God, he was beautiful out there tonight.
It was more than technical brilliance. It had felt as though he was balancing perfectly on the edge of something dangerous without letting the audience see him shake.
Maybe that was why the worry wouldn’t leave me alone now.
Most people would have watched that performance and thought Luka looked calm.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how tired he’d looked afterward.
I’d watched him in the Kiss and Cry. He’d glanced toward me before looking away almost immediately, tension flashing across his face so quickly nobody else would have noticed it.
But I noticed Luka. That had become the problem.
I knew too much now.
I knew the tiny pause before he said something he didn’t fully believe. The careful neutrality in his expression whenever pressure started closing around him. The way his shoulders locked when he was trying to carry everything alone.
Tonight, he had looked as if he were stretched painfully thin.
My phone buzzed, and just like that, my heart skipped a beat.
Luka.
Then it sank when I saw the text from my mom.
Want to have dinner with us? Now that you’re a man of leisure?
I let out a sigh. I couldn’t face another meal where I struggled to keep everything locked up inside me.
And if I thinkthisis struggling, what the hell is Luka going through?
I felt like the world’s most selfish asshole right then.
I typed a reply:maybe tomorrow? Kinda wiped out right now.
Mom: that’s fine. Get some rest. Love you.
I replaced my phone on the nightstand, then gazed at it.
Every instinct I had urged me to call him.
Luka hadn’t come to see me after the short program, and I knew him well enough now to understand that wasn’t an accident. If he’d wanted comfort, if he’d wanted distraction, he’d have found me somehow. The fact he’d stayed away told me everything I needed to know.
Something was wrong.
The urge to hear his voice sat heavily in my chest. I wanted to tell him he’d been incredible tonight. I wanted to remind him that one difficult evening didn’t have to be carried alone.
My thumb hovered over his name.
Then I stopped.
If I called, he would answer. Not necessarily because he wanted to talk, or because he was having an easier night than I was.
He’d answer because that was who he was.
Luka had spent so much of his life taking care of other people’s expectations that sometimes I wasn’t sure he knew how to put himself first. If he thought I needed him, he’d pick up the phone no matter what was happening inside his own head.
The realization hurt someplace deep.
