The hockey rink.
There’s no question who she’s going to see while she’s there.
My grip tightens around the phone until the edges bite into my palm. She’s going to see Chris. It’s innocent, they’re probably just finishing that stupid project they were working on together, but after last night, I don’t know what the hell she’s thinking.
It’s nothing. Of course, it’s nothing. She’d have told me something if there was more going on.
Except… she didn’t.
She didn’t tell me when her dad crushed her spirit.
She didn’t tell me who she was out with last night or what happened to make her unravel until she was standing in my doorway shaking like she’d forgotten how to hold herself up.
And I didn’t push because I was too focused on piecing her back together to ask who broke her in the first place.
What if it was Chris?
What if she’s getting what she needsfrom him?
A sour taste creeps up my throat, and my chest tightens until it feels like someone’s cinching a belt around my ribs, hole by hole, stealing my air.
Last night she told me she didn’t know who she was without me.
Tonight she’s choosing to be with someone who isn’t me.
My mind loops on it, gnawing itself bloody. If she can laugh with Chris when she’s been unraveling with me, what does that make me? The storm she wants to escape from, or the anchor she’s desperate to cut loose?
“You good, Z?” Reese’s voice cuts faintly through the fog.
I force my head up, but my jaw’s so tight it hurts. “Yeah.”
He gives me a skeptical look but doesn’t push, he just tosses his bag over his shoulder and heads for the door. The rest of the guys trickle out with him, joking and shoving each other like the world’s still simple.
When the door swings shut behind them, the silence creeps in.
I shove the phone into my pocket before I can throw it across the room, and drag a hand down my face, trying to scrape the panic off. It clings like oil.
If I lose her, I lose everything.
The cold air of the hockey rink hits me as I push through the doors, a welcome shock to my system after the stuffy warmth of the library. The familiar sound of blades scraping against ice echoes through the empty arena.
Chris and Chase are already out there, practicing, so I climb up into the stands, finding a spot to watch them in their impromptu one-on-one. Neither of them notices me. They’re too wrapped up in their own orbit, brothers in perfect opposition, and for a minute I just… watch, and let the silence of it all seep into my bones.
“Come on, big brother!” Chris taunts as he steals the puck from Chase. “You're telegraphing your moves again!”
“Oh, hey, Honey,” Chase says, making Chris whip his head around, and when he spots me, a wide smile spreads across his face. Chase takes his opportunity and snatches the puck back from his brother, then skates around him. “If you want to impress your girlfriend, you’ve got to do a better job than that.”
“She's not my girlfriend,” he says, and something in his voice doesn’t sound entirely convinced.
“Could've fooled me,” Chase mutters, just loud enough for me to hear, before raising his hand in greeting.
I wave back, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Don't let me interrupt your practice.”
“Too late,” Chase says with a grin, skating toward the exit. “I've got class anyway. She's all yours, bro.”
Chris mutters something under his breath that I don’t catch, then pushes off, gliding over to the door that leads to the stands. I shuffle through the seats to meet him there.
“Sorry about him,” he says as he opens the door.