Maddie’s POV
I don't text Victoria.
The training facility disappears behind us mile by mile, and the silence inside the car feels strangely lighter than the one I lived in for months. Like something that was pressing down has simply been removed, and the air rushing in to fill the space hasn't figured out yet that it was supposed to stay heavy.
Dad keeps both hands on the steering wheel while the sky outside shifts slowly from dark blue to gray. We pass empty streets and closed storefronts and the particular blankness of early morning infrastructure, all of it looking less real than usual.
"You're quiet," he says eventually, glancing toward me briefly before focusing back on the road.
I lean my head against the cold window glass, watching the last of the streetlights fade as the sky brightens. "I've been quiet for three months," I reply, arms folded across my chest. "This isn't exactly new behavior."
He exhales slowly, with the steadiness of someone who has decided to accept the correction. "Fair point," he says, and goes back to watching the road.
Neither of us pushes the conversation further. The road does the talking instead, and that's fine by me.
When we pull into our driveway, the porch light is already on. Mom is standing in the doorway in her robe, which means she has been up for a while, which means Dad called ahead, which means I owe him at least one thing tonight.
The moment I step out of the car, she walks straight toward me and pulls me into her arms without preamble. Her hug is firm and warm, the kind that doesn't ask questions first, and the sudden contact makes my chest tighten in a way I wasn't prepared for.
She pulls back and studies my face with the careful attention of a woman who has been worrying in silence for longer than I realized. Then she steps aside and holds the door.
"Come inside," she says gently. "Both of you."
The kitchen lights are warm and bright. Coffee is already brewing, filling the room with a smell so familiar it feels almost surreal after months of sterile training halls and fluorescent-lit dorm corridors.
Mom sets a mug in front of me without asking, gesturing firmly at the chair. "Drink," she says. "You look like someone who hasn't slept properly in several days."
"That's a very accurate observation," I reply, wrapping both hands around the mug and letting the warmth travel up through my fingers.
Dad leans against the counter with the posture of a man who has already said his piece in the car and is now leaving the floor to someone who will do it differently.
Mom looks at me steadily. "What happened?" she asks.
I unlock my phone and slide it across the table. "Victoria happened," I say.
Mom scrolls through the photos slowly, her expression shifting as she works through the documents. "These are contracts," she says after a moment, the word careful and precise.
"Contracts I never signed," I answer. "And was never shown."
She keeps reading — the relocation plans, the transfer timelines, the notes about distancing me from previous influences. Her expression tightens when she reaches that phrase and stays tight.
Dad shifts slightly but says nothing. He doesn't need to; Mom is already doing the math.
Mom places the phone down and folds her hands on the table. "You trained under someone like this for months?" she asks.
"I didn't know at first," I say, rubbing my forehead. "At the beginning I thought she was strict. Then I thought I was weak. Eventually I convinced myself that elite training was just supposed to feel like this."
Mom reaches across the table and takes my hand, squeezing it once. The gesture is small and completely grounding.
"She was also discouraging Maddie from contact with family and friends," Dad says quietly. "Framing it as distraction management."
Mom looks at me. "Is that why you stopped answering my messages?"
I stare at the coffee. "Partly," I admit. "Victoria kept saying that emotional attachment compromises performance. I started organizing my life around that."
"Love isn't a distraction," Mom says, with the simplicity of someone who has never needed to argue that point and doesn't intend to start now.
"That depends on who you ask," I say, which earns a look.
"You're talking about Emily," she says.
I don't confirm or deny it. "I thought she was holding me back," I say. "Turns out I was just looking for something to explain why I felt so off-balance. Victoria handed me a convenient answer."
Mom shakes her head slowly. "That's manipulation," she says.
"Yeah," I say. "I figured that out too late."
Dad folds his arms. "How has the training actually been going? Physically."
"My wrist is overworked," I say, flexing it slightly. "My grades are slipping. My skating is objectively getting worse, not better."
Mom's brow furrows. "You didn't tell us any of this."
"I thought pushing harder would fix it," I say.
She exhales quietly. "You don't have to destroy yourself to improve," she says, with the tone of someone who has said this to someone who inherited the habit of not listening.
"You're home now," Dad says, and leaves it at that.
Mom nods. "You're not going back there," she says, in the tone of someone closing a cabinet.
Dad glances at Mom carefully, then at me again. “I'll drive you back. There's no need for you to have a long road alone.”
The way he said alone makes me realize just how alone I was this entire time.
The drive back to Lakeview that morning is quieter than I expect — Mom in the passenger seat, me in the back, everyone having apparently agreed without discussion to leave the difficult conversations in the kitchen where they belong.
We talk about small things. My wrist. Ice. If I need anything back in Lakeview, books or stuff for college. Whether I've been eating, which I answer evasively, which she correctly translates as no.
Lakeview appears on the horizon gradually, the skyline assembling itself as we drive closer, and something in my chest does a complicated thing that might be dread or relief or the specific tension of knowing something is about to become real.
Dad parks near the housing office. I step out and stretch, looking around the campus like I'm checking whether it's still the same place I left.
We walk toward the athletic building. Halfway across the courtyard, I stop.
Inside the rink, someone is skating. I can see the movement through the glass — precise, fast, controlled. Emily launches into a jump combination and lands cleanly, her posture composed, her expression focused.
She looks stronger than when I left. More certain of herself, somehow. Like the absence of something heavy has sharpened everything that remained.
I stand in the courtyard and watch, and the word that comes to me, quiet and honest and entirely unwelcome, is: I did this to her.
And then: how do you ask someone who became better without you to need you again?