Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CALLUM
The rink is empty when I get there. It’s the kind of quiet that usually makes my skin itch, because I’m used to noise of blades on ice, pucks slamming the boards, and voices echoing off concrete and steel.
Today, though, it feels right. I shouldn’t be here this early.
I know that. Coach would tell me to get some rest, to stop overtraining and trust the work I’ve already put in.
But sleep was impossible anyway. My mind wouldn’t settle, my body too wired and restless, buzzing with the echo of yesterday.
Rose.
The way she stood in front of me. The way she didn’t fold, didn’t soften herself to make it easier for me. The way she said she wasn’t ready to forgive me and still told me she wanted to try.
I lace my skates slowly, deliberately, like dragging the moment out will somehow help me process it. When I step onto the ice, the cold seeps straight through the blade and into my bones, sharp, familiar and grounding.
I push off. Just me. No drills or systems and no expectations, because I’ve come to learn that’s how this works.
I skate laps at first, long and steady, breath puffing white in the air. The rhythm settles me. Each stride feels like a promise to myself; it’s controlled and intentional.
I stop at centre ice and let myself look around.
This place has always been my anchor. The one thing I understood without effort.
The one place I never doubted myself. Somewhere along the way, I let it become a shield too, something I hid behind when the rest of my life felt too complicated to face head-on. I don’t want to do that anymore.
I take a puck from the bucket near the boards and start working on edge control, slow tight turns, focusing on balance instead of speed. I think about Rose’s face when she asked me those questions in the park.
Did you ever think choosing me would fix you?
The answer still sits heavy in my chest. I didn’t think it consciously. I didn’t frame it like that in my head. But somewhere, buried under fear and guilt and the pressure of being who everyone expected me to be, I think I hoped loving her would make the rest of it quieter. That was unfair.
Would you have told me if Talia hadn’t threatened you?
That one hurt worse, because the answer wasn’t clean. I don’t know. I want to believe I would have found the courage eventually. But wanting isn’t the same as doing. And that’s the truth I have to live with.
The sound of another blade cutting into the ice pulls me out of my thoughts. I don’t have to turn to know who it is.
“Coach is going to lose his mind when he realises you’ve been out here since dawn,” Lukas says mildly as he skates up beside me.
I snort. “He won’t notice if I don’t tell him.”
Lukas circles once, eyes scanning me, sharp as ever. “You look like hell.”
“Feeling lighter though,” I say honestly.
That makes him pause. We glide to a stop near the boards. Lukas leans on his stick, studying me like he’s trying to decide how hard to push.
“So,” he says finally. “How did it go?”
I take a breath. Let the answer come out slowly, fully formed.
“I told her everything that mattered,” I say. “Not the crash again. Not the headlines. Just… me. The fear. The pressure. How trapped I felt. And how none of that excuses what I did.”
“And?”
“And she didn’t forgive me.”
I watch him carefully, but Lukas doesn’t react the way most people would. He just nods.
“But she didn’t shut the door either,” I add. “She said she’s not broken. She’s just not ready.”
A hint of approval flickers across his face. “That’s big.”
“It is,” I agree. “I feel like… I don’t know, like I’m not chasing an outcome. I just want to do this right. However long it takes.”
He smiles then, it’s small but genuine.
“You’re learning,” he says. “About damn time.”
I laugh gently, the sound echoing in the empty rink. “I want to make it work. With her. But I don’t want to pressure her into being okay before she actually is.”
“That’s the difference,” Lukas says. “Between wanting someone and deserving them.”
The words sit with me as we skate a few more laps together, the silence companionable now instead of heavy. When we finally head off the ice, my legs are burning in that satisfying, earned way. The kind that tells me I showed up, not that I punished myself.
My phone buzzes while I’m unlacing my skates.
Rose.
Just her name on the screen is enough to make my heart stutter.
Lunch?
There’s a café by the river. If you’re free.
I stare at it for a long second, then force myself not to overthink my reply.
I’m free. I’d like that.
The café is small and bright, all glass and pale wood, sunlight spilling in through wide windows that look out over the river. Boats drift past slowly, the water glinting silver under the afternoon sky. I get there early. Of course I do.
When Rose walks in, my chest tightens, not with panic, but with something warm and steady. She looks like herself again. Still guarded, still careful, but present. The dark circles have gone from beneath her eyes and there’s a spark there again.
She smiles when she sees me. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
We order, then sit at a table by the window. There’s a moment where neither of us speaks, and for once it doesn’t feel as if it’s a problem.
“This place is nice,” I say eventually.
“I come here when I need to think,” she replies. “It helps.”
“I can see why.”
We talk about ordinary things at first. Uni. Training. A stupid story Lukas told that still makes her laugh. The ease surprises me, even though it shouldn’t. This is what we were always good at.
At some point, she meets my eyes, her expression serious but not closed off. “I’m not ready for everything,” she says. “But I want to keep doing this.”
I nod. “However you need it to be.”
She watches me for a beat, as if she’s checking for impatience, expectation, or pressure even. Whatever she’s looking for, she seems to find the absence of it reassuring.
“Thank you,” she says.
When lunch ends, we walk along the river together. Not touching but not apart either. Just side by side, steps matching without effort. There’s no dramatic moment. No declaration or promise of forever. But there’s laughter and smiling.
There’s connection and that feels enough for now.