Page 143 of Wicked Serve

“I don’t regret meeting your father,” she interrupts. “I don’t regret it, because he gave me you. But I do regret not leaving sooner. I regret letting him control us for as long as he did. I tried to keep it behind closed doors, especially since he left you alone physically, but I should have known that eventually, he would... I’m so sorry.” She breathes wetly, blinking back more tears. “And I’m sorry I didn’t know you’ve been struggling, either. I know how much it hurts.”

Bone-deep exhaustion settles over me. When we left, she retreated into herself, and Grandfather took me under his wing. This whole time, I thought she couldn’t stand to look at me because I was lingering proof of what she lived through, when really, she was panicking, too. Drowning in her own memories.

But when she panics, I’ll bet she doesn’t worry about hurting anyone.

“I can tell you’re thinking of something.” She clears her throat. “Just tell me. Whatever it is.”

“Something’s wrong with me.” I twist my fingers together, wincing at the pain in my knuckles. The night has been such a blur, I can’t remember how I bruised them. If it was the game or my meltdown.

“Nothing is wrong with you.” She squeezes my shoulder. I tamp down my wince. “Nothing, Nika.”

“No, Mom. I mean it. I have these nightmares.” I ease away. “In them, I’m him, and I’m... I’m hurting people. You. Isabelle.” My chest twinges sharply, as if someone hooked it with a fishing line. “I felt out of control, with her. I thought I might do something bad.”

The admission hangs in the air, like the night on the beach when I told Isabelle about my past. It’s as if saying it aloud purges something from my body, my soul.

Mom lurches forward, pulling me into a tight hug. I breathe into her shoulder, blinking as the intensity of her embrace sinks in. When she lets go, tears streak down her face. She brushes them aside impatiently, then fusses with the collar of my shirt.

“I tried to give you space to process things on your own,” she whispers thickly. “We all thought that would be best. I should have known you needed more support.”

“I don’t want to be like him.”

“You’re nothing like him.”

“I am.” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to calm down. “I’m just as angry, and there’s hockey—”

“Don’t let yourself spiral,” she says firmly. “Let’s take this one step at a time.”

“Even after everything—I miss him, Mom. He asked me if I hate him, and I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t, even though I should have. I should have quit hockey years ago, too. It’s his, it’s always been his.”

“Deep breaths.” She looks into my eyes, her gaze steady. Calm. “I don’t hate him either.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t hate him. I don’t feel much of anything when it comes to him. But honestly, Nika—I’m glad you don’t either. No son should feel that way about his father. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to have complicated feelings. You’re even allowed to miss him.” She laughs, self-deprecating. “Lord knows my feelings were complicated enough. Feeling these things, feeling out of control—that doesn’t mean you’re like him. It doesn’t mean you’re going to go through with whatever you’re thinking, even if it feels impossible to break the pattern.”

“I don’t trust myself not to be like him.”

“Is this really why you don’t want to take the contract?”

I give a short nod.

“Hockey doesn’t belong to him.”

“It’s his dream.”

“So all the work you put into hockey in high school, in college—it was for his dream?” When I don’t reply right away, she presses further. “You’re not your father. You never have been, and you never will be.”

I let the words wash over me.

“You’re you and no one else,” she adds. She reaches out, then hesitates with her fingertips an inch from my face. I nod once, tightly. She cradles my cheek, brushing against my scar. “And I love you. More than anything in the world.”

I clear my throat as tears prick my eyes. “So it’s not... you’re not going to be disappointed...”

“The only way I’ll be disappointed is if you don’t sign that contract.”

Somehow, after all of this, I still didn’t expect her to actually want me to go through with it.

“I spent so much time rebuilding my life, my whole sense of self, after the divorce, that I didn’t question as much as I should have. I didn’t make sure you were okay. That’s my failure. My own guilt just made things worse.”

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