If she wanted to walk away, she was going to have to be the one to do it. Again. “As for how I behaved with DJ,” he said when the silence had stretched out long enough that he knew she wasn’t going to respond, “it was an honest mistake.” None of this was about DJ.

“Dropping a knife from shock, that’s an honest mistake,” she said, the new shell she’d grown melting like ice around pine needles after a winter storm. “Being rude to someone because you’re angry with someone else? That’s just being spoiled and self-centered.”

Fire burned in her eyes as their gazes locked. Just like that she was the girl who had gone to war for him, kept the coach from pushing him into playing when he couldn’t. The girl who had blazed at a world he couldn’t deal with and held him close until he’d learned how to again.

Eyes locked with hers, he was that boy again, the one who could handle waking up in the morning only because she was out there waiting for him.

China’s voice rang out through the speakers. “All right then, people, it’s time for the first cooking challenge.”

Rico was about to join in the cheering that exploded around them when the girl who had been his shield, and then a sword through his heart, crumbled before his eyes. The fire inside her dissolved into panic. She imploded even as she stood there tall and proud for all to see.

Chapter Fourteen

After all these years of trying to put into words what an impending panic attack felt like, today of all days, Ashna finally had crystal clarity. A simultaneous unraveling and tightening swirled inside and around her. Ten tons of pressure compressed her into solid rock even as she dissolved into amorphous, weightless air.

The words self-centered and spoiled lingered in her mouth like the taste of particularly strong bitter melon doused in too much truffle, acrid and overpowering. The need to spit it out before she exploded with it gathered inside her. Then his hand was on her back, pressing into the curve where sensitive divots dipped into her skin on both sides of her spine. Like filings to a magnet, her scattering parts pulled toward his touch.

Walking through the kitchens felt like wading underwater, with the last of her breath running out fast. His hand stayed there, a too-heavy oxygen tank.

The unfairness of that, the anger at it, was the only thing that made it possible for Ashna to break the surface as they emerged at the front of the room and lined up next to the other competitors. DJ’s lips moved. With a lag of just seconds, his voice followed.

“Our challenge today is . . .” Ashna squeezed her eyes shut. “. . . Omelets.”