“Mateo.” She steps back and squeezes my hand once before dropping it. “It’s fine. Go home.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that already.” She’s already moving toward her kitchen, easy and unbothered, or doing a very good impression of it. “Get some sleep. Drink water.”
I stand at the door for a second longer than I should.
“Jess.”
She glances back.
There’s something in her eyes that tells me she’s figured it out. And after how awkward I was with Elida, it’s no wonder she’s made a good guess about what it might be.
“Go,” she says.
I go.
9
Chapter 9
ELIDA
The rink is empty at this hour.
I let myself in and don’t turn on the main lights - just the low practice lights, the ones that make the ice look pale and ethereal. There’s a coaching session later today but I needed time on my own first.
I lace up slowly.
I haven’t skated my own routine since my last competition. It felt too much like picking up something I’d put down for a reason, something I wasn’t sure I had the right to anymore. But this morning, my head was too loud, and this is the only thing that has ever reliably fixed that.
I step onto the ice.
I stand there for a moment, feeling the surface settle under my blades, letting my weight find itself.
Then I push off.
It comes back immediately, like a language you never forgot even when you stopped speaking it. The first sequence flows into the second, the transition changes clean and automatic. I let the muscle memory take over and skate.
The routine is three minutes and forty seconds long. I competed with it for two seasons. I know every beat of the music even in silence, the timing living somewhere in my chest. For three minutes and forty seconds, I’m not a scandal or a cautionary tale.
I’m in the middle of the final sequence - the one that used to make the crowd watch in a hushed silence, the spin combination and jump that cost me two years of mornings to perfect. I land and spin and suddenly there’s someone sitting at the very back of the arena, completely still, watching.
I stop.
He raises a hand. Not a wave exactly - more likeI know, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.
Russo.
Of course.
MATEO
I came in early to skate.
That’s it. I’ve been doing it all year and last night was not a good night so this morning I need it more than usual.
Except when I push through the door the ice isn’t empty.
