Page 8

SEBASTIAN

T he nightmare is always the same.

Death.

Skin gone pale. Lips tinged blue. Eyes open but empty. Her body twisted wrong on the vomit covered floor.

She stares at me. Silent. Then a scream.

“Your fault.”

I jolt awake, lungs locked up, chest heaving like I’ve been sucker punched.

The apartment’s quiet. Cold.

Sweat slicks my skin, sheets twisted around my legs like restraints. I sit up, elbows on my knees, drag a hand down my face.

The dream fades.

But the guilt?

That stays.

I shower without turning the light on. Just steam and silence and the echo of everything I ruined.

By the time I’ve pulled on joggers and a hoodie, the sun’s rising. I shove AirPods in, crank the volume. Run until my lungs burn and my legs shake.

But the memories still come.

At twenty-one, I was half-boy, half-hunger—still trying to prove I belonged in a man’s world. Just drafted and feeling like I had the world by the balls. Cocky. Arrogant. Fueled by testosterone and adrenaline.And reckless enough to think consequences were for other people.

And then there was her.

Elise Durant.

Thirty-two. Long legs. All curves. A body made for sin and the confidence to cash it in.

Nothing about her was subtle. Nothing about her was real.

But Jesus, did it work.

She knew she was beautiful, and she used it like a weapon. Pressed it into you until you felt lucky just to be in her orbit.

She was all over me from the start.

Not coy. Not quiet. Not like the puck bunnies who giggled and asked for selfies after games. Elise didn’t ask. She took.

Ran a hand over my chest when she passed me at the bar. Slid into the seat beside me like she’d been invited. Told me I looked too young to drink, then ordered me a whiskey like she owned my night.

I should’ve been smarter. Should’ve seen through it.

But I didn’t care.

Because in that moment, it felt like someone finally saw me. Not the prospect.

Not the stats. Me.

And I wanted more.

I didn’t know she was married. Not at first.

Not when she kissed me outside that bar. Not when she took me back to her hotel room.

And by the time I found out?

I was already too deep to care.

Didn’t stop.

Didn’t even slow down.

Told myself it was complicated. That her marriage was already broken. That I was the exception, not the problem. But the truth? I liked how it felt. Being the secret. Being wanted. I didn’t care who it cost.

I run faster, my feet hitting the pavement hard, like I can outrun my demons.

This morning they scream louder than they ever have.

Shame.

Regret.

Guilt.

So much fucking guilt.

He said if I walked away, she might still go back to who she was before. That I was the detour. The mistake. The thing pulling her off course.

He looked like a man holding his whole world together with shaking hands.

And I still didn’t end it.

Because I was a selfish prick.

No—I was something worse.

The kind of man that sees the wreckage coming and doe nothing to stop it.

She started showing up to my apartment wasted or stoned or both—eyes glassy, words slurred. Always louder. Always messier. Conversations circled the same drain: what I could do for her. What she needed.

More attention. More time. More money.

I gave her whatever she wanted. Not because I wanted to. But because it was easier than seeing the truth.

It was never love.

Hell, I’m not even sure it was like .

It was lust. Ego. The high of being wanted by someone who shouldn’t have wanted me.

If I’d cared—really fucking cared—I would’ve noticed how far gone she was.

I would’ve asked questions. Called someone. Done something.

But I didn’t.

I slow to a stop, chest heaving, sweat dripping off my skin like penance. The cold morning air claws at my throat, but I barely feel it.

What I do feel is the pain.

A sharp, sudden stab, just left of center. Like my heart wants to tear itself out for the part it played. I press my hand there, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt, like I can hold the past in place—stop it from ripping me open again.

But it’s too late.

The memory hits like a punch.

Hard.

Unforgiving.

I hadn’t seen her in a week. The team had a stretch of away games—East Coast swing, back-to-backs, no time to think, just skate and sleep and repeat. She’d texted while we were on the road. Said she needed money. Didn’t say why. Didn’t have to.

I told her it was the last time.

Meant it, too. Or thought I did.

But the second I landed back in the city, I went to her.

Some run-down motel off the highway. One of those places with flickering signs and a front desk behind bulletproof glass. I remember the way the carpet smelled in the hallway—like mildew and cigarette smoke.

Knocked once, and the door opened slightly, the latch old and busted.

I pushed the door open with the edge of my foot.

And there she was.

Sprawled on the floor like a dropped doll, limbs wrong, mouth slack, one heel still strapped to her foot, the other kicked off and lying sideways in a puddle of puke. Her lips were blue. Skin the color of wet ash. Eyes wide open, glassy, fixed on nothing.

The needle was still in her arm.

The smell hit next—thick and wet, a mix of sour rot and cheap perfume, thick enough to choke on. It clung to the walls, the floor, the inside of my fucking lungs.

I’d seen injuries before. Seen teammates laid out on the ice, seen blood, broken bones. But this?

This was different.

This was final.

Permanent.

I bend forward now, hands braced on my knees, trying to catch my breath. Trying to push her face from my mind. But it clings. Like the stink of that motel. Like guilt that’s fused to the bone.

I did what I was told. Called the number the team gave us for emergencies—the one no one talks about. Within hours, it was handled. Quiet. Efficient. No police statements. No headlines. They cleaned it up and kept my name out of it entirely.

I was never questioned. Never blamed. Didn’t lose my contract. Didn’t miss a game.

And somehow, that made it worse.

Because I got to keep skating like nothing had happened.

Meanwhile, her kids lost their mother. Her husband lost what little of her he was still holding onto.

And me? I lost the last piece of myself that still felt clean.

The guilt didn’t fade. It calcified. Settled deep in my chest like rot. I carried it with me everywhere—into the locker room, onto the ice, through every city and every game, like a second skin I couldn’t shed.

And when her husband finally found me again—outside a bar, two years later—I didn’t flinch despite knowing what was coming.

He didn’t scream. Didn’t threaten. Just looked me dead in the eye, jaw tight, fists clenched, and let it fly.

I didn’t dodge the first punch. Didn’t block the second. I let him hit me—again and again—until my nose shattered and I could taste blood in the back of my throat.

One of my teeth cracked. My lip split.

No severe damage. Nothing lasting.

Not enough.

Not even close to what I deserved.

Didn’t go to the cops. Didn’t report a thing.

Because that beating?

That was mine.

I fucking earned it.

I straighten up and swipe the sweat from my face with the back of my hand. My legs are shaking, muscles burning from the run, but I barely feel it.

Doesn’t matter that it’s been years. Guilt still lives under my skin like rot.

And if Elise taught me anything, it’s that I don’t know how to be wanted without breaking the thing that wants me.

Which is why Olivia Hart scares the shit out of me.

Because she looked at me yesterday with those steady eyes and bruised lip and didn’t flinch.

Because when I touched her—when I held her—she leaned into me like she needed it.

And worse—like I could be the one to give it to her.

Like maybe I’m not poison after all.

And that thought? That dangerous, reckless, impossible thought?—

That’s the one that could break us both.