9 #2
“No. I should’ve handled it three days ago.”
The truth sounded strange coming from me without preparation or apology.
My mother watched me long enough for the silence to press against every tender place inside me. “I see.”
Her tone cooled, and guilt immediately crowded beneath my ribs. Every old instinct started screaming that I should apologize, change my plans, offer lunch tomorrow, or do something to repair her disappointment before she decided it meant something bigger.
My mouth opened.
Then I thought about Ryan standing in his apartment and telling me he didn’t care whether my father approved of him. He only cared whether I did.
“Next time, can you call before you come over?”
Crystal went very still, and panic began spreading through me before she answered.
“I wasn’t aware I needed an appointment to visit my daughter.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“It sounded very much like it.”
“I’m only asking you to call first.”
My pulse hammered as I held the door open.
Crystal’s face became perfectly composed. “All right.”
She picked up her purse, and every part of me wanted to take the request back. I wanted to tell her I didn’t mean it, promise she could come whenever she wanted, and rearrange myself until the tightness disappeared from her mouth.
Instead, I stood there while she crossed the apartment.
She kissed my cheek near the door and gave me a tight smile. “I hope whatever you’re rushing off to is worth upsetting yourself this much.”
The comment struck exactly where it was supposed to.
I still didn’t change my mind.
“He is.”
My mother stared at me.
Then she left.
I closed the door and managed to remain standing for approximately five seconds before panic ripped through me.
My hands started shaking first. Heat rushed into my face while my chest tightened so hard I couldn’t draw a full breath, and every thought I had successfully held away while Crystal was standing in front of me came back at once.
She was offended. She thought I was ungrateful.
She would tell Dad I had been rude, and he would ask what was happening with me.
She had seen the apartment. She had seen me in a robe at eleven in the morning and probably thought I was lazy.
She might have noticed my body had changed since the dress fitting.
She might already be wondering what I had eaten or whether I had stopped taking care of myself.
“Stop,” I whispered, pressing both palms against the kitchen counter.
It didn’t help.
The panic had already decided there was danger somewhere in the room, and my body believed it more than anything reasonable I could tell myself.
I paced from the kitchen to the living room and back again because sitting made me feel trapped inside my own skin.
My fingers tingled. My heart beat too fast. When I caught my reflection in the dark television screen, I turned away before the image could become another problem.
My phone sat beside Ryan’s Spanish notebook.
His last message had arrived forty minutes earlier.
Ryan: Chicago tonight. Game at 7:30. Hope Brown hasn’t killed you yet.
I stared at the message until the words blurred.
Chicago. He would be there tonight.
For three days, I had been waiting for Ryan to make me feel better after he had explicitly told me he couldn’t always be the person standing beside me when my brain fell apart.
The realization hurt.
The next one hurt worse because he had been right.
I wanted him to fight for me while I continued finding reasons not to fight for him.
My chest constricted again, and I lowered myself to the kitchen floor before my legs made the decision for me. The tile felt cold beneath my thighs. I pressed my back against the cabinet and tried to draw air into lungs that kept refusing to hold enough of it.
I couldn’t call Ryan and ask him to talk me down. I couldn’t turn his concern into another way of avoiding what I needed to do.
Instead, I held the Spanish notebook against my chest and stayed on the floor while the panic moved through me.
It didn’t disappear because I ordered it to.
My heart kept racing, my hands continued trembling, and several minutes passed before each breath stopped feeling like something I had to drag through a locked door.
I remained there until the room settled around me.
The coffee table was still messy. My mother was still upset. Ryan was still in Chicago, and I was still scared.
None of those things had killed me.
The realization was small, but it was enough to help me stand.
I grabbed my phone and opened the Frost schedule before I could lose my nerve.
The game started at seven thirty, and there was no possible way I would reach Chicago before puck drop.
If I left soon, though, I could get there afterward.
I didn’t know how long the team would stay or when they would leave for their next stop, but I had already wasted three days waiting for the perfect opportunity to be brave.
That opportunity clearly didn’t exist.
My hand hovered over Ryan’s name.
I almost called him. If I told him what I was considering, he would ask whether I was calm enough to drive.
He would want details. He might explain that the team had practice, travel plans, or some schedule I didn’t understand.
Worse, he might make the choice easier by telling me he wanted me there.
Ryan had asked me to choose him.
This time, I wanted the decision to belong to me before I knew what he would say about it.
I checked the route again. The estimated arrival time was late enough to make my stomach drop, but I could still reach Chicago before midnight if the roads cooperated.
“I can do that,” I told the empty apartment.
My voice shook, but the words remained true.
I showered faster than I ever had in my life and dressed without turning the process into a negotiation. I chose jeans, a soft gray shirt I already knew I liked, and sneakers because I had hours of driving ahead of me and nobody with any sense wore heels for that.
I dried my hair enough that it wouldn’t soak my shoulders, twisted the front pieces away from my face, and applied only enough makeup to make myself feel awake. When I reached for the foundation, I stopped with my fingers against the bottle.
Ryan had kissed me in a robe with no makeup before.
He would probably do it again.
The thought steadied me for several seconds before anxiety surged at the idea of reaching Chicago and seeing him after everything I had said.
My stomach rolled, and the mirror immediately became cruel beneath my attention.
The gray shirt looked too tight. Then it looked shapeless.
My face appeared swollen from crying, and the jeans suddenly felt wrong against every part of me.
I reached for another shirt.
My hand stopped halfway to the closet.
“No.”
The word sounded strange when I said it to my own reflection.
I had liked the shirt before I started imagining what everybody else might see. That had to be enough.
I left it on.
Before heading out, I filled my water bottle and stood in the kitchen debating whether I needed anything else.
I hadn’t eaten much that morning, and the thought of stopping somewhere alone made my anxiety tighten again.
Ignoring it would be easier, but Ryan had already made it impossible to pretend I didn’t understand what I did to myself whenever fear took control.
I put a granola bar in my purse without promising myself I would eat it. For the moment, taking it was the most I could manage.
Then I grabbed my keys.
I didn’t text Ryan.
That mattered.
If he knew I was coming, I could tell myself I had only gone because he wanted me there. If he told me to stay home, I could use his schedule as permission to keep hiding.
I wanted to reach him before fear found another person to blame for my decision.
The drive felt endless.
Every mile gave my anxiety another opportunity to tell me how stupid I was being.
I imagined reaching the hotel and finding him surrounded by teammates.
I imagined security refusing to let me upstairs.
I imagined Ryan looking at me with the same wounded anger he had worn when I accused him of sleeping with other women.
Several times, I almost called him.
I didn’t.
His messages continued anyway.
Around six, my phone lit up in the holder beside the dashboard.
Ryan: Headed to the arena. I know you’re still pissed. Still thinking about you.
I swallowed hard and kept driving.
The map had already pushed my arrival time back twice. Traffic thickened near every city, and construction turned long stretches of the highway into a crawl. By the time the game began, I was still hours away.
I found the Frost radio broadcast on my phone and listened while the dark road unrolled in front of me.
Hearing Ryan’s name made the distance feel worse.
The announcer called him El Cuchillo after a hard hit near the boards and again when he assisted on the Frost’s second goal. I imagined him moving across the ice with the controlled violence I had watched from the stands, his body becoming something fearless the moment his skates touched the rink.
Ryan probably didn’t feel fearless either. He moved anyway. The thought stayed with me as I drove.
At nine fifty-two, while I was still nearly an hour outside Chicago, another message appeared.
Ryan: Won 4–2. I was insufferable. You would have loved it.
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. He was telling me about his day even while I refused to give him mine.
At ten twenty, he tried again.
Ryan: I’m assuming you’re asleep or committed to emotionally torturing me.
I laughed for the first time since my mother arrived. The sound broke into tears before I could stop it, but I kept my attention on the road.
“I’m coming,” I whispered to the empty car. “Just give me a little longer.”