“And you?” Clara asks.
I look at her.
“What about you?” she repeats. “Where doyoufit in that list?”
The answer comes unbidden and terrifying.
After him.
I hate that.
“I don’t want to lose him,” I whisper.
Clara reaches across the coffee table and squeezes my hand. “Then don’t lose yourself trying to keep him.”
We sit there as the wine level sinks lower and lower, the bottle sweating onto my coffee table, time stretching in that hazy way it only ever does when you’re half-tipsy and trying not to think too hard. Outside my windows the city keeps breathing, keeps moving, headlights sliding along the road below like ribbons of light, people laughing somewhere on the pavement, a bus sighing as it pulls away from the stop. Someone’s music thumps faintly through an open window across the street. Ordinary sounds. Ordinary lives. It’s disorienting, how normal everything feels when my chest is tight and my thoughts won’t settle, like the world didn’t get the memo that something inside me has shifted. The flat glows softly around us, lamps casting warm pools of light that should feel comforting, and usually do, but tonight it only highlights how still I am, how much I’m holding inside. Life keeps going with lectures, games, dinners, nights out, all while I sit here staring into my glass, wondering when exactly the ground tilted beneath my feet and whether I’ve been pretending not to notice.
But somethingiswrong. I can feel it now, that low ache under my ribs.
Talia’s words replay again, sharper this time.
Ask him why he feels guilty.
I don’t know what Callum is hiding. And I’m scared of what I might find when I finally ask.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CALLUM
The cold air of the rink and the familiar smell of sharpened steel are usually enough to steady me. Today it doesn’t. Today it feels loud and bright, like every echo is aimed straight at the thing I’ve been trying not to think about. My skates bite into the ice as I circle once, twice, muscle memory taking over while my head stays somewhere else entirely—on Rose, on the way her eyes searched my face the other night, on Talia’s words curling around my spine like smoke I can’t clear.
I slam the puck harder than necessary into the boards and hear someone whistle from the bench. Lukas glides over, easy and unbothered, sweat darkening the collar of his jersey.
“Jesus, mate,” he says. “You trying to break the rink?”
“Just warming up,” I mutter, but my jaw’s tight enough that it’s obvious I’m lying.
He studies me for a second longer than he needs to, then jerks his head toward the bench. “Come on. Water break.”
I follow him off the ice, hands shaking just enough that I have to clench them into fists. We sit, shoulder to shoulder, bottles cracking open, the rest of the boys loud around us. Normally this is where I’d switch off, slip back into the version of myself that only thinks in plays and pressure and muscle. Instead, my chest feels like it’s caving in.
“You’ve been off all week,” Lukas says quietly. “Not game-off. Head-off.”
I blow out a breath. “You ever make a decision that feels small at the time, and then it just… grows teeth?”
He snorts. “That’s most decisions.”
I stare down at the ice between my skates. The words sit heavy on my tongue, poisonous and overdue. If I say them, they’re real. If I say them, I can’t take them back.
“I fucked up,” I say finally.
Lukas doesn’t joke this time. He waits.
“There was a car crash,” I begin, voice low enough that it’s barely a sound. “Months ago. It was raining and late. I ran a red. Caused a three-car crash behind me.”
His head snaps toward me. “What?”
“I didn’t drag her out,” I add quickly, the old panic flaring even now. “I didn’t touch her. But I didn’t stop either. I panicked. Talia was with me. She told me to keep driving. She screamed at me to keep going.”
