7. Katerina
Katerina
For three days, I lived in a twilight zone of back-to-back games, endless ice baths, and player injury reports. I moved through the arena like a ghost, going through the motions of my job with mechanical efficiency.
Keep busy. Don't think. Don't feel.
It was the only survival mechanism I had.
Every time my mind tried to wander, the memory of the past three months would hit me in waves, each detail clicking into place with a sickening thud.
The way Trent had suddenly been so attentive and caring.
How he looked at me as if I were his everything.
The morning he proposed… God… Every sweet gesture, every cooked meal, every lingering touch had been built on a lie.
He hadn't fallen in love with me; he’d been performing a duty.
He’d thrown a ring at me to wrap up a problem, assuming a diamond would convince me to hand over a secret I didn't even have.
When the last player left our treatment room at the arena tonight, I drove home in silence, ignoring the dozens of missed calls sitting on my phone. I pulled into my driveway, and my headlights illuminated a tall, dark figure sitting on my front porch steps.
Trent.
He stood up the second my car pulled in, stepping into the glow of my headlights.
He looked like an absolute wreck. The man I knew was completely gone.
His dark hair was messy; heavy shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and his jaw was covered in thick stubble.
He wasn't even wearing a proper coat in the freezing January air, just a dark hoodie, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, trembling from the cold.
A deep-seated ache bloomed in my chest. Part of me, the part that loved him, the part that had spent the last month dreaming of a future with him, wanted to run to him, wanted to let him pull me into his arms and make the crushing pain go away.
She whispered, he can make it all better.
He can protect you and take away all the pain.
But the little girl who had spent her entire life learning that people leave, she turned into the strong woman who had put herself through school and built a career piece by piece all alone... she stepped up and locked the front door of my heart.
I got out of the car, my bag slung over my shoulder, keeping my face entirely blank as I walked toward the porch.
"Kat," he breathed, taking a panicked step toward me. His voice was raw, "Kat, please… I... I just… Please let me talk to you."
"You shouldn't be here, Trent," I said softly, stopping six feet away.
"I know, no wait, that's not right… This is exactly where I should be," he stammered, his words tumbling over each other as he reached for me, his dark eyes wide and bloodshot.
"I’m sorry, I just… I couldn't stay at my place, couldn't breathe without…
Kat. I haven't slept; I can't... I don't know how to fix this, but I am so fucking sorry… "
"It's cold out. Go home."
"I am home!" he cried out, the raw emotion bursting out of him, "I'm home right here. I’m home with you."
The words punctured my heart, forcing a harsh, humorless laugh to tear out of my throat before I could stop it.
"Stop lying!" The laugh turned into a sob, my wall cracking as tears finally spilled over my lashes, hot against my frozen cheeks. "You don't have to lie anymore, Trent! It's over! The test wasn't mine! There is no baby, so you can stop pretending! You don’t owe me a thing; you never did."
"I'm not pretending!" he pleaded, taking another desperate step, his hands hovering in the freezing air, trembling so hard he couldn't hold them still.
"Kat, listen to me… I got confused, my head was…
I thought I was doing what a man is supposed to do, but I...
I got it all wrong… but I swear… I do… I love you. "
"When?" I demanded, my anger and hurt rising like a tidal wave, completely steamrolling over his frantic, broken attempts to explain.
"When did you fall in love with me, Trent?
Tell me! Was it when you thought I was hiding a pregnancy from you for three months?
Was it when you thought I got rid of our baby to hide something from you?
Or was it when you accused me of cheating on you? "
Trent flinched, opening his mouth, but no sound came out except a ragged gasp of air.
"Was it the morning you gave me the ring?
" I choked out, a fresh wave of tears blinding me.
"When I said I love you for the first time...
and you looked at me and said, ‘you have me’?
God, I was so stupid. I stood there and thought, He can't say the words, but he's showing me with his body, he's showing me with his actions.”
"I was!" he cried out, a thick tear tracking straight down through the stubble on his cheek, as if it were freezing tracks onto his face. "Kat, I was showing you…"
"You were showing the woman who you thought was pregnant with your child.
NOT ME!" I screamed, my voice echoing into the quiet, dark street.
"You were worshipping a belly you thought had your child inside it!
You kissed my stomach like it was sacred, Trent!
And I thought you meant me. I thought you were looking at me.
That I was the precious thing you had to keep close and protect… "
Trent fell silent, his jaw trembling, looking at me with an expression of such profound, crushing agony that it felt like watching a man drown in front of me.
"I fell in love with a man who didn't exist," I whispered, reaching into my coat pocket. My fingers closed around the cold band. I pulled it out and held it toward him. "Take it back."
"No," he choked out, staggering back a step, putting his hands up as if the diamond were a weapon. "No, Kat... please, don't do this. Keep it. Put it in a drawer somewhere for now if you need to, but it is yours… I.. you can’t, don't… don't give it back."
"Our entire engagement was a lie," I said, stepping forward and grabbing his cold hand, forcing his fist open and dropping the ring inside.
“You only proposed because you thought I was carrying your child.
I only accepted because I thought you loved me.
Neither of those things is real. What is left to hold on to? "
"We can build something real," he sobbed, his fingers curling violently around the metal in his palm, his chest heaving. "Please, Kat. I love you. I swear to God, I love you."
"I don't even know who you really are, every moment, every gesture… I keep replaying what were once cherished memories, except now it is all a lie…" I breathed, turning toward the front door, my hands shaking so badly I could barely align the key in the lock. "Go home, Trent."
"Kat, please…"
He reached out, his big, warm arms wrapping around my waist from behind.
I froze. For several agonizing seconds, the crushing weight of the world proved to be too much.
My body betrayed me. I let myself lean back against his broad chest, burying my face in my hands, sobbing into the frigid night as his arms held me tight, his forehead resting against the back of my neck.
"I love you," he whispered into my hair, his breath warm and frantic. "I love you, Kat. Please don't leave me."
The moment shattered, and the reality of what he’d believed about me swept back in like ice water.
"Don't touch me," I gasped, wrenching myself out of his grip. I shoved the door open, stumbled over the threshold into the entryway, and slammed the door shut between us.
I locked it, leaning my head against the worn wood, my heart hammering against my chest, trying to break free, trying to get back where she desperately believed she belonged.
Outside, there was a long, painful silence...
and then the dull thud of someone sliding down the front of the door.
I sank down onto the floor inside, pulling my knees up to my chest. Through the door, I could hear his quiet, ragged breaths.
He hadn't left. He was sitting on the frozen planks of my porch, his back pressed against the same door my back was resting against.
We were so close, separated by a few inches of oak and an ocean of broken trust.
My hands shook as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. My eyes were too blurry to see clearly, but I opened my messages and found Gideon’s name.
He's on my porch
I typed, my tears dripping onto the glass screen.
He isn't wearing a coat, and he won't leave. Please come and get your brother.
I locked the screen, buried my face in my knees, and listened to Trent weep on the other side of the door until the headlights of Gideon's truck finally pulled into the drive, and I let exhaustion pull me under.