Page 54 of Second Sin

“I don't know Calle that well. Not off the ice. But…” I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know someone personally to feel it.”

She watches me, silent.

I swirl my beer once, watching the bubbles rise. “I keep thinking about what it would be like to lose someone like that. A whole piece of your world just...gone.”

She’s quiet.

Too quiet.

And it hits me.

Fuck.

Her husband.

I look up. Her expression hasn’t changed, but her shoulders are tight. Her jaw clenched just slightly.

“Sorry. I—” I start, but she cuts me off gently.

“I know,” she says. Then adds, quieter, “It’s okay.”

But it’s not.

Because I didn’t just touch a nerve—I walked right into her grief without even thinking.

And now all I want to do is take her hand across this too-small table and promise her she doesn’t have to carry it alone.

But I don’t.Because that line—the one we keep crossing and pretending we didn’t—it’s still there.

Barely.

But it’s there.

She looks away first. Just for a second. Long enough for me to see the way her throat works when she swallows.

“I used to think being in control was a superpower,” she says, voice soft. “Like if I just planned well enough, stayed calmenough, did everything right—then nothing bad would happen. Like I could outmaneuver life if I was just...good enough.”

She lets out a breath, not quite a laugh.

“I followed every rule. Got the degrees. Took the right jobs. Paid our bills instead of taking vacations. I checked every damn box.”

She pauses, fingers tightening briefly around her glass.

“And it didn’t matter.”

Her voice goes quiet. Not shaky—just stripped down. Honest in a way that feels dangerous.

“Life still threw the punch. Still knocked me flat. No warning, no mercy. Just...gone. One minute he was there, and the next, I was signing papers I never thought I’d have to sign in a hospital room that smelled like bleach and every broken thing I couldn’t fix.”

She blinks once. Then again. Eyes dry, but heavy.

“And now this thing with Calle’s family—it’s like someone cracked open the same wound. Different faces, different story, but the same lesson all over again.”

She pauses.

And when she finally lifts her eyes to mine, it’s like the floor drops out from under me.

No armor. No deflection. Just her.

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