Chapter 43 Meddle

Chapter 43 Meddle
Zack's POV

I kept my eyes on the road.

She was waiting. She had turned in her seat and she was looking at the side of my face with the kind of patience that was not patience at all. It was a countdown.

"Zack."

"I heard you."

"Then answer me. What did that man mean. Before Luca could think to ask what."

The intersection ahead was red. I stopped the car. I put both hands on the wheel. I looked at her.

"Before I signed with this rink, Luca approached your father about reapplying as your partner."

Silence.

Not the normal kind. The kind where the air in the car changes and you can feel the person next to you rearranging everything they thought they knew.

The light turned green. I drove.

"When." Her voice was flat.

"About a month before I came in. He called your father and asked to be reinstated as your partner. Said he wanted to skate with you again."

"And my father said what."

"Your father said no. Said you weren't coming back to the ice. That you'd made up your mind."

"My father told him that."

"Your father told him that."

She was quiet for a beat. Her hands were in her lap. Flat. Pressed against her thighs.

"You said he called twice."

"He did. The first time your father shut it down. Three weeks later Luca called again. By then you'd already agreed to partner with me. It was done."

"Three weeks." She said it like she was tasting the number. "He waited three weeks and called again."

"Yes."

"And nobody thought I should know about this."

I signaled and turned onto the main road. I kept my speed steady.

"How do you know," she said.

"Because the circuit talks, Mia. Coaches talk. I heard about it my first week at the rink from someone who assumed I already knew."

"Your first week."

"Yes."

"Your first week. You have known about this since your first week."

"I have."

"And you didn't think to mention it."

"I thought about it."

"And."

"And I decided it wasn't my story to tell. It was his. Or your father's."

She made a sound. Not a laugh. Something harder.

"So let me get this straight. Luca called my father. Twice. Asked to be my partner. Got turned down. Never told me. My father never told me. You found out in your first week and you never told me. And I have been walking around this house for five weeks thinking I was the one who came back to the ice on my own terms."

"You did come back on your own terms."

"Don't do that."

"Do what."

"Don't try to make it better. Three people in my life knew this and none of them told me. That's not a story about Luca trying to be my partner. That's a story about everyone around me deciding what I can handle."

"That's not what happened."

"Then what happened, Zack. Explain it to me. Because from where I'm sitting, you walked into my rink knowing that another man had already tried to get to me first. And you said nothing. For five weeks. You stood beside me on that ice every single day and you never once thought I deserved to hear it."

Her voice cracked on the word deserved. Just barely. Just enough. She turned her face toward the window so I wouldn't see it.

I saw it.

"You're right," I said.

"Don't agree with me just to end the argument."

"I'm not. You're right. I should have told you. I made a call and it was the wrong one."

"Why did you make it."

I was quiet for a beat. Because the honest answer was not a clean one. The honest answer was that telling her about Luca's calls would have reminded her that Luca was still fighting for her. And I had not wanted to remind her of that. Not because I was being strategic. Because I was being selfish. And I had dressed the selfishness up as respect for her privacy and I had believed it until right now.

"He didn't tell me," she said. Quieter now.

"No."

"Neither did my father."

"Apparently not."

"Neither did you."

I looked at her. Her eyes were dark. She was furious and she was hurt and she was deciding which one came first.

"I just did," I said.

She held my gaze for two seconds. Then she turned back to the windshield. She folded her arms across her chest. She pressed her lips together. She was done talking. I could feel the conversation seal itself shut like a door closing.

She did not speak for the rest of the drive.

I drove. I signaled every turn. The streetlights moved across her face. I counted them because counting was better than thinking about the expression she had made when she said the word handle.

I turned onto her street.

Luca's car was in the driveway. The porch light was on. The living room was dark. The house looked the same as it always looked and nothing about it was the same.

I pulled in beside Luca's car. Killed the engine. The cab went quiet. I could hear her breathing. Controlled. Steady. The same breath she used before a program when she was about to skate something that scared her.

She unbuckled her seatbelt. She reached for the door handle.

"Mia."

"Don't follow me in."

She said it without turning around. She opened the door. She got out. She shut it behind her without looking back. She crossed the driveway in four steps and went up the porch and through the front door.

I sat in the car.

I sat there for three minutes. I counted them on the dashboard clock. I told myself she had asked me not to follow. I told myself I was going to respect that. I told myself I had done enough damage for one night and the smart thing was to give her space and let her come to me when she was ready.

I got out and went inside anyway.