The war began with a single message I should have deleted.
I had been back in the hostel less than an hour after Damian walked me to the door when my phone lit up on the desk. The name on the screen made my stomach drop in a way no opponent on the ice ever had.
Mom.
I stared at it until the screen went dark. Then it lit up again. And again. By the fourth attempt the anger that had been living under my ribs for weeks rose so clean and sharp it almost felt like relief. I answered on the fifth ring because the alternative was letting her keep calling until the sound of her name alone started to feel like another kind of violation.
“What.”
My voice came out flat. Empty of everything except the refusal to give her softness.
There was a pause on the other end, the kind that meant she had e
