsed, not natural.Pretending I've done this a thousand times, when it's really the first.
The fridge door yawns open as I search for milk.A familiar green label catches my eye.My favorite wine.I pull it out, turn it in my hand.
"Seriously?"
He only shrugs.No defense.
"I always had you for a beer guy," I add, putting the wine back into the fridge.
His mouth twitches, caught."What do you want me to say, Kat?"His voice has that edge that's half-defensive, half-pleading — like he knows I noticed, and he doesn't want it shoved down his throat.
We sit at the table with our coffees, steam curling between us.Conversation comes in fits, polite, halting.
Finally, I clear my throat."Sponsors asked me to check in.Make sure you're still aligned for spring commitments."
The excuse hovers in the air.True, but not the reason I came.
He knows it.I know it.Neither of us says it.
The coffee cools untouched, and the silence stretches, too raw for strangers, too brittle for whatever we were.
"I brought you something," I say, and get up to bring the long, black bag he must have noticed but didn't ask about.
I kneel, tug the zipper down, teeth rasping as the bag yawns open.The smell of resin and wax seeps out, sharp and clean.
Inside, wrapped in soft cloth, lies the prototype.The sponsor's tribute.A ski custom-cut, edges gleaming, the design sharp enough to cut skin.
Thomas leans forward, curiosity flickering despite himself.I slide the ski out and lay it across the table.
