Six months since you'd walked out of that apartment. Six months since you'd handed the key over like it was nothing more than a receipt you no longer needed.

Your thighs burned as you pushed uphill. Your lungs screamed. But you kept going.

Because stopping meant thinking. And thinking meant remembering.

Remembering the way he said it. Waste of time.

You rounded the corner toward the training facility, breath fogging in the cold air. Through the glass doors, you spotted a familiar spiky silhouette already inside. Of course he was. He always got here early.