“Don’t go,” I say when she shifts slightly in her chair like she’s about to stand.
“I’m staying,” she promises immediately.
Relief spreads through me before I can stop it.
“Zane’s here,” she continues.“Coach too. Gwen. Tess. Leo.”
“Did Coach seem angry?” I ask automatically, because I don’t yet know what losing time on the ice means for me.
“Not at all,” she says quickly.“He’s worried about you as a person.”
Good. Because right now, I don’t know who I am if hockey disappears. And that thought scares me more than the injury itself.
“Could you get Leo?” I ask after a moment.
She tilts her head slightly.
“There’s something I need to do.”
She nods without hesitation, her hand brushing my cheek briefly before she stands and leaves the room, and for a second I almost ask her to stay anyway.
But I don’t.
Because this matters.
By the time Leo walks in, the medication has already started dragging me back toward sleep again. My shoulder pulses in slow waves of pain that feel distant compared to the exhaustion settling into the rest of my body.
“You look terrible,” he says as he closes the door behind him.
“You should see the other guy,” I mutter.
He doesn’t laugh. Which tells me he already knows why I asked him to come in here.
“You know what this all meant,” I say.
It isn’t a question. He nods once.
“I do,” he says quietly.
“She’s going to talk to him, I just know it,” I continue slowly, forcing myself to stay awake long enough to finish what I need to say.“To Perth.”
His expression tightens immediately.
“She thinks this is her fault,” I add.“She thinks if she fixes something with him, it stops.”
“That’s not how Perth works,” Leo says quietly.
“I know,” I reply.“She doesn’t.”
He studies me carefully for a moment before speaking again.
“You want me to stop her?”
“I want you to keep an eye on her,” I correct, because the difference matters more than it sounds like it does.“If she talks to him alone, he’ll make her feel like she owes him something.”
Leo nods slowly.
“He won’t touch her again,” he says.
