She tilted her head to the side, and after a small pause as she looked him over, she gave a small smile. “No one can ever be that unbreakable, Gillian,” she murmured, her smile fading as she looked out over the ice in the rink. “Everybody has a limit to what they can do or tolerate… We’re all only human after all. We’re not invincible…” Shaking her head, Anneliese clasped her hands together as she stood up, turning to face Gillian which made his heart sink down to his stomach. “Anyways, all I had wanted to do was come by to thank you for what you did the other day. You didn’t have to, but I appreciate that you did. I’ll let you get back to your practice. I hadn’t meant to interrupt you,” she said as she turned to walk away.

For a few moments, an overwhelming panic bubbled up inside of his chest, causing him to impulsively reach out. “W-Wait!” Gillian said as he grabbed her hand, his face flushed crimson. “You, uh…” Clearing his throat, he nodded to himself. “You’re welcome. I hope that you get the-- Get the part from your audition…” He trailed off, clearing his throat awkwardly as Anneliese looked down at him with a small smile.

There was something unreadable in the way that she looked at him which he couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. “Thank you,” she said softly, patting his hand gently. “And I’ll never understand why you chose to join the hockey team, but I hope that you do well.”

Gillian quickly let go of her hand, clearing his throat once again. “I, uh-- Danke.” Honestly, part of him wished that he could just explain the situation of everything that had been going on and the real reason that he had joined the hockey team in the first place, but he knew that it would be a foolish move. He didn’t even know how he was managing to carry on a conversation with her for this long, even though it had truthfully only been a few minutes.

“Bitte,” came the quiet response, surprising Gillian. “I’ll see you around,” Anneliese said as she started to walk away. Pausing at the base of the stairs, she looked back at him. “And Gillian? Do try not to get hurt.”

With that, she was gone, leaving Gillian feeling far more emotionally shook up and confused than he’d been before. Letting out a groan, he doubled over, his elbows on his knees and his face pressed into his hands. Why did everything have to be so difficult? Why were emotions so difficult to understand and control? Why did his chest feel like it was simultaneously being stabbed and like it was about to explode?

Honestly, that brief exchange gave him more questions than answers, and he had actually been able to talk to her without fumbling over his words. For the most part, at least. Running his hands through his hair, he finished tying the laces of his skates, striding over to the edge of the ice rink and bracing himself on the dividing wall.

Despite the freezing cold that surrounded him, Gillian found himself feeling warm, a smile creeping its way onto his lips. Maybe Christopher and Antonio hadn’t been so wrong whenever they had insisted that Anneliese liked him. Or at the very least that she didn’t hate him. Of course, he was still too much of a coward to end up expressing anything to her, and he certainly had his own fears and barriers to work past. It was still nice knowing that...someone cared.

Part of him wished that he could have the courage to be like Antonio. To just be able to go up to the girl he likes and sweep her off her feet and be a knight in shining armor that had come to save her day. Gillian had heard all too many times the story of how Antonio had ended up rescuing Annabel from the group of idiots that had been harassing her at her workplace. That he had just swooped in and threatened the men that were making the crude comments and how he twisted the one’s arm that had tried to lay a hand on her. It made part of him feel envious of Antonio, that the Spaniard had such an easy time with being able to be a hero for the girl he was in love with.

Shaking his head, he groaned, rubbing his face. “Now’s not the time, Gil… You need to focus...” He had other things that he needed to be thinking about and trying to plan and practicing for that damnable hockey team. He had no business trying to think about a pretty girl, no matter how much Antonio and Christopher insisted that it was fine, that everything would be fine. “Focus…”

Taking a few deep breaths, he pushed himself out onto the ice, wobbling for a few moments before regaining his balance and beginning to skate laps around the rink. “Think… You just need to think…”

What did he know so far? He knew that Lukas and Mathias were in a relationship. He knew that Mathias and Willem had been best friends for a long time. He knew from the other day that Lukas and Willem hated each other. He knew that Lukas had a past of violence and that his family had paid people off to keep Lukas out of trouble and sent him off to some sort of reformative boarding school to keep their name from being tarnished.

What did he need to know? He needed to know how Mathias and Lukas came to know each other and to be together, why they were in a relationship in the first place. He needed to know how Mathias and Willem knew each other. He needed to know more about Lukas’s past, and Mathias’s past, and Willem’s past. He needed to know how much Mathias even knew about Lukas’s past too.

How was he going to figure any of that out?

Gillian glided to a stop at the edge of the rink, staring up at the ceiling. He had absolutely no clue in Hell how he would be able to pull off something like that. Regardless of how much Lukas seemed to not dislike him, Gillian knew that Lukas would never admit or talk about any of the things that he had done that would tarnish his reputation or image, especially with the extent that his parents went to conceal it. Gillian knew that Willem would never open up to him; the man had always been closed off to everyone except Mathias, but even then, it seemed that there were times where he tried to close himself off from even Mathias. Now when it came to Mathias…

The sound of a door slamming shut jolted Gillian out of his thoughts, causing him to hunch out of sight below the rink wall and press himself up against it as he listened to the raised voices that drew closer.

“You are absolutely worthless, Tyrsen.” The voice was laced with icy venom, far different from the voice that Gillian had come to associate with Lukas. It was one that was meant to invoke fear. “You shouldn’t have kept me waiting… But no, I guess it’s more important for you to have your fun with your roommate rather than actually being prompt about the things that we have to do.”

Gillian’s blood felt like ice in his veins. Though that was also likely because of his own fear of being caught by the pair while they were in the middle of what seemed to be an argument.