“Get out of my apartment. If you can’t support my recovery, if all you can do is criticize, compare and make me feel like a failure, then leave.”
“Ryder—”
“I said leave.”
My father stares at me for a long moment. Then he grabs his coat and walks out without another word.
The door closes, and I’m left standing in the middle of my apartment, shaking with adrenaline and anger and something that might be relief.
Maya crosses to me immediately. “Are you okay?”
“I just kicked my father out.”
“Yeah. You did.”
“That was… that was really stupid.”
“Or really brave. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.”
I sink onto the couch, suddenly exhausted. “He’s right though. I am weak. I let my body break down, let my shoulder get worse, let everything fall apart.”
“No. You’re human. Humans have limits. Pretending you don’t doesn’t make you strong, it makes you destructive.”
“Says the girl who tried to kill herself.”
The words come out harsher than I mean, but instead of flinching, Maya sits beside me.
“Exactly,” she says. “Says the girl who tried to kill herself because she thought being weak meant being worthless. Says the girl who learned the hard way that asking for help isn’t failure. Says the girl who survived because someone cared enough to save her even when she didn’t want to be saved.”
“I don’t know how to do this. How to be less than perfect and still be worth something.”
“None of us do. We’re all just figuring it out as we go. But Ryder? You’re worth something because you exist, not becauseyou play hockey. And anyone who can’t see that doesn’t deserve your time.”
I want to believe her. Want to believe that I’m more than my sport, more than my family legacy, more than the expectations I’ve been carrying since I was six years old.
“Thank you,” I say. “For being here. For saying what needed to be said.”
“That’s what friends do.”
“Friends,” I repeat. “Is that what we are?”
Maya looks at me, and something shifts in her expression. Something warm and complicated and terrifying.
Maya doesn’t answer with words. Instead, she closes the last half-step separating us, slow enough that I feel every inch of the distance disappearing. Her gaze drops to my mouth for one heartbeat, then flicks back up to my eyes, asking, daring, giving me the final second to pull away.
I don’t, and there is something about her pulling me in the more I’m with her.
Her hand finds
the side of my neck, fingers cool at first, then warming instantly against my
skin. She tilts my face down just enough, and then her lips brush mine, soft,
testing, almost careful. The contact is so light it’s maddening, a tease that
pulls a quiet sound from the back of my throat before I can stop it.
That sound
