He stayed silent long enough that unease crawled slowly across my skin.
Then he said, “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t show anyway.”
I froze. The observation struck far too close to truths I had spent years ensuring nobody noticed.
How much do you see?
The distance between us suddenly felt dangerously small again.
Before I could answer, Dean glanced past me toward the doorway.
“I think you’re wanted.”
I turned.
Mila stood just inside the entrance watching us both with unreadable focus.
“Coach is looking for you,” she said. “You need to come now.”
The wording sounded neutral. The tone underneath it did not.
I nodded. “Of course.”
Dean stayed near the boards. “Good luck.”
“You too.”
Mila ignored him. That felt deliberate.
We left the rink together in silence, footsteps echoing through the corridor while arena noise gradually swallowed the quiet space we’d occupied moments earlier.
Usually Mila spoke quickly after noticing a problem.
This time she said nothing.
The silence stretched long enough that tension started coiling beneath my ribs again.
Finally I asked, “What did you see?”
She didn’t answer right away.
“Enough.”
We reached the main corridor before she stopped walking and turned toward me fully.
“You need to be careful.”
My heart thumped. “About what?”
Mila held my gaze steadily. “About who is watching you.” She uttered the words with no emphasis, no sense of drama.
That made the warning far harder to dismiss.
She studied my face another second before continuing down the corridor without waiting for me to respond.
I followed automatically, though the rhythm between us felt subtly wrong now, alignment fractured in ways I could not repair easily.
For years, Mila had been the only person who saw past the performance.
