Cleaner.
Sharper.
The ache of a wound finally allowed to close.
I could love him without losing myself.
The realization settled into my bones like truth I'd been too afraid to claim.
I didn't have to choose between caring for my father and caring for my own survival. Didn't have to light myself on fire to keep him warm. Didn't have to drown trying to save someone who refused to swim.
I could grieve his choices without inheriting them. Could mourn the father I'd needed without sacrificing the woman I was becoming.
The automatic doors slid open. Cold air hit my face. I gulped it down—sharp, bracing, alive.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I didn't check it.
Because there was only one person I wanted to hear from.
And he'd told me not to come back.
But Gideon didn't know yet—I wasn't the same woman who'd left his house this morning. That woman would have obeyed. Would have stayed away out of fear or guilt or the belief she didn't deserve to claim what she wanted.
This woman?
This woman knew exactly where she needed to be.
I unlocked my car with shaking hands. Slid into the driver's seat. I sat gripping the steering wheel. Breathing hard through my teeth. Chest rising and falling in uneven rhythm. Eyes stinging. Hands shaking.
The parking garage stretched empty around me—concrete pillars, fluorescent buzz, the smell of oil and exhaust. Cold seeped through the windows. My breath fogged the glass.
For years, I'd fought for scraps of my father's attention. His approval. His care. Begging him to see me. To choose me. To put me first just once.
He never did.
Gideon?
Gideon paid my bills without asking for gratitude. Kept my shop running when I couldn't afford the lights. Fed me when I refused to eat. Washed me when shame tried to drown me. Held me through nightmares I didn't deserve comfort for. Risked everything—his hand, his career, his entire future—the moment danger touched me. Then let me walk away because keeping me safe mattered more than keeping me his.
My hand lifted to my neck. Found the fading bruise beneath my jaw. The one I'd covered. Hidden. Been ashamed of.
His mark.
A sob tore from my throat. Raw. Ugly. Stripped of every defense I'd built.
Gideon didn't just want me. He chose me. Over hockey. Over pride. Over the violence that lived in his bones and the control that defined him.
He'd tried pushing me away to protect me. And every cell in my body screamed that staying gone was wrong. Wrong in a way I couldn't ignore. Wrong like missing a limb. Wrong like forgetting how to breathe.
"I shouldn't go back."
The words felt hollow. False. A script I'd written for someone else's life.
My fingers tightened on the wheel until my knuckles went white.
"But I want to."
