"I did," she admits, unbothered. "But I also came here because something is wrong with you, Luka, and you can’t pretend its nothing when the people who know you best are all noticing."
I don’t lose control. I don’t slip. I don’t let my life show cracks.
And yet here I am, lying in bed in the middle of the day, acting like I’m exhausted when really I’m just trying to avoid the part of my brain that won’t stop replaying Natalia’s face when she said she didn’t leak the information, when she said she cared, when she stood in that hallway and took my coldness like a punishment she believed she deserved.
Katerina walks into my bathroom without asking, because of course she does, and returns a moment later with a handful of vitamins from the cabinet.
She drops them into my palm.
"Here," she says. "You need these."
I stare at the pills while she takes a seat on the edge of the bed and looks at me with a quieter kind of seriousness now.
"I’m not asking you to forgive her today," she says. "I’m asking you to stop disappearing."
"I’m not disappearing."
"You are," she insists. "And you’re doing it because it’s easier to tell yourself she betrayed you than it is to admit you cared enough for it to hurt."
I don’t respond.
Katerina exhales, like she expected that.
"Randolph is thrilled," she adds, switching angles as if she’s trying to reach me through practical facts. "He’s been telling Scottie that sponsors are easing up. That the magazine is taking the heat. That you’re ‘safe.’"
Safe.
The word tastes bitter.
"Are you safe?" she asks quietly.
I stare at the glass of water.
The Olympic Committee still hasn't made an official statement. They could still fine me. They could still demand a public apology. They could still make an example of me because medals are sacred to them in a way that feels hypocritical when you remember how many of their governing bodies survive on sponsorship and optics, too.
And I haven’t heard whether Natalia’s mediation plan ever moved forward after Switzerland, because I shut her out before she could tell me. I cut the thread so fast that I never found out whether she could have actually fixed this without the leak.
The irony is thick enough to choke on.
"Safe doesn’t mean anything," I say finally.
Katerina nods slowly. "No. It doesn’t."
She stands, smoothing her coat as if she’s preparing to leave.
"I’m going to New York," she says. "I need you to promise me you’re not going to rot in this apartment while I’m gone."
"I’m not rotting," I mutter.
"You’re rotting," she replies without hesitation. "And if you don’t get up and go to practice tomorrow, I will personally tell Penelope that you need to be benched like a child until you learn how to behave."
That gets my attention.
"You wouldn’t."
Katerina smiles sweetly. "Try me."
I exhale, rubbing a hand over my face. "Fine."
