“Hey,” he says quietly.
“Hey.”
There’s a takeaway cup in his hand. He hesitates, then holds it out. “I—uh. I remembered how you like it. Oat milk. No sugar. One pump of the hazelnut syrup.”
Of course he remembers. The thought hurts more than it should but I take it anyway. Our fingers brush, just barely, and the contact sends a jolt through me that I refuse to acknowledge. I move past him and sit on the bench, leaving a careful amount of space between us. He sits too, not close enough to crowd me, not far enough to feel like a wall.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The city hums distantly beyond the park, life continuing without regard for how monumental this feels to me.
“I’m glad you agreed to meet,” he says finally. “And I know the rules. I’ll talk. You can stop me anytime.”
I nod. My hands are steady around the cup. I’m proud of that.
“I won’t go over the crash again,” he says. “You already know what happened. What matters is everything around it. Everything after.”
He swallows hard, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of us.
“When Talia and I split, I thought I was handling it,” he continues. “I told myself it was clean. That we were just… done. But she didn’t see it that way. And when she realised I was serious about you, it flipped something in her.”
I don’t react. I don’t give him anything. He keeps going anyway.
“My life’s always been loud,” he says. “Hockey, fans, press, expectations. I’ve learned how to function inside that noise. But she knew how to weaponize it. Every post, every insinuation feltlike standing in front of a crowd while someone else controlled the microphone.”
His jaw tightens. “I didn’t want that aimed at you. I thought if I could just keep things contained, if I could manage it on my own, I could protect you from the worst of it.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make,” I state.
“I know,” he says immediately. No defensiveness. No hesitation. “That’s one of the things I need to own.”
He exhales slowly, breath fogging in the cold air. “I was scared. Of losing you, of ruining what we had the moment I told you the truth. And I convinced myself that waiting just a little longer was better than dropping a grenade into our lives.”
I look at him then. His eyes are red-rimmed. His hands shake slightly where they rest on his knees.
“And the truth is,” he continues, voice roughening, “I didn’t just wait out of fear. I waited because I was selfish. Because I wanted to keep what we had for as long as I could. Even if it meant you didn’t have all the information you deserved.”
The honesty lands heavy and real. It doesn’t soothe me. But it doesn’t insult my intelligence either. I take a breath. “I need to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“Did you ever think choosing me would fix you?”
The question hangs between us, fragile and sharp. He doesn’t answer right away. He thinks for a long moment, and that matters more than the answer itself.
“No,” he says finally. “But I did think loving you made me feel like I could be better. And that scared me. Because it meant I had something to lose.”
I nod slowly. That’s not the worst answer.
“And another,” I say. My voice is steadier than I expect. “Would you have told me if Talia hadn’t threatened you?”
This time, the silence stretches longer.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I want to say yes. I want to believe I would’ve found the courage on my own. But the truth is I might have waited too long. And that’s on me.”
It hurts. But it’s clean pain. The kind that doesn’t rot.
“I loved you anyway,” he says softly. “Even when I was making the wrong choices. Especially then. And I know love doesn’t excuse any of it.”
My chest tightens, but I don’t look away.
