Page 68 of Shattered Ice
He doesn’t leave.
And for the first time in days, I sleep.
Chapter 40
Adrian
ThedrivetoClara’schildhood home is a two-hour journey into a world I don’t recognize. The manicured estates and gated communities of my upbringing give way to smaller houses, older cars, and trees that have been allowed to grow wild instead of being sculpted into submission. I’m gripping the steering wheel of my Audi, my knuckles white, a ridiculously expensive bottle of wine on the passenger seat that now feels ostentatious and insulting. My usual armor of a tailored suit feels like a costume. For the first time in my life, I am the one who doesn’t belong, and a raw, unfamiliar anxiety is clawing its way up my throat.
Her home is a small, blue house with a slightly crooked porch railing and a wreath of real pine on the door. The second she opens it, I’m hit with a blast of warm air that smells of roastingturkey, cinnamon, and something the Hale estate has never possessed: comfort.
Clara’s mom, Sarah, is waiting for us. She’s small, like Clara, with the same intelligent eyes, but hers are softened by a weary kindness. She’s wearing scrubs, a testament to a nursing shift just finished. She takes in my suit, the expensive wine, and then my face, her gaze so sharp and assessing it’s immediately clear where Clara gets it from.
“So you’re Adrian,” she says, her handshake firm and surprisingly strong. “Clara’s told me you’re… intense.”
“Mom,” Clara groans, her cheeks flushing.
Sarah just gives her a wry, knowing smile. “I’ve also heard you’re a hell of a hockey player.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Harrington,” I say, the formal words feeling stiff and stupid in my mouth.
The afternoon is a culture shock. I’m put to work in the small kitchen, awkwardly trying to mash potatoes while Clara and her mom move around me in a dance of easy, unspoken intimacy. They banter and tease and bump into each other with soft smiles. Clara laughs—a real, unguarded, beautiful sound I’ve never heard before, like a bell ringing in a room that’s only ever known silence—when her mom tells a story about her burning their Thanksgiving dinner as a teenager. The sound hits me right in the chest, a physical ache for something I’ve never had. My own family dinners are silent, tense affairs where the main course is disapproval.
I see pictures on the fridge, on the walls: Clara with a gapped-tooth smile, Clara in an oversized hockey jersey at a local rink, Clara with a man who has her same determined chin and kind eyes. Her father. The house is a living, breathing testament to a life built on real love, not transactions. And as I sit there, a guest in their warmth, I am consumed by a profound, aching jealousy for this simple, beautiful thing they have.
Later, after a dinner where I perform the role of a normal person, we’re in the living room with the comforting noise of a football game on the TV.
“So, are your parents having a big Thanksgiving, Adrian?” Sarah asks, her question gentle but direct.
The familiar, cold knot tightens in my gut. I see the flicker of concern in Clara’s eyes. “My father is in Zurich for a merger,” I say, my voice flat. “My mother is at a spa in Sedona. We don’t really do holidays.”
The quiet that follows is heavy. Sarah’s kind face is full of a sympathy I don’t know what to do with. I feel Clara’s eyes on me, her silent question hanging in the air. She waits until her mom gets up to clear the plates, then sits next to me on the worn couch, her knee just brushing mine.
“Is that what happened after the Greystone game?” she asks softly. “Why you disappeared? Was it him?”
I look at this girl, in her home, surrounded by evidence of a love I’ve never known. For the first time, the truth doesn’t feel like a weakness. It feels like the only thing I have left to offer her.
“The night of the game, he was there,” I say, the words feeling ripped from my throat. “He told me you were a distraction. A liability. He told me to let you wait while I went to talk to donors.” I finally meet her eyes, letting her see the raw shame I’ve been carrying. “I didn’t know how to fight him. I’ve never known how. So I did what he said, and I hated myself for it. I hated that I brought his world, his poison, into yours. I thought the only way to protect you was to stay away.”
I brace for her reaction. Pity. Discomfort. Disgust.
Instead, her expression shifts. The sympathy in her eyes is replaced by a sharp, focused, almost clinical intensity. I can see her mind working, connecting the dots.
“So he isolates you,” she says, her voice quiet but firm. “He uses distance and silence as forms of control, so you’re alwaysfighting for an approval he never intends to give. And when you finally find something that makes you happy, his first instinct is to frame it as a threat to the ‘brand.’ It’s a classic narcissistic tactic to maintain leverage.”
I stare at her, completely stunned. She hasn’t saidI’m so sorry. She hasn’t offered a single word of pity. She has taken a lifetime of my emotional chaos, a wound so deep I didn’t have a name for it, and diagnosed it with the clean precision of a surgeon. She has validated my entire reality without making me a victim. The feeling of being truly seen, of being understood, is so profound the ground shifts under my feet. A weight I didn’t know I was carrying begins to lift.
“Yeah,” I finally manage, my voice thick with an emotion I can’t name. “That’s it.”
She takes my hand, her fingers lacing through mine. “You don’t have to fight him alone anymore, Adrian,” she says softly. “We’re a team, remember? We just need a better game plan.”
I look at our joined hands, then back at her face. And in that moment, I know with an unshakeable certainty that I will never let her go. She’s not a distraction. She’s my anchor.
Later, the three of us are squeezed onto the worn-out couch, a cheesy Christmas movie playing on the TV. I’m in the middle, a position that should feel awkward but instead feels grounding. Sarah is on my left, and Clara is tucked into my right side, her head resting on my shoulder, a warm, trusting weight. The room smells of leftover pie and the pine from the wreath. It’s the most normal, domestic thing I have ever experienced, and it’s terrifyingly peaceful.
Halfway through the movie, Sarah’s breathing evens out, her head tilted back against the cushions, fast asleep. Clara looks at her mom with a soft, loving smile that makes my chest ache.
She gently shakes her mom’s shoulder. “Mom,” she whispers. “Go to bed. You’re going to be sore in the morning.”
