His eyes cut to mine, sharp and assessing. "What makes you think I hate him?"
"The way you talk about him. The way you don't talk about him." I pull my knees up to my chest. "You said he was entitled. That he takes what he wants. That's not how you describe someone you're friends with."
Beckett is quiet for a long moment, his jaw working like he's choosing his words carefully.
"We weren't friends," he says finally. "We were teammates. There's a difference."
"What difference?"
"Friends trust each other. Teammates just…play the same game. Share the same ice." He looks at me. "Cody didn't care about anyone but himself. He used people. Manipulated them. Made them think they mattered when they didn't."
The words land heavily between us.
"Did he do that to you?" I ask quietly.
"Not to me specifically. But I watched him do it to others." His expression hardens. "And yeah, that made me decide not to be his friend."
I absorb this, turning it over in my mind. Everything Beckett is saying aligns with what I've learned. With the videos. With the lies. With the monster Cody actually was beneath the facade.
"I don't know who I am without him," I admit.
Beckett turns to face me fully. "What do you mean?"
"I mean––" I press my palms against my eyes, trying to organize the chaos in my head. "I've been Cody's girlfriend for so long that I don't remember who I was before him. What I wanted. What I liked. It all got wrapped up in him, in us, in the future we were supposed to have."
I drop my hands and look at Beckett. "And now that's gone, and I don't know what's left."
He doesn't try to fix it. Doesn't offer platitudes about finding myself or moving forward or any of the bullshit people say when they don't know what else to offer.
Instead, he says something that cuts straight through.
"You're not who he made you."
The simplicity of it, the certainty, makes something in my chest loosen.
"How do you know?"
"Because the person he would have made wouldn't be sitting here trying to figure out the truth. She'd be accepting the story everyone's feeding her and moving on." He shifts slightly closer. "You're not doing that. You're fighting. That's all you."
I lean into him without really deciding to. Just let my head rest against his shoulder, seeking the kind of contact that doesn't demand anything but presence.
He freezes for half a second. I feel the tension in his body, the momentary uncertainty. Then he relaxes, his arm coming around my shoulders carefully.
We sit like that for several minutes, neither of us speaking.
Finally, I say, "I watched them over and over."
"Watched what?"
"The videos. They made me, and it keeps replaying in my head. I’m trying to find something I missed. Some sign that I should have known."
Beckett pulls back enough to look at me.
"Stop hurting yourself," he says.
It's not a suggestion. It's a command delivered with enough care that it doesn't feel controlling. Just protective.
I look up at him, at the fading bruises, at the blue eyes that have been steady through all of this, at the person who showed up when I called, even though he barely knows me.
