I stopped at my door, fumbling with the key card. It took three tries to get it to work, my fingers too numb to grip properly.
Max reached over and took it from me, swiping it cleanly. The lock clicked green.
"I'm coming in," he said.
"I’m fine, Max. I’m going to grab a shower.” I pasted a smile on my face and laughed as if his reaction was a joke. He relaxed and nodded.
“Text me when you’re out of the shower.”
“Yes,Mom,” I teased. Kept the pretense up until he left. Even turned on the shower, but before I could actually get in, thememory I’d been forcing away since I’d hurt my knee came rushing back.
I was eight when my father lost control.
It happened as I was walking home from school. I was on the ground, knees pulled in, arms over my head while one of the boys kicked at my side and another yelled, "Ya wee runt." Not hard enough to do anything but bruise. Just enough to hurt.
“Get up,” someone said.
Then my father’s voice cut through everything.
“Get away from him.”
The boys froze. My father jogged toward us, his face tight with fury, eyes locked on me. I’d never seen him angry like that—not loud, not shouting, just… contained. Like something straining to break loose.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped.
One of them shoved me again, like he couldn’t help himself.
My father took a step forward.
And the world went cold.
My breath turned white. The air burned my lungs. Ice raced across the pavement, up the fence, snapping like it was alive. Someone screamed. Someone slipped and didn’t get back up.
“Da,” I said.
I tried to stand, tried to crawl toward him, but the cold pressed me flat, heavy and suffocating. I could feel it in my chest, like something answering something else. Like the ice knew me.
The boys froze where they stood.
Three of them never moved again.
My father dropped to his knees, hands shaking, frost crawling up his neck. He looked at me then—not angry, not even afraid.
Horrified.
Ma never forgave me. “This is your fault,” she said after the doctors had let us both go because the freak weather they blamed it on hadn’t affected either of us. Her fingers dug into my arm. “You made him lose control.”
“I didn’t—”
“You always do this,” she said, her voice breaking. “You ruin everything.” She’d always disliked me, and I never knew why. Not then, anyway.
We fled Scotland anyway. New names. Canada. Cold that didn’t ask questions. The council erased our lives.
My father was never the same after the deaths. A year later, he walked into the snow and didn’t come back.
I stood in the bathroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror as steam filled the space. My hands gripped the edge of the sink so hard my knuckles went white.
The memory wouldn't stop.