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Safe.

Going to Denver was the right choice. I needed to see what was possible. Prove I was more than what he’d reduced me to in the hallway.

Except nothing felt right. My blazer was too tight. The airplane seat too small. And while the plane took off, in the space where my phone couldn’t reach me and his texts couldn’t find me, I realized something that made my belly drop.

I wasn’t running toward an opportunity.

I’d spent weeks putting my hands on Brashe’s injury, watching his every movement, looking for compensation or a sign he was protecting something damaged. I could map his trauma in muscle and tissue.

But I’d never let him see mine.

I’d asked him to be whole while I’d stayed hidden behind nitrile gloves and a professional mask.

I was running because staying meant admitting that what he’d said had been true. Not that I was only valuable for what I did, but that I’d been so desperate to prove my worth through fixing him that I’d never let him see the parts of me that were still broken.

As Boston disappeared beneath the clouds, I pressed my forehead against the window.

Somewhere below, he was probably doing his morning stretches. Following the instructions I’d written in the margins, the ones he’d laminated because they mattered.

Like I’d mattered.

The plane leveled out, but I still didn’t know if I was flying toward something or away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

BRASHE

Early morning, I sat in the back of the team bus, watching the away-team’s city blur past. My hip felt perfect. No pull or ache. Nothing but the ghost of what Ellie had fixed.

My body worked fine now.

Everything else was fucked.

The team buzzed around me, my teammates high on last night’s win. 5-0. A shutout. I’d played the best hockey of my life.

Because I’d had nothing left to lose.

Every save last night had been me trying to punish something. The ice, maybe. Or the voice in my head that kept replaying what I’d said in the hallway. The puck hit my glove, and I wanted it to hurt. It didn’t. Nothing did. That was worse.

I appreciate everything you did. Getting me back on the ice. That’s your job, right?

Victory tasted like sour sweat on my tongue.

She hadn’t been there.

My phone sat in my hand, her text thread open. I’d been staring at it since we’d left the hotel.

I don’t know how to be less broken either.

She’d sent it yesterday, before I’d stepped onto the ice and played like I was trying to die.

My thumb hovered over the keyboard, but I wasn’t sure how to reply. Was this her saying goodbye or was she saying she understood? I didn’t dare hope this meant she thought there was still a chance for us.

I typed a message. I miss you.

My thumb hovered over send. My chest felt like someone had laced my ribs too tight.

Delete.