Chapter 39 Max
THIRTY-NINE
MAX
I’ve been back on campus for a week, and it already feels like I’ve aged a year.
Campus is almost silent this time of year. Most of the guys won’t be back until tomorrow, so the hallways echo when I walk them—just the hum of the lights, the distant drip of melting snow from the rafters, the squeak of my shoes against the concrete.
Every now and then, a random laugh carries from somewhere down the corridor.
It hits me like déjà vu—reminds me of that weekend we were snowed-in together, just the two of us and the storm outside.
The way he’d looked at me under those awful string lights, the sound of his laugh when I’d agreed to his stupid Christmas movies.
I haven’t heard that sound in a week, and it’s too quiet without it.
I haven’t answered a single text. Not because I don’t want to. Because I don’t know how to answer the kind of pain I caused. Every unread message feels like a live wire in my pocket. I keep reaching for my phone, keep talking myself out of it.
He cried when I left. That part won’t leave me alone. The way he looked confused at first, the sound of his breath catching when he realized and said please. I hear it every night when I close my eyes.
So, this morning, I stop pretending I can do this job like nothing happened.
The rink is silent when I get there, and Coach’s office door is open a crack, warm light spilling into the dim hallway. He’s inside, sorting papers, coffee steaming beside him. I knock once.
He looks up, surprised. “Calder. You’re back early.”
“Can we talk?”
He gestures to the chair. “Of course.”
I take a breath and remain standing. “I think I should step down.”
He lowers the clipboard slowly. “You’re resigning?”
“Yes, sir.” My voice feels foreign in my throat. “After what happened over break… with Starling. It’s against the rules, and I shouldn’t be here. I know what it looks like. What it is.”
Coach leans back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “You’re right—it is against the rules. But walking away doesn’t make it disappear.”
“I just don’t want this to hurt the program,” I say. “Or him. If I quit, it ends here.”
He studies me, expression unreadable. “You’re not the first to think quitting fixes everything.”
“I’m not trying to fix it,” I say, quieter now. “I’m trying to take responsibility.”
He exhales slowly, setting his glasses aside. “You know Starling was in here at the ass crack of dawn this morning saying the same thing?”
The words hit me like a punch. My stomach drops. “He was?”
Coach nods once. “Tried to tell me it was all his fault. Said he pushed you into it. Sound familiar?”
My heart slams against my ribs. He’s back. He’s here. For the first time in days, the fog in my head cracks open, and something sharp slips through—relief, panic, both.
Coach keeps talking, but it’s hard to hear him over the pounding in my ears. “Neither of you gets to make this decision alone. You both crossed a line, and there’ll be consequences. But I’m not accepting any resignations. Not until we meet together and talk this through properly.”
I manage to swallow, voice hoarse. “Understood.”
“Good,” he says, pushing his chair back. “You’ll both be in my office this afternoon. Three o’clock sharp. We’re doing this the right way.”
I nod because I can’t find words.
When I leave Coach’s office, my pulse is still racing. The air feels colder than before, the echo of my heartbeat filling the quiet hallway. I try to breathe, to steady myself, but the thought of seeing Eli again—after everything I said, everything I didn’t—makes it impossible.
I start toward the exit, head down, when a faint noise stops me. A soft, steady scrape. The sound of a skate blade cutting across ice.
That shouldn’t be possible. The team isn’t scheduled until tomorrow, and the arena’s supposed to be locked. Still, the sound comes again: long, even, patient.
Curiosity. Or maybe something worse—hope—pushes me forward. I follow the echo through the empty corridor until I reach the heavy double doors leading into the rink.
Cold air hits the second I push them open. The space beyond glows faint blue under half-lit bulbs. The bleachers are empty, the ice pristine except for a single set of fresh lines carved through it.
Someone’s skating.
For a heartbeat, I just stand there, trying to make sense of it. The figure moves easily, slow loops near center ice, gliding like he’s thinking more than practicing. I can’t see his face yet, only the slope of his shoulders beneath a dark jacket.
Then he turns toward me, and the air leaves my lungs.
Eli.
It feels like the floor drops out from under me. His curls spill from under a beanie, cheeks pink from the cold, mouth parted just slightly as he coasts to a stop.
My heart drops out of my ass, and my stomach dips.
He doesn’t say anything—just watches me, chest rising and falling in sharp, visible breaths. The distance between us is maybe a hundred feet, but it feels like miles.
Every unread message, every night I didn’t answer, every excuse I made about “protecting him”—they all hit at once. I want to tell him I’m sorry. That silence wasn’t mercy; it was cowardice.
But my mouth won’t work.
I just stand there at the edge of the boards, hands buried in my pockets to keep them from shaking, while the rink hums with quiet and the world folds down to this—him on the ice, me on solid ground, and everything I broke still hanging in the cold air between us.
“Eli,” I manage. The sound of his name feels foreign in my mouth after a week of silence.
He doesn’t answer. Just slows near the boards, his skates whispering against the ice. The overhead lights catch the faint rise of steam from his breath, and for a second, it looks like he’s trying to decide whether to come closer or skate in the other direction.
I want to make it easy for him, to bridge the space between us, but my legs won’t move.
“I wasn’t—” I start, then stop. The words fracture in my throat. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
He looks up at that, eyes tired in a way they weren’t before. That spark that always lived there—bright and relentless—is gone. All that’s left is quiet exhaustion.
“I know,” he says finally, voice low. It’s not forgiveness. It’s just a fact. An acknowledgement that he’s aware that wasn’t my intent, even if that’s the result.
“I thought if I left, it would… make things easier,” I say, each word landing heavier than the last. “For you. For your season. For everything—”
Eli’s laugh is small and humorless. “Easier for who?”
I swallow hard. “I told myself it was for both of us.”
He shakes his head, the motion slight but enough. “You don’t get to decide what’s easier for me.”
“I just—” I drag a hand down my face, trying to steady my voice. “Coach said there’ll be a meeting this afternoon. He’s not letting me quit.”
Eli’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t look surprised. “You tried to quit?”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “And he said that you tried the same thing.”
He exhales through his nose, eyes still on the ice. “Didn’t work, obviously.”
Something in my chest twists, sharp and deep. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
He glances up, the faintest spark in his eyes. “You think you’re the only one who gets to protect someone? All of this is my fault, Max. If I didn’t—”
His words cut off, hanging there in the cold air between us, unfinished but heavy enough to hurt anyway.
I shake my head. “Don’t,” I say. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
He blinks, startled, like he wasn’t expecting me to interrupt. “Why not? It’s the truth.”
“It’s not,” I tell him. My voice cracks on the last word. “You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t already want to do. You think I kissed you because you’re reckless or because you pushed? I kissed you because I—”
I stop. The rest of it burns in my throat. Because I love you. Because I haven’t stopped since that weekend in the storm. Because you’re the only thing that’s felt right in a long damn time.
Eli looks at me like he’s waiting for me to say it, but I can’t. Not when I already said it once and walked away anyway.
He drops his gaze again, tracing the toe of his skate along a crack in the ice. “Doesn’t matter now,” he murmurs. “Coach will do whatever he has to. Probably suspension. Maybe worse.”
The thought of him losing everything because of me makes something ugly twist in my chest, even more than me losing everything. Funny how my view on that has changed over this week. “I won’t let him,” I say before I can stop myself.
Eli lets out another quiet, humorless laugh, and I hate the sound of it. “You don’t get to control that either.”
He’s right. But standing here, watching how small he’s trying to make himself, I hate that I can’t.
I press my palms against the boards, fingers numb from the cold seeping through the glass. “You’ve been here long?”
He gives a half-shrug at my change of subject. “Since morning.”
“Trying to think?” I ask, though I already know.
“Trying not to,” he says.
I nod once. “Yeah. Me too.”
For a moment, we just stand there—the sound of the cooling system humming through the arena, the smell of ice thick in the air
When he finally looks up again, his eyes are red at the edges. “You think they’ll fire you and kick you out of school?”
“Maybe.” I shrug one shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. Not if it keeps you on the ice.”
He studies me for a beat that feels too long. “You’re still doing it,” he says quietly.
“Doing what?”
“Putting up your walls to keep everyone out.”
I don’t have an answer for that. Maybe because he’s right. Maybe because I’m scared of what happens if I stop.
The silence stretches again, thin and fragile. I take a step back, unsure if I’m doing it to give him space or to keep myself from stepping out onto the ice and reaching for him.
His hands flex at his sides, like he’s fighting the same impulse. “I should go,” he says finally.
“Yeah,” I manage. “Me too.”
He glides toward the exit on the far side of the rink, and I watch until the door to the locker room closes behind him.
Then I press my forehead against the glass, eyes stinging from more than just the cold. Because I don’t know if we can come back from this, and it’s breaking me.