Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Heather
There is a specific kind of silence that follows a catastrophe. It’s not peaceful. It’s a vacuum. It sucks the air out of the room, leaving your lungs burning and your ears ringing with the echo of the explosion.
I hadn't slept. I was wearing the same clothes I had fled the penthouse in—leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that smelled like him. My eyes were swollen shut. My hands were trembling in my lap.
Across from me sat the Dean, Coach Miller, and a woman I didn't recognize. She wore a tailored suit and looked like she ate scholarship students for breakfast.
"Ms. Bloom," the Dean began, his voice tight with disappointment. "We are in a very difficult position."
"I know," I whispered. My voice was a croak.
"The audio recording is... damning," the woman said.
She didn't introduce herself. She just placed a tablet on the desk, pausing the video of Jerry and me in the library.
"It clearly demonstrates a violation of the conduct code.
Public indecency. Potential academic fraud.
And, most critically, a financial relationship between a student-athlete and a peer that violates amateurism bylaws. "
"It wasn't fraud," I said, though the fight had drained out of me. "We were... we are... in love."
Coach Miller snorted. It was a harsh, dismissive sound.
"Love doesn't pay tuition, Ms. Bloom," Miller said. He looked tired. He looked furious. "Love doesn't get the Sabers reinstated to the playoffs. Love doesn't get Jerry Vane drafted."
"Is he..." I choked on the name. "Is Jerry okay?"
"Jerry is currently meeting with his father and the NHL disciplinary committee," the woman said. "His future is hanging by a thread. The Krakens have rescinded their offer. The university is considering suspending him for the season. His scholarship is frozen."
My stomach dropped. I felt physically ill. I had done this. My naivety, my fear, my silence... I had destroyed him.
"However," the woman continued, leaning forward. "There is a path forward."
I looked up. "What path?"
"Damage control," she said. "We need to change the narrative. The public sees a spoiled rich kid buying a girl. We need them to see a predator and a victim."
I frowned. "What?"
"If you sign a statement," she said, sliding a document across the desk, "claiming that Mr. Vane coerced you. That he used his financial power to pressure you into a relationship you didn't want. That you were... a victim of his influence."
I stared at her. The room spun.
"You want me to say he abused me?" I asked, horrified.
"We want you to say he was the aggressor," she corrected smoothly. "If he takes the fall for misconduct, the university can separate itself from him. We can reinstate your scholarship. We can expunge your record. You can finish your degree."
"And Jerry?"
"He has resources," the Dean said. "He'll land on his feet. But he won't play for this university again. And he likely won't play in the NHL."
I looked at the document. It was a lifeline. It was my degree. It was my future. All I had to do was destroy the man I loved.
"No," I said.
The woman blinked. "Excuse me?"
"No," I repeated, my voice gaining a fraction of strength. "I won't do it. I won't lie. Jerry didn't coerce me. He saved me. He was the best thing that ever happened to me."
"Ms. Bloom," the Dean warned. "Think about your future."
"I am," I said. "And I'd rather work three jobs for the rest of my life than sign that."
I stood up. My legs were shaking, but I forced them to hold me.
"Wait," Coach Miller said.
He stood up and walked around the desk. He stopped in front of me. He wasn't looking at me with anger anymore. He was looking at me with... pity.
"You really love him, don't you?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," I said. tears welled in my eyes. "More than anything."
"Then you need to let him go," Miller said.
I froze. "What?"
"Jerry is loyal," Miller said. "To a fault. He's in that meeting right now trying to take the blame. He's trying to say it was all him, that he forced you, just to protect your scholarship. He's going to torch his career to save yours."
A sob escaped my throat. Of course he was. I protect the team. I protect you.
"If you stay in his life," Miller continued, his voice low and urgent, "he will never focus on the game. He will always be fighting his father, fighting the press, fighting for you. And he will lose. He will lose the hockey. He will lose the money. He will lose himself."
He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.
"If you love him, Ms. Bloom... you have to be the one to cut the cord. You have to make him hate you. Because if he loves you... he'll never leave. And if he doesn't leave, he drowns."
You're an anchor. If I take you, I'll drown.
His mother's words echoed in my head.
I looked at Miller. I looked at the Dean. I looked at the woman in the suit.
They were right. I was the variable. I was the liability. As long as I was in the equation, Jerry couldn't win.
"What do I have to do?" I whispered.
"Leave," Miller said. "Leave Sterling Falls. Transfer. Disappear. And before you go... tell him it was all a lie. Tell him you never loved him. Break his heart so completely that he has no choice but to turn back to the ice."
I felt my own heart crack. A fissure that started in the center of my chest and spread outward until I felt like I was shattering into a million pieces.
"Okay," I said. The word was a ghost. "I'll do it."
The walk to the penthouse was the longest journey of my life.
It was raining. A cold, gray drizzle that soaked through my sweatshirt and chilled me to the bone. I didn't take a cab. I needed the time. I needed to rehearse the lines.
I never loved you. It was just for the money. You were a job.
I said them over and over in my head, tasting the bile each time.
I had to be convincing. I had to be an actress. I had to be exactly what Bianca accused me of being: cold, calculating, and heartless.
I reached The Spire. The doorman, George, looked at me with sad eyes. He knew. Everyone knew.
"Ms. Bloom," he said softly. "Mr. Vane is upstairs. He... he hasn't come down."
"Thank you, George," I said. "I'm just getting my things."
I took the elevator up. The silence of the lift was suffocating. I remembered the last time we were in here. The heat. The stolen kisses. The promise of Seattle.
Seattle was dead. The garden was dead.
The doors opened.
The penthouse was dark. The curtains were drawn. It smelled of stale air and scotch.
Jerry was sitting on the couch. He was wearing the same clothes he had on last night—sweatpants and a t-shirt. He was staring at the blank TV screen.
He didn't look up when I walked in.
"I thought I told you to get out," he said. His voice was hoarse.
"I came for my boxes," I said. My voice was steady. I was proud of that. I had locked the sobbing girl away in a mental box and thrown away the key.
He finally looked at me.
He looked wrecked. His eyes were bloodshot. There was stubble on his jaw. He looked like a man who had survived a war only to find out his home had been bombed.
"Take them," he said. "Take everything. I don't want a single trace of you left in this apartment."
I walked to the hallway. My boxes were there, stacked neatly by the door. He must have done it while I was at the Dean's office. Efficient to the end.
I picked up the top box. It was light. Just books and clothes.
I should have walked out. I should have left then.
But I couldn't. I needed to make sure he let me go. I needed to make sure he didn't try to follow me.
I turned back to the living room.
"Jerry," I said.
He flinched. "Don't."
"I need you to know something," I said. I walked closer. I stopped behind the couch. I didn't dare come around to the front. If I saw his face... if I saw the pain in his eyes... I would break.
"I don't want to hear your excuses," he spat.
"It's not an excuse," I said. "It's the truth. You were right."
He went still. "Right about what?"
"About the contract," I lied. "It was just a job. The money... the apartment... it was nice. It was easier than working at the library. And you were... convenient."
He stood up slowly. He turned around.
The look on his face was terrifying. It wasn't anger. It was devastation.
"Convenient?" he repeated. "We planned a life, Heather. We talked about a garden. Was that convenient?"
"It was a fantasy," I said, shrugging. I dug my nails into my palms until I felt skin break. "People say things in bed, Jerry. It's part of the performance."
He stepped toward me. "Performance?"
"Yes," I said. "I'm an actress, remember? You hired me to play a role. I played it. I played the girlfriend. I played the lover. I played the girl who fixed you."
"Stop," he whispered.
"Why?" I pressed. I had to hurt him. I had to drive the knife in deep so the wound would cauterize. "Because it hurts? You think you're the only one who can use people? You used me for your image. I used you for your wallet. We're even."
He grabbed my shoulders. His grip was hard. Desperate.
"Look at me," he commanded. "Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't love me. Tell me that night on the roof was a lie. Tell me the library was a lie."
I looked up at him. I looked into the gray eyes that I had memorized. I saw the desperate hope flickering there, the tiny flame that believed I was better than this.
I had to extinguish it.
I summoned every ounce of strength I had. I summoned the memory of Coach Miller saying, If he loves you, he drowns.
I let my face go cold. I let my eyes go flat.
"I never loved you, Jerry," I said. "I loved the safety. I loved the escape. But you? You're too heavy."
The words hit him like a physical blow. He recoiled, dropping his hands from my shoulders as if I had burned him.
He stumbled back. He looked at me with horror. With absolute, crushing betrayal.
"Get out," he whispered.
"I'm going," I said.
"Get out!" he roared. He grabbed a glass from the coffee table and hurled it at the wall. It shattered, spraying shards across the room. "Get out before I kill you!"
I picked up my box.
I walked to the door.
I didn't look back.
I walked out of the penthouse. I walked into the elevator. I watched the doors slide shut, cutting off the view of his hallway for the last time.
As the elevator descended, I slid down the wall. I curled into a ball on the floor, clutching the box to my chest.
I didn't cry. I couldn't cry. I was empty.
I had done it. I had saved him.
I had killed us.
Jerry
The silence in the penthouse was different now.
Before Heather, the silence was just absence. It was the lack of noise.
Now, the silence was a presence. It was a ghost. It haunted the corners of the room. It screamed from the empty kitchen island. It wept from the greenhouse room where her plants still sat, green and alive, mocking me with their vitality.
She was gone.
It had been three days.
I hadn't left the apartment. I hadn't answered my phone. I hadn't eaten.
I just sat on the couch, staring at the spot where she had stood and told me I was convenient.
You're too heavy.
The words looped in my head, a poison mantra. My mother said it. Heather said it.
It must be true.
I was an anchor. I dragged people down. I ruined them.
My phone rang again.
It wasn't my father. It wasn't my agent.
It was Tank.
I ignored it.
It rang again.
And again.
Finally, I picked it up.
"What?" I rasped.
"Open the door," Tank said.
"Go away."
"I have a key, Jerry. I'm coming in. And I'm bringing beer. And violence, if necessary."
The lock clicked. The door swung open.
Tank walked in. He looked massive in the doorway. He took one look at me—unshaven, wearing the same clothes, surrounded by empty water bottles—and his face softened.
"Jesus, Cap," he muttered. "You look like hell."
"I feel like it," I said.
He walked over and set a six-pack on the coffee table. He sat down next to me.
"She's gone," Tank said quietly.
"I know," I said. "I kicked her out."
"No," Tank said. "I mean... she's gone. She transferred. She withdrew from the university yesterday. She's moving back to Ohio."
I went still.
Ohio.
She had run. Just like my mother.
"Good," I said, my voice cracking. "Let her go."
"Did she tell you?" Tank asked. "About the deal?"
I frowned. "What deal?"
"With the Dean," Tank said. "I heard Miller talking. They offered her a deal. Sign a statement saying you coerced her, saying you abused her, and they would clear her record. They would give her a full ride."
My blood ran cold.
"Did she sign it?" I asked.
"No," Tank said. "She told them to go to hell. She refused to throw you under the bus. She took the fall, Jerry. She left so the heat would die down. So you could stay."
I stared at him. The room spun.
She refused to throw you under the bus.
But she told me... she told me I was convenient. She told me she never loved me.
Performance. Acting.
"She lied," I whispered.
"What?"
"She lied to me," I said, standing up. The realization hit me like a tidal wave. "She told me she used me so I would let her go. She broke her own heart to save my career."
"That sounds like her," Tank said, opening a beer. "She's stubborn. And stupidly loyal."
I paced the room. My mind was racing. The fog of depression was lifting, replaced by a burning, frantic clarity.
She loved me. She loved me enough to leave me.
And I had let her walk away.
"Where is she?" I demanded. "Is she still in town?"
"Bus station," Tank said, checking his watch. "Her bus to Cleveland leaves in forty minutes."
Forty minutes.
I looked at Tank.
"I need your car," I said. "My Porsche is blocked in."
Tank tossed me the keys.
"Go get her, Cap," he said. "And for the love of god, shower before you kiss her."
I didn't shower. I didn't change.
I ran.
I ran out of the penthouse, into the elevator, and down to the garage. I jumped into Tank’s beat-up Jeep.
I roared out of the garage.
I had forty minutes to catch a bus. Forty minutes to fix a mistake. Forty minutes to prove that I wasn't too heavy.
I was going to fly.