But then Nadia’s voice cuts back through my head—sharp and clear.
I ease back enough to see her face and I say so softly it’s hard to tell if the words are coming out or if I’m just thinking them. “Nadia says you saw him.” Her body stiffens. “In the locker room while he invaded her. She was crying. You heard her.” Her eyes flicker. “Is it true?” I ask it carefully because my anger is changing shape now.
Less rage. More hurt.
Her lip trembles then she nods.
Everything inside me fractures.
Not just because of those girls.
Because she looked me in the eye every day and still decided I wasn’t safe enough to tell.
Annika knows my fear isnotbeing enough for my family, for football fans and for the woman I love to not trust me feels like someone’s rolling me over shards of glass.
“I…” she tries to speak but it gets tangled in her throat. “I was always there because he was my ride. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You have told me for months everything is a choice. I chose to be late in college. I chose to move home. I chose football over hockey. I chose to trust you.” My voice disappears by the end.
Her eyes widen.
“Do you know how hard it was for me after Michigan? How hard it’s been for me to trust another woman?” I ask.
She stares at me, her blue eyes rimmed with red.
“You kept asking me to let you in. To trust you with my head, my career, my fears.” I shake my head, emotion thick in my throat. “And the whole time, you never trusted me enough to let me carry this weight with you.”
“I was trying to survive.”
I shut my eyes briefly, regretting the direction of the conversation. “I know you were trying to survive,” I says quieter. “Part of me wants to pull you into my arms and tell you none of this changes anything,” I confess. Because God, I don’t want to live without her. “And the other part doesn’t know how to make peace with it yet,” I admit. “Because losing you feels like I don’t have the air I need to breathe.”
She flinches like I slapped her, then her face crumples. And I hate that it does and that I’m part of it.
I drag my hands into my hair and pull on it, pacing around trying to regain control.
Families begin lining up in the tunnel, waiting for theplayers to come from the locker room, so I take her hand and pull her into the equipment room.
I have one more question. “Why didn’t you show up at the trial to testify?”
“I couldn’t.”
I take a deep breath and whisper, “That’s not an answer.”
“If I did, he would kill me.” Her voice cracks. “And I would’ve had to say everything he did to me and everything IthinkI saw. I couldn’t survive it.”
I believe that she believed him. I do. And maybe that’s what makes this impossible.
Just to keep the timeline in my head accurate, I ask, “So you left for America?”
“As soon as I had a chance, before it came out. I thought if I left, I could outrun the pain and it would disappear.”
“And yet, here you are, face-to-face with it.”
She shuts her eyes and echoes, “And yet.”
“I just wish he’d never had the power to scare you into silence,” I say, voice roughening, the words heavy on my tongue. “He got off… and the odds are that he’s out there doing it again.”
She lets out a sob that moves through her whole body. “I know.”