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“We know.”
“He didn’t know I had an eating disorder. I made sure nobody knew.”
“We know that too.”
“Ryan never controlled what I ate. He didn’t know I was restricting food or that I was sick enough to need treatment until after he left. He knew I worried about my appearance and said cruel things about my body, but he thought it was vanity and perfectionism. I made sure he never saw what happened when I was alone.”
“Bliss told him before he moved to Milwaukee,” Aura said.
My attention snapped toward her. “You told him?”
Bliss nodded. “The night he left. You gave me permission to tell him you were safe and getting help if he wanted to know.”
“I remember giving you permission. I didn’t know whether he asked.”
“He did.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you entered residential treatment for the eating disorder, body dysmorphia, anxiety, and panic attacks.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked when you entered and where you were. Then he stopped me before I could tell him the location.”
The ache beneath my ribs deepened. “Why?”
“Because he said he couldn’t be part of your recovery. He wanted to know you were safe, but he didn’t want treatment becoming something you completed to earn him back.”
“He knew before he went to Milwaukee.”
“Yes,” Bliss said. “Your father wasn’t the person who told him.”
I pressed one hand against my stomach. Ryan had left Kimball Falls knowing I’d finally entered treatment, and he had still protected the boundary between my healing and his forgiveness. He understood something I’d needed weeks inside residential care to learn: recovery couldn’t be another performance designed to make someone love me.
“What did Lance give the Inferno?”
Aura’s mouth tightened. “He hired a private investigator.”
My skin went cold.
“The investigator dug through Ryan’s foster records, disciplinary history, information about his parents, fights on and off the ice, photographs of his tattoos, and anything else that could be arranged to make him appear violent or unstable.”
“Lance investigated him?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“Photographs,” Bliss said.
“Of Ryan?”
“Some of them.”
A sickness colder than nausea moved through me. “Who else was in the pictures?”
“You.”
