Chapter 19
The cut felt permanent in a way nothing else had.
I woke the morning after the coffee shop confrontation with the kind of stillness that only comes after something has finally been severed. No residual hope. No half-formed regrets. Just the clean, hard fact that the woman who raised me no longer had a place in any version of my life. I had stood across from her and said the words out loud. I had watched the tears track through her makeup and felt nothing but the same cold clarity that had carried me there. The door was closed. It would stay closed.
I did not check my phone. I already knew what would be waiting—more messages, more attempts to reopen what I had nailed shut. I left it face-down on the desk and dressed for the rink like armor. High neck. Long sleeves. The competi
