Chapter 6 #2
I knocked on the heavy oak door.
"Enter."
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
My father was standing by the window, looking out at the snowy campus. He didn't turn around when I entered. He was a tall man, silver-haired, immaculate in a charcoal suit. He looked like a statesman. He acted like a dictator.
"Close the door, Eloise."
I closed it. The latch clicked like a gunshot.
"Where were you?" he asked to the window.
"I... I took a few days," I stammered, reverting instantly to the scared little girl I had been at six years old. "I was stressed. The pressure for Nationals... I just needed to clear my head."
He turned around slowly. His face was a mask of cold disappointment. It was worse than anger. Anger I could fight. Disappointment just withered me.
"Stressed," he repeated, tasting the word like spoiled milk. "Vances do not get 'stressed,' Eloise. We endure. We conquer."
He walked to his desk and picked up a file. He threw it down on the mahogany surface. It slid across and stopped at the edge, right in front of me.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked.
I looked down. It was a report from the figure skating team’s budget committee.
"It’s the funding report," I whispered.
"It’s a list of investments," he corrected. "Investments I have authorized. Investments in you. Ice time. Coaching. Travel. Costumes. Thousands of dollars diverted to a sport that brings this university zero revenue, purely because I believe my daughter is capable of bringing home Gold."
He leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk.
"And then you disappear," he said softly. "For three days. No contact. Rumors flying that you’re shacking up with the hockey team. With Sterling."
I flinched. "It’s not like that. Jack... Jack helped me. I was—"
"I don't care!" he slammed his hand on the desk. I jumped.
"I don't care what you were doing," he hissed. "I care about how it looks. You are my legacy, Eloise. You are the reflection of this family. When you are weak, I look weak."
He walked around the desk, stopping inches from me. He smelled of expensive cologne and scotch.
"Your mother was weak," he said, his voice dropping to a cruel whisper. "She couldn't handle the pressure. She broke. She ran."
Tears stung my eyes. "Don't talk about her."
"I have to," he said. "Because I see her in you. I see that same fragility. That same desire to be... ordinary."
He reached out and took my chin in his hand. His grip was hard. Examining me like a prize horse that had gone lame.
"You will be at practice tonight," he ordered.
"You will land every jump. You will win Nationals. And you will stay away from the animals on that hockey team. If I hear one more whisper about you and Jack Sterling, I will pull your funding. I will pull your scholarship. You’ll be skating on a frozen pond in the middle of nowhere. Do you understand?"
"Yes," I whispered, a tear escaping and tracking down my cheek. "Yes, sir."
He released my chin with a shove. "Get out. Fix your face. You look pathetic."
I turned and ran.
I burst out of the office, past the startled secretary, and out the front doors of the building.
I made it to the stone bench behind a large gargoyle statue before my legs gave out. I sat down, burying my face in my hands, trying to breathe.
Weak. Pathetic. Just like her.
"Eloise."
I looked up.
Jack was there.
He must have run. He wasn't even wearing a coat over his hoodie. He was kneeling in the snow in front of me, his face twisted in agony.
"Did he hit you?" Jack demanded, his eyes scanning my face, looking for marks.
"No," I choked out. "Not... not physically."
Jack let out a breath, but his body remained tense. He reached out, his hands hovering, then settling on my knees. Grounding me.
"He knows," I sobbed, the dam breaking. "He knows I was with you. He said... he said I’m weak. He said I’m just like my mother."
Jack’s face darkened. "He’s wrong."
"Is he?" I looked at Jack, tears blurring my vision. "I am weak, Jack. I’m terrified all the time. I let him control everything. I let you kidnap me. I just... I drift."
"You’re not weak," Jack said fiercely. He moved his hands up to cup my face, wiping the tears away with his thumbs. "You’re surviving. There’s a difference."
He leaned in, his forehead resting against mine.
"You stood in a room with a monster for three days and didn't flinch," he whispered. "You looked a wolf in the eye and told him no. That’s not weak, Mouse. That’s iron."
"I don't feel like iron," I whispered. "I feel like glass."
"Then let me be the frame," he said. "Let me hold you together."
The tenderness in his voice undid me. This wasn't the predator who wanted to breed me. This was the boy who sat in the dark and watched me skate because he was lonely.
"Why?" I asked. "Why do you care?"
Jack pulled back slightly, looking into my eyes. The gold was there, deep in the brown, but it was warm now. Like honey.
"Because," he admitted, his voice rough with emotion. "You’re the first thing I’ve ever found that makes me want to be human."
He leaned in and kissed my forehead. It was a chaste, reverence kiss. A promise.
"I’ve got you," he whispered against my skin. "Let him threaten. Let him rage. You’re not alone anymore."
I closed my eyes, leaning into his touch.
For the first time in my life, the cold didn't bother me. Because for the first time, I was burning.
"Okay," I whispered. "Okay."
We sat there in the snow, the monster and the girl, while the world turned around us. We were a secret. We were a disaster waiting to happen.
But in that moment, I didn't care. I just wanted to stay in the fire.