Chapter 11
ON THE ROPES (LIZ)
Leo is already in the kitchen when I come out, dressed for the day, coffee poured, keys on the counter.
He looks up, takes me in, and whatever he sees makes his expression settle further into that maddeningly controlled neutrality he’s been wearing.
“Morning.” He hands me a travel mug. Blue Mountain, oat milk already in it.
I take it because not taking it would turn this into a conversation, and I don’t have the bandwidth for one before seven a.m.
We head downstairs in silence.
The city is still stretching awake when we get into the Rover. He pulls away from the curb, one hand on the wheel, the other loose on the console. The quiet in the car isn’t empty. It’s loaded.
“The story shifted,” he says finally.
I keep my eyes on the window. “What story?”
“The media’s calling you my fiancée now,” he says. “Jessica wants to leave it alone for the moment. Says correcting it gives the internet more to play with.”
The coffee goes hotter in my hand.
Fiancée.
As if girlfriend wasn’t bad enough. As if the lie didn’t already fit too well in other people’s mouths. I make myself take a sip anyway. “Convenient.”
His grip tightens once on the wheel, then loosens.
“There’s something else.”
I stare out at scaffolding, delivery trucks, men in office clothes staring at their phones.
“Drake came to see me.”
My head snaps to him.
“When?”
“Yesterday. After training.”
My fingers tighten around the cup. “At your gym?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he touch you?”
Leo glances at me, then back to the road. “No.”
That should help. It doesn’t.
“Did he make a scene?”
“No.”
The city keeps moving past the windows, unbothered. A woman in running clothes waits at a crosswalk. A guy on a bike cuts between lanes. Somewhere, a siren starts up and fades.
I hear myself ask, very evenly, “What did he want?”
“You.”
The word is a gut punch. No softening around it.
Leo’s voice stays level. “He wanted me to know he’s not done.”
My heart runs so fast, there seem to be no individual beats.
Run, says the oldest part of me.
Pack. Book. Disappear before sunset.
But then the rest comes in behind it.
If I run now, I don’t just blow up my life.
I blow up his.
And I hate that part of me notices something else too—that the thought of leaving him lands like a loss before I’ve even decided anything.
Leo doesn’t push into the silence. He just says, “If this is too much, tell me now.”
I look at him. He means it.
That’s the problem.
He would let me out if I asked. He would make room. He would probably drive me to the airport himself and never once make me pay for the mess I would leave behind.
And somehow that makes staying feel more dangerous, not less.
I look back out the window. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
The answer is sharper than I meant it to be. Leo takes it without flinching.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “You are.”
We pull up outside the hospital.
“Text me when you’re inside.”
I open the door. “I know how phones work, Brooklyn.”
The corner of his mouth moves, but only just. “Good.”
I get out without turning back. I feel him there, waiting until I’m through the doors. Making sure I get inside.
Acting like kissing me on the museum steps and then sliding right back into silence cost him nothing at all.
By lunch, I know exactly who I need to call. I take my break on a bench across from the hospital, still in scrubs, my badge tucked into my pocket. The air smells of cut grass and hot pavement. Somewhere behind me, a siren winds up and fades.
I need to hear Mom and Dad’s voices. If I still want to run after that, I’ll know it’s real.
The phone lights up, and my mother answers first, face filling the frame, her hair in neat micro braids that always make me think of Sunday mornings and shared coffee.
Behind her, late-afternoon light slants through tall, old-world windows I’ve seen a hundred times in photos.
Beyond them, a quiet park. Ulm is small and calm in a way New York never is.
“There’s my Lil,” she says, flashing that wide, unstoppable smile.
“Hey, Mom.”
My father leans in a second later, glasses low on his nose. He takes one look at me and makes the same assessment he always does.
“You look tired. Good. Means you’re working hard.”
The German work ethic never fails to amuse me and Mom. “That’s one way to put it.”
The usual questions follow—hospital, sleep, running. I answer on autopilot. Everything’s fine. All good.
My mother tilts her head. She’s always been able to smell a lie.
“You always say ‘fine’ when it’s not.”
“I know. I’m working on expanding my vocabulary.”
That earns a grin from both of them.
My father asks about med school—timelines, first year, whether I’m excited.
“Excited,” I repeat, testing the word. “Yeah. I think so.”
They seem pleased. Relieved. Like this part of my life is still unfolding the way it’s supposed to.
With the city humming at a manageable distance, I almost let myself believe it too.
Mom keeps looking at me, waiting for me to name the thing I’m pretending isn’t there. My father glances away—probably at whatever tab he still has open—and then back at me.
“So,” my mother says lightly, dragging the word out, a smile already pulling at her mouth. “Are you calling to tell us some good news?”
Of course. It made the headlines there too. Eden bragged months ago that if Leo wins in the fall, the spotlight goes international. Especially with a German opponent in the mix.
My father shifts closer. “Your mother’s been waiting all morning. She’s very invested.”
“This is not—” I start, then stop. Recalibrate. “It’s not what it looks like.”
Mom hums, unconvinced. “No? Because it looks like you’re engaged to a very large man with excellent posture.”
She tilts her laptop, and I catch the reflection of another screen: my own face, caught in flash, hair done, a dress I barely remember wearing. Leo beside me in a tux. His hand on my bare back.
The caption is in German.
VERLOBT.
Engaged.
Seeing it in German makes it feel more real than it has any right to. Less like gossip. More like a fact stamped onto my forehead.
“That’s…” I start. Stop. Try again. “It’s not real.”
They don’t move. Even through the screen, I feel the conversation change shape.
My father’s voice turns precise. “Explain.”
“It’s an arrangement.” The words taste like metal. “It started as…damage control.”
My hands won’t be still. I pick at the seam of my scrubs, the smoothie stain, anything.
My mother doesn’t blink. “Damage control for what?”
Something swells at the base of my throat. “Travis found me.”
There’s no soft version of that.
“He made a scene at a bar,” I add quickly, like speed might make it smaller.
“Leo stepped in. Cameras caught enough to turn it into a story.” I force myself to keep going.
“Jessica—his publicist—thought it would stabilize the narrative. Make him seem settled. Not reckless. And it keeps Travis from thinking I’m fair game. ”
My mother’s expression doesn’t change, but her eyes sharpen. “So you’re pretending to be engaged to Leo Carver. A heavyweight boxer.”
I almost laugh.
“He’s Eden’s brother,” I say. “I know him. More than I meant to.”
My father leans back slightly, like he’s giving the conversation room to breathe.
“You two look persuasive together,” my mother says carefully, watching my face. “Too persuasive. Do you think this will make you safe from Travis?”
I hesitate. Then choose my words. “I’ve been thinking,” I say slowly. “About my options.” A breath. “How would you feel if I came to Ulm?”
Silence.
Not the bad kind. The kind that means they’re taking me seriously.
“Not to visit,” I rush to clarify. “For med school.”
My mother exhales first. “Lil,” she says gently. “We would love to have you here. You know that.”
“Always,” Dad adds.
I feel the relief too fast and resent it immediately.
Then Mom tilts her head, just slightly. The way she used to when I was twelve and telling a half-truth.
“But you can’t keep running from that man,” she says.
I stiffen. “I don’t want him in my orbit.”
She doesn’t rush. She never does.
“He has already taken more from you than he ever had a right to.” She waits. “Olympics. Medical school. A child.” Another beat. “You cannot let him take another year from you.”
The words jam somewhere behind my teeth.
“You’ve earned your place where you are,” my father says. “A top program. Full funding.” He holds my gaze. “If you came here, you could make it work. Eventually. But you’d lose time. A year, at least. You’d be starting over. Again.”
“That’s not—” I start. Stop. “That doesn’t solve the problem. He knows where I live. Where I work. He probably knows I’m starting NYU in a few weeks.”
My mother’s voice stays soft. “Lil. Of course you’re afraid. But you know the difference between survival and escape.”
Germany means distance. A different language. Streets Travis doesn’t know. A place I could disappear into and actually stay disappeared.
But even as I reach for it, something in me already knows the truth.
He wouldn’t give up. He would wait.
Dad speaks again, quieter. “You didn’t survive all of that just to keep running.”
“There has to be another way, Lil. One that doesn’t require you to burn your life down,” Mom adds.
The call ends a few minutes later—softly, with love, with promises that don’t feel conditional.
I sit there on the bench long after the phone goes dark. Germany doesn’t vanish. But it stops being an answer.
Travis’s power was never about finding me. It was about waiting me out. And I’m done being waited out.
My shift ends in four hours. Then I go back to Leo’s apartment. Back to the life he’s already standing inside of like he belongs there.
I need a plan that doesn’t start with running.
I’ll figure it out. But I’m starting from Brooklyn.