"Every interruption hurt."
The hallway outside Ingalls felt too bright after the dimmed rink, fluorescents buzzing like insects against the concrete walls. Silver's footsteps echoed as she walked, each one faster than the last, trying to put distance between herself and whatever had almost happened back there.
Her face still burned. Not from embarrassment anymore, but from something sharper. Anger, maybe. Or disappointment. The kind that had been building for months, through every charged moment that went nowhere, every conversation that danced around what they both refused to say.
She burst through the exit doors into the February night. The cold hit like a slap, instantly freezing the tears she hadn't realized were threatening. The parking lot stretched out before her, mostly empty except for a few cars belonging to the maintenance crew. Snow from last night's storm had been pushed into dirty mountains along the edges, glowing sickly orange under the sodium lights.
