The Weight of My Crimes

The morning sun didn’t feel like a new beginning; it felt like an interrogation light.

By the time I staggered back to our cramped basement apartment, the clock on my cracked phone read three-forty in the morning. My shoulders were stiff from scrubbing the diner counters, my legs throbbed from the cheer routine, and my skin still smelled faintly of bleach and cheap espresso. I didn’t even bother changing out of my oversized t-shirt. I just crawled into bed next to Caspian, pulling his small, warm body against mine, and let his steady breathing anchor me to the earth.

I only got three hours of sleep before his tiny hands were patting my cheeks, demanding breakfast.

"Mama, juice," Caspian mumbled, blinking up at me with those big, unmistakable silver-blue eyes.

"Coming, sweet boy," I croaked, my voice thick with exhaustion.

Every movement felt like moving through wet cement. I dragged myself to the tiny kitchenette, pouring him a cup of milk and slicing up the last apple from our plastic crisper drawer. My eyes drifted to the kitchen counter, where the crumpled hundred-dollar bill sat next to the sink.

I hadn't been able to bring myself to put it in my wallet yet.

Every time I looked at that crisp piece of paper, I saw the absolute disgust in Casper’s eyes. “Make sure you use it to buy some sleep, Olivia. You look pathetic.” The words replayed in my mind like a broken record, each repetition cutting a little deeper. He thought he was punishing a heartless ex who walked away for a better offer. He had no idea that his money was the only reason his son was eating fresh fruit this morning.

"Liv? You breathing?"

Freya’s voice cut through the fog in my head. She pushed open the door to the apartment, looking impossibly bright in a matching green workout set, holding a cardboard tray with two massive iced coffees. She took one look at my face and set the tray down with a heavy sigh.

"You look like a walking corpse," she said gently, walking over to lift Caspian into his high chair. "Did you even sleep?"

"A little," I lied, gripping the iced coffee she pushed into my hand like it was a lifeline. The caffeine hit my system, but it did nothing for the bone-deep weariness settling into my chest. "The hockey team came into the diner last night. Casper was with them. And Chloe."

Freya froze, her hand hovering over the diaper bag she was packing. "Did she say something to you?"

"The usual. Told me I missed a spot under her locker and threatened to get me fired if I got sloppy," I said, forcing a bitter laugh. "But Casper... he dropped a hundred-dollar bill in my tip jar. Told me to buy some sleep."

"Olivia..." Freya’s eyes softened with that familiar, painful pity. "You can't keep doing this. If he’s going to start stalking you across campus just to make you miserable, you need to let me help you. My dad can find you a different job. A safe one."

"No," I said, my tone flattening into that hard, unyielding wall I used to protect myself. "If I quit the athletic facility or the diner, it looks like he ran me off. It looks like I care. I have seven months left, Freya. I am going to keep my head down, take his money, clean his dirt, and get my degree. He can hate me all he wants. His hatred keeps him safe from his parents."

By noon, I was back on campus, walking toward the student union with a stack of heavy marketing textbooks clutched against my chest. The autumn wind was picking up, whipping my dark red hair across my face. I kept my eyes glued to the concrete, my mind running through the timeline of my afternoon. I had twenty minutes to eat a protein bar before cheer check-in, followed by a mandatory two-hour conditioning circuit, and then—

"Well, if it isn't the campus charity case."

I stopped. Standing right in the middle of the brick pathway, blocking the entrance to the library, was Chloe. She was surrounded by three other girls from the cheer squad, all of them holding expensive smoothies, their eyes scanning me like I was a stain on the sidewalk.

"I'm on my way to the athletic complex, Chloe," I said, keeping my voice entirely devoid of emotion. "Move."

"Are you going to clean up after my boyfriend again?" Chloe stepped closer, a nasty, venomous smile spreading across her perfect features. "Because Casper told me all about your little performance in the locker room yesterday. Acting all quiet and pathetic, trying to get his attention."

My grip tightened on my textbooks until the cardboard edges dug into my palms. "I was doing my job."

"Your job is to scrub the toilets, Olivia, not look at the players," Chloe hissed, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper so the passing students wouldn't hear. "Casper doesn't see you. To him, you’re just the trash he has to look at because the athletic department hired a scholarship girl. He gave you that hundred dollars because he felt sorry for how disgusting you looked. Don't mistake his pity for interest."

The words should have stung, but inside, a strange, cold sense of relief washed over me. Good. Let her think that. Let the whole world think I was just a pathetic charity case. The further they stayed from the truth, the safer Caspian was.

"If you're done marking your territory, I have a shift to get to," I said, stepping right past her shoulder.

Chloe gasped, turning around to shout something after me, but I didn't listen. I walked straight into the athletic complex, my sneakers squeaking against the polished floors as I headed toward the locker rooms.

The heavy scent of ice, sweat, and leather hit me the moment I pushed open the double doors. The team was out on the ice for their afternoon drills; I could hear the distant, muffled echoes of skates cutting into the rink and the sharp slam of pucks hitting the boards from the adjacent corridor.

The main locker room was a disaster zone. Wet jerseys were draped over benches, and the floor was littered with discarded tape and empty water bottles. I pulled the heavy yellow mop bucket behind me, setting it near the row of varsity lockers.

I went straight to work, letting the familiar, mindless rhythm of the chore numb the chaos in my brain. Sweep the tape. Empty the bins. Mop the tile. Just seven months. Just survive.

"You're late."

The deep, gravelly voice shattered the silence of the room.

I spun around, my heart immediately jumping into my throat. Casper was leaning against the doorframe of the back equipment room. He hadn't changed into his full gear yet—he was just wearing his black padded hockey pants and a tight, sleeveless compression shirt that showed the heavy, tense lines of his shoulders. His dark hair was messy, and his silver-blue eyes were fixed on me with a dark, brooding intensity.

"My shift started ten minutes ago, Captain Vance," I said, forcing my voice to remain perfectly professional as I gripped the handle of my mop. "The team is still on the ice. I am right on time."

Casper didn't answer. He walked into the room, his heavy steps slow and deliberate, cutting off my only exit toward the hallway. The sheer size of him always made the locker room feel smaller, suffocatingly tight. He stopped just two feet away, the familiar, intoxicating scent of his mint soap and sharp wintergreen filling my lungs.

His eyes traveled down my face, taking in the pale color of my skin and the stubborn set of my jaw.

"Did you spend it?" he asked suddenly, his voice surprisingly quiet.

I blinked, thrown off by the change in tone. "What?"

"The money, Olivia," he murmured, his gaze dropping to my hands. "Did you use it to buy some sleep, or are you just going to keep walking around this campus looking like you're about to collapse?"

"I don't need your pity, Casper," I whispered, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "And I don't need your money."

"You clearly do," he snapped, the cold, arrogant mask sliding right back over his features as his jaw clenched. He stepped closer, invading my space until the heat radiating off his chest was overwhelming. "You're working three jobs, running around like a dog, and for what? To prove a point? To show me how little I mattered to you?"

"This has nothing to do with you," I lied, looking straight into his burning silver eyes, forcing my heart to turn to stone. "My life is none of your business anymore. You made sure of that two years ago."

"I made sure?" Casper let out a sharp, humorless laugh, his chest heaving under his shirt. He reached out, his massive hand wrapping around the aluminum handle of my mop, jerking it slightly so I was forced to look up at him. "You're the one who vanished, Olivia! You're the one who left me broken on the floor of an empty apartment! And now you're back, acting like a martyr, scrubbing my floors like you didn't completely destroy the only person who ever gave a damn about you!"

The raw, bleeding pain in his voice was so intense it made my eyes sting. The urge to scream the truth was a physical pressure in my throat. I did it for you! I did it so your parents wouldn't take your dream away!

But I couldn't. If I broke now, his future would burn to the ground.

"I told you before, Casper," I whispered, the words tasting like ash on my tongue as I forced myself to stare at his mouth, avoiding his eyes. "It was just a summer fling. It wasn't that deep."

Casper flinched, his grip on the mop handle tightening until his knuckles turned entirely white. For a second, I thought he was going to break the metal in half. The silence between us grew heavy, toxic, and thick with a shared past that was slowly choking us both.

Before he could say another word, the heavy double doors of the locker room swung open with a loud thud.

"Yo, Vance! Coach wants the power-play lines on the ice right now!" Miller’s voice boomed through the space, cutting the tension like a knife.

Casper didn't look back at his teammate. He kept his eyes locked on mine for one last, agonizing second, his expression hardening into a terrifying wall of ice. He let go of the mop handle so suddenly it rattled against the bucket.

"Get out of my sight, Olivia," he whispered, his voice completely dead, devoid of any warmth. "Before I make sure you don't even have a job left to clean."

He turned on his heel and walked out of the locker room without looking back, his heavy skates clicking sharply against the rubber mats until the doors slammed shut behind him.

I stood alone in the empty room, my hands shaking so violently I had to lean against the wall to keep from falling. I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my palm against my chest .