Chapter 46
Luna
“Zayden?” I wake up with his name on my lips. For a second, I forget where I am. Then I remember the fall. Zayden’s voice when he called me baby.
“I’ve got you,” was the last thing I heard before everything went black.
I search the room like he might be in here somewhere, but it’s empty. That’s when I see the folded paper on the tray beside me.
Maybe he was here and didn’t want to wake me. That’s one of his notes telling me he’ll be back soon. A small smile stretches my lips as I reach for it.
I unfold it.
Luna,
I promised I wouldn’t disappear without telling you. And I always keep my promises.
I’m leaving for the Valcérre national team. They offered me a contract. It’s what I’ve worked for and always wanted.
What we had was never everything you imagined.
It was a distraction I let go on for too long.
Hockey is the one thing that’s always felt real to me. It’s what makes me feel free. It’s time for me to focus on that, on the game I love most.
Focus on your skating, and stop digging.
There’s still time to protect yourself. Let this go.
I should’ve never let in that chaos of yours.
Our story was always written on thin ice. And thin ice cracks under pressure.
Zayden
At first, I just stare.
Then I reread it.
Again.
And again.
No, my little storm.
No, I’ll be back.
I try to breathe, thinking that maybe if I focus on the pain in my ribs, I won’t have to face the one in my chest.
The same boy who sprinted across the ice screaming baby like the world was ending…just told me I was a distraction.
He told me figure skating was what made him feel free. Not hockey. Never hockey. That was his father’s dream. Not his.
He said he was mine. And I believed him. I believed every single lie he told me. I gave him everything. Every piece I’d never let anyone see. Then he left and didn’t even say goodbye to my face. And for the first time since I was a kid, I feel small again, forgotten, abandoned.
The tears sting, hot and humiliating as they slide down my face. I press my lips together to stop the sob building in my throat from escaping, but it’s too late.
He said he always keeps his promises, but that’s bullshit.
What about when he said we’d burn this school down together?
When he said he wouldn’t push me away? That I didn’t have to hurt alone anymore?
My chest tightens so hard, I can’t breathe. I press my hand over my heart, like that’ll stop it from shattering completely.
I hate him for making me believe in us.
I hate how much this hurts.
I hate that I let him in.
I hate that I gave him everything.
And still…
I wish he was here.
Because Zayden always made things better. He always knew what to say. How to hold me. How to make it stop hurting.
This time, he’s the one who’s hurting me, but I refuse to believe everything was a lie.
I know what I felt.
I know what he felt.
I know what we felt.
No note will make me forget the truth I saw in his eyes.
The truth I tasted on his lips.
The truth I felt every time he held me like I was home. I swipe at my face angrily, but the tears won’t stop.
Until he looks me in the eye and says none of it meant anything, I won’t believe this is the end of us.
He said our story was written on thin ice, but he’s wrong.
Our story is carved in the ice. Zayden Aldenhurst is carved into my heart forever.
I press the crumpled note against my chest, tears soaking into the paper. My body hurts from the fall, but this? This is the kind of pain no morphine can help with.
And if they’re the reason he left me, they just made the biggest fucking mistake of their lives. Because I’m done being the girl who gets left behind, and nothing will stop me from burning this school to the ground. With or without him.
To be continued…