10. Chapter 11
Mara
Tessa's text sits on my screen like a splinter.
I can't do this anymore. Don't tell my mom.
Dane is already moving toward the exit before I finish reading it out loud. No questions. No hesitation. He just grabs his jacket off the bench and says, "Where?"
“She likes to hang out at the City Sculpture Park. We can try there.”
We hit the parking lot and I see Tessa’s car.
"She's here. Has to be." I follow him back into the lobby.
"Lower bleachers by the Zamboni entrance?"
I stop. "Why there."
"It's the only place in this building she could go without a key card."
We cut through the east corridor together, our footsteps the only sound. I don't know what I expected. An argument, maybe. A demand for context. Dane Kincaid doesn't do anything the way I expect.
The bleachers are dark except for the ice glow coming off the main rink.
Tessa is tucked into the third row from the bottom, knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around them. She's still in her practice clothes. The cold in this building is real, and she's been sitting in it long enough that her cheeks are blotchy.
She looks up when she hears us.
Her face goes tight. "I said don't tell anyone."
"I didn't tell anyone." I climb the rows and sit beside her. Not too close. "I just didn't come alone."
Tessa looks at Dane. Wary.
He stops at the bottom row and leans against the rail like he's got nowhere better to be. He doesn't try to sit with us. He doesn't try to talk. He just stays.
I turn back to Tessa. "Talk to me."
She presses her lips together. For a second, I think she won't. Then the whole thing breaks loose.
She talks for ten minutes straight. About the competition in four weeks.
About how her mom cried after the last practice because Tessa stepped out of a triple Lutz.
About how she went home that night and ate half a dinner and told herself if she lost five pounds the jump would come easier.
About how she can't sleep. About how she loves skating and she also can't stand the sight of the rink some mornings.
She's not crying anymore. She looks exhausted, like from a hard cry. Dried out.
I don't fill every pause. I just listen.
When she finally stops, the silence runs for a moment.
Then Dane says, very quietly: "You know what I did when I was eighteen and the coach told me I'd never make it past the minors?"
Tessa blinks at him.
"I skated harder for three months straight. Did every extra drill. Cut weight. Trained through a bruised rib." He shrugs. "Blew out my shoulder two weeks before the season started. Missed the whole year."
Tessa stares at him.
"I thought working harder was the answer. Turns out, working smarter and eating enough food is the answer." He tilts his head. "Shocking, I know."
Something cracks in Tessa's expression. Almost a smile. Not quite.
"You actually blew out your shoulder?"
"Right shoulder. Three screws."
"And you still play?"
"Four years later I turned pro." He finally sits down and leans his elbows on his knees.
"My point isn't that it gets easier. My point is that my dad who told me to push through everything was wrong.
But I listened anyway, and it cost me a year.
" He glances at her. "You're too good of a skater, just listen to your coach. "
Tessa looks at me.
I hold her gaze. "You're too good to lose yourself."
She exhales as you can feel some pressure release.
We sit with her for another ten minutes. She eats half a granola bar from my jacket pocket, which I count as a win. Dane says almost nothing else. He just stays there, solid and still, like the row of seats needs an anchor. I love looking at this hunk of a man but can’t lose focus with Tessa.
By the time we walk Tessa to her car, she looks like a person again instead of a wire pulled too tight.
She hugs me at the door. Quick, tight.
"Don't tell my mom."
"I will have to talk to her. Not tonight." I pull back and look at her. "But I'm on your side. Okay?"
She nods. Gets in. Drives away.
I stand in the parking lot and watch the taillights disappear.
Dane is a few feet behind me, hands in his pockets, not pushing.
"Thank you," I say without turning around.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Thank me like I did something. I just sat there."
I turn. He's watching me with that look I've started to suspect isn't blank at all. There's too much happening behind it.
"Sitting there was the right call."
He shrugs. Walks toward his truck without another word.
I follow, which I tell myself is just because the parking lot is dark and my car is on the same side.
He unlocks the truck. I don't know why I walk to the passenger door. He doesn't say anything, just reaches across from the inside and pushes it open.
"Let's just get out of here for a minute."
I get in.
The cab has that new car smell. His right hand rests on the center console, not quite reaching for mine.
We pull out of the lot. The highway stretches ahead, mostly empty at this hour. City lights bleed across the windshield in strips.
One incomplete exchange. Then silence for two exits.
"She's been feeling alone for a while," he says.
"Yeah."
"Her mom doesn't know any of it?"
"Her mom is the reason all this started."
He's quiet. Then: "You're going to have a hard conversation."
"I know."
"You're good at it."
I look at him. "What makes you think that?"
"Because you walked into that rink on day one and confronted me without flinching. Most people don't do that." He keeps his eyes on the road. "You know how to say the hard thing. You just don't always say it for yourself."
The cab is quiet.
"What are you afraid of?"
I keep my eyes on the windshield, because looking at him right now would cost me something I can't spend.
My first instinct is to say nothing. My second is to list something safe.
Neither one is true.
"I've been the coach's daughter my whole life.
" The words come out before I decide to let them.
"Everything I do either helps him or makes things complicated for him.
I built my whole program here because it was adjacent to something he approved of.
" I pause. "I've never done anything that was just mine. "
"The skating program."
"Came with access to this rink. Which he controls."
Dane doesn't say anything for a long moment.
"That's not your fault."
"I know."
"But you've been acting like it is."
He's just naming something I've been stepping around for years. I look out the window and watch the streetlights streak past.
I can only sit here quietly, staring at streetlights.
He pulls back into the rink parking lot, where my car is one of three left. Cuts the engine. Neither of us moves right away.
"What happens with Tessa?" he asks.
"I talk to her mom. Document the conversation. Push for a training modification." I exhale. "And if Julie Vale argues, I push harder."
"And if she pulls Tessa from your program?"
"Then I make sure Tessa has somewhere else to go." I look at him. "I'm not letting her disappear into that pressure cooker with no one in her corner."
He nods. Slow. Like that answer means something.
"You do this for all your skaters?"
"I do it for the ones who need it."
He's quiet. And then something in his expression shifts, just slightly, and I realize he's not asking about Tessa anymore.
My phone rings.
I look at the screen.
Dad.
My stomach drops. He never calls this late.
I answer.
"Hey."
"Mara." His voice is controlled. The tight kind. "I need you to come in tomorrow morning. Early." A pause. "Bowman called me tonight."
I go still. "About what?"
The silence before he answers is a half-second too long.
Dane turns his head at me.
"He wants you off the team conditioning program."