But the hallway tilted sideways, then softened at the edges, and I felt Ryan’s hand still pressing hard against my side,refusing to let go. The last thing I heard before the dark took me was his voice telling someone on the phone that I was still breathing.
And I remember thinking, barely, stupidly, desperately, that my body was failing me.
But I saved the girl.
41
Bliss
For one bright, impossible stretch of time, everything felt perfect.
Not safe in the naive, storybook way people pretended the world could be safe if you loved someone hard enough. I knew better than that. I knew monsters could wear familiar faces and sit at your father’s table. I knew happiness could be interrupted by a text, a hand on your throat, a truck behind you on a dark road. I knew the world did not stop being cruel just because a boy with blue eyes kissed you through glass and made twenty thousand people scream like love was something worth cheering for.
But it felt good.
So good I forgot to not trust trust it.
The night outside The Furnace buzzed with postgame electricity, cold October air biting at my cheeks while students poured through the main doors in black, neon pink, and bright yellow waves. Everyone was loud. Everyone was laughing. Cars crawled through the parking lot while people honked and shouted out windows, still drunk on the Fury win and the way Cade Mercer had played like the entire rink owed him blood.
He had scored twice because apparently the man had decided being devastating off the ice wasn’t enough and needed to be publicly obscene with a hockey stick too.
My dad stood beside me with one arm locked around my shoulders like he could physically keep the night from taking me anywhere bad. Ryker was close enough that I could feel him watching the crowd more than the doors. Knox hovered with that cop stillness I used to tease him about before I understoodwhat it cost him to notice everything. Lyon, Emmitt, and Kellen were around us somewhere, arguing and laughing and replaying Cade’s second goal on a phone screen, but for once their noise didn’t feel like a barricade.
It felt like family.
Aura and Charm were beside me too, bundled in coats and secondhand victory, both glowing in the way only best friends could glow when they knew something had shifted and were already planning to ruin your life about it later. Aura kept pretending she wasn’t checking the arena doors for Easton, which was hilarious because Aura Clarke could survive a courtroom, a crime scene, and possibly a hostage negotiation, but apparently not a goalie with pretty eyes and emotional constipation.
I saw you, Aura.
I was in too good of a mood to ruin her life about it.
Not yet, anyway.
“He was ridiculous tonight,” Charm said, still staring at the doors like Cade might appear in slow motion with arena lights behind him and a sports documentary voice-over.
“Embarrassing, honestly,” I said, even though I couldn’t stop smiling. “Like, sir, some of us are trying to be normal about you.”
Aura gave me a slow side-eye. “The man made it clear to anyone who hadn’t seen you in his jersey that you are his and then kissed you through the glass.”
I looked down at the MERCER 55 stretched across my chest beneath my coat. “I am all for school spirit and supporting team morale.”
Charm snorted. “Your school spirit has dimples and causes emotional carnage.”
My dad glanced down at me, his mouth twitching. “You happy, Bug?”
The question landed softer than everything else around me.
For a second, the parking lot blurred at the edges. The students. The shouting. The cold. The neon colors. The whole ridiculous world still spinning like it had not just watched me let myself be seen in a way I had spent years avoiding.
Was I happy?
Cade was inside finishing postgame media, and I was outside with my family, wearing his name and waiting for him without fear chewing through my ribs. My brothers weren’t looking at me like one wrong word might break me open. My dad had watched Cade play tonight with that grudging, terrified respect fathers gave boys they didn’t want to like but couldn’t not because they were good to their daughters. Aura and Charm were beside me. The air was cold. My cheeks hurt from smiling.
Luke Dempsey was still out there somewhere. But for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel bigger than everything else.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I think I am.”
Dad’s arm tightened around me. That should have been the moment I held onto. That should have been the memory.
