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I grit my teeth together. “What if I do want to know the answers?”
“What if you aren’t ready for the answers?”
“That’s not for you to decide.”
“Then ask.”
I blink. “What?”
“Ask whatever it is you want to know.”
I suck in a breath. This is my chance. My turn to ask what I want to learn and see if I can catch him in a lie. So many questions volley back and forth in my mind. Everything I wanted to ask, everything I spied on him to try and discover.
But what blurts out of my mouth isn’t what I even wanted to know.
“Why don’t you ever respond to them?”
“What?” He looks genuinely confused.
“The puck bunnies. Why don’t you ever respond to them? There are messages on your phone dating back months. And nothing.”
He lets out a slow breath. “Oh, you have to know.”
“Know what?”
“I’m twenty-fucking-five years old and signed up for general studies. Because of you. I tried out for hockey on a whim, and they fucking put me on the team like my life isn’t a shitshow. I thought I’d be closer to you, maybe get in your classes, actually meet you. I–I don’t know. It was stupid. I was kicked off the team. I failed Literature 101. Do you know what that fucking says about me? I can’t even read a goddamn book right.” His smile is easy and infectious, but it doesn’t answer my question. “I only know how to do one thing right.” His attention drifts across my face slowly. “I came here for you, Atlas. I’ve only ever belonged to you and no one else.”
My thighs quiver in a way that has nothing to do with the wobbly skates at my feet. I suck in a breath, and a hot flush crawls up my neck, taking permanent residence against my cheeks.
For once, that perpetual sadness that lives inside makes a gaping hole in my chest as something else shoves its way through. And for once, I fucking let that happiness in. It washes in with a warmth that sears through every single part of me. It’s a strange feeling to be happy when all you’ve ever known is pain.
“Alright. I hate when you smile at me like I’m cute,” he says with a smirk, skating back a few feet to force me to come to him on uneven, gliding steps.
“Youarecute.”
“I’m terrifying.”
“Adorable,” I correct.
“More questions. Let’s go. Get them out, Ortega.”
I hesitate but I ask anyway.
“What was your stepfather like?”
The smile disappears, and I hate that I ruined it, but I need to know him.
“He was...abusive.” He tilts his head this way and then that way before continuing. “He hated me for existing. I was just a stupid kid and he wanted me gone. He’d find shit to punish me for. If my room wasn’t immaculately spotless, he’d take me out to this shed we had behind our house. I never knew if he’d use the chains in there to beat the fuck out of me... or if he’d lock me inside and forget about me until my mom came home a couple days later from one of her weekend getaways.”
My feet stop moving, and I can’t look away from the steadiness of his gaze. He confesses it all like there’s no emotion attached to the words.
“Oh,” I whisper. Searching for more words to add on that will somehow heal this brutally broken man. My lips part to say more, but he glides over to me instantly.
“I know you want to know what I have to do with Ed.” He pauses and takes my hands in his, and we just stand there for several quiet seconds. “Ed wanted me to shut you up. He wanted me to break you. Make you like that little boy I once was.” His head tilts down toward mine as he whispers, “And I refused.”
“Rowan?” I whisper, barely letting his name leave my lips.
“Yeah?”
