Chapter 31 No Ice Underfoot （Kieran）
NO ICE UNDERFOOT (KIERAN)
Idon’t move when she walks away.
For a second, I’m still tracking her without meaning to—the swing of her backpack, Theo’s hand at her elbow, the way she doesn’t look back even once. Then the space where she was empties out, and the noise rushes in to fill it.
Laughter. Phones. Voices stacking until it’s just sound without shape.
My cheek throbs where Theo hit me. My knee screams where stone went straight through denim. My mouth tastes of blood and copper and something worse.
None of it matters.
I take one step after them and stop.
Not because I don’t want to go after her. Because I can feel it now—the line. The hard edge she drew when she said, “don’t touch me.”
The quad turns into an arena.
“Holy shit.”
“She dropped him.”
“Bro didn’t even swing back.”
“Is it true though? The bet thing?”
Phones are everywhere. I catch my own reflection in black screens—distorted, bleeding, smaller than I’ve ever been. Someone laughs too loudly. Someone else says predator, trying it on, seeing how it fits.
I swallow. It scrapes.
Across the quad, Isabelle is already gone. I could go after her.
The thought flashes—sharp, stupid—and dies.
The damage is done.
A guy in a BU hoodie slows as he passes, eyes flicking to my lip, my knee. He shakes his head.
“Some hat trick, O’Connor.”
His friend snorts.
Heat spikes in my chest. I force my hands open at my sides. Force myself to breathe.
The quad tilts. I drag a hand over my face.
“I love you. Fucking say it back, Wren. Say it back. Please.”
The memory slams into me, knocking the air clean out of my lungs.
She said she loves me.
And still walked away with her head high.
Laughter spikes again. Someone’s replaying the video out loud—my voice small and desperate, her standing over me, the crowd screaming.
My knee buckles. I catch myself before I go down again.
I stare at the ground until it stops moving.
When I look up, the path where she disappeared is empty. Just students crossing it, unaware. Ordinary. Monday-bright.
My throat tightens until breathing is work.
I see her anyway, in my hoodie, in my bed, blinking up at me like I’m safe. I hear the way she said Starboy, teasing and starstruck all at once.
Then the way she said it at the end.
I’m not standing here and listening to your silver tongue.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
I did this. I let Isabelle start it. I let it stay a game. I let Wren be the setup and the proof and the fallout.
Someone shouts, “O’Connor, you good?” like it’s funny.
I don’t answer.
I take a step. My knee protests. My body wants to fold. I make it straighten anyway.
I’m supposed to be good at taking hits.
This one is different.
As I head for the edge of the quad, two girls pass me, phones angled down, whispering like I can’t hear them.
“I kind of feel bad.”
“No, you don’t.”
My stomach twists.
I keep walking.
Every step feels like glass.
By the time the noise thins, my hands are shaking—not from pain, but from the weight of her absence. Solid. Dragging. Pulling at my ribs.
I want to rewind. To stand in front of her dorm and say it right this time.
Saying it right doesn’t change what I did. Doesn’t change what she lost. Doesn’t change the fact that this was the first time she trusted someone.
And I broke it.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Once. Twice. Then it won’t stop.
I don’t look. I know what it is—group chats, teammates, people who never once cared about my character and suddenly have opinions. I just walk, aimless.
Hours later, I stop under a budding tree at the edge of the quad and finally pull the phone out.
The lock screen is a flood.
TEAM CHAT (17)
MASON — 3 MISSED CALLS
LIAM — 1 MISSED CALL
My chest tightens.
I let the screen go dark.
Then I open the phone and click on the video on my feed, because I hate myself, because it exists whether I look or not.
Wren dropping me. The crowd. Theo’s fist. My own voice begging.
I watch it once.
On the second replay, I can’t get past her face when she says, “you were my first.”
My hand spasms. The phone nearly slips.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
I shove it back into my pocket like it’s burning me.
Then I turn toward the athletic complex.
Not to hide. But to go find the first adult who will look me in the eye and tell me exactly how bad this is.
Because the only way past this—if there even is one—is straight through.
And Wren?
Wren is already gone.
Coach McCarthy’s door is closed.
That alone is wrong. His door is usually cracked, like he’s letting the rink breathe into his office. Today it’s shut. Final. Deliberate.
I stop outside it, hand hovering near the knob. My knee aches. My lip is split again where it dried and cracked on the walk over. My phone won’t stop vibrating in my pocket.
None of that is the problem.
The problem is that he asked me a question days ago, and I lied with my whole chest.
“Is there anything else I should know?”
I knock once.
“Come in.”
His voice is flat. Not angry. Worse. Controlled.
I step inside and close the door. The office smells of coffee, old tape, and ice. Two monitors glow on his desk—one paused on game film, the other an email thread with Compliance visible in the preview pane.
He looks me over. “Sit,” he says finally.
I take the chair across from him. My body feels too big for it. My knee protests. I keep my face still.
Coach folds his hands on the desk.
“Two hours ago,” he says, “I got a call from Athletics Communications. Then the Dean’s office. Then Compliance, asking whether this program is aware of what’s circulating.”
He watches my eyes like he expects them to flinch.
I don’t.
“I watched the video,” he continues. “I watched the post. I watched you go down on that quad. And I watched a hundred students turn it into entertainment.”
My throat tightens. I force air into my lungs.
Coach taps the desk once. Soft. Heavy.
“I’m going to ask you one time,” he says, leaning forward slightly. “And you’re going to answer like a man who wants to keep wearing this jersey.” A pause. “Is there anything else I should know?”
My mouth goes dry. The exact tone. The exact phrasing.
The chance I already wasted.
I could manage it. Spin it. Protect myself.
Wren’s voice cuts clean through the impulse.
Silver tongue.
I swallow. It feels like glass.
“Yes,” I say. “There is.”
He waits.
“The posts are true,” I continue. “There was a bet.”
Coach exhales through his nose, slow and braced.
“Start from the beginning.”
So I do.
The party. The dare. The pursuit. Hoping Isabelle would let it go. Reed. The attempted assault. The fallout.
Coach’s gaze sharpens by a fraction.
“Why go to such lengths for a girl?” he asks.
The answer is ugly. That’s why it matters.
“Because my ego wanted to win,” I admit. “Because I liked being the guy people bet on. Because I thought it wouldn’t matter.”
A beat.
“That her feelings wouldn’t matter,” Coach says.
“Yes.”
“And when were you planning to tell me?”
“I wasn’t.”
He studies me. I can see the calculation behind his eyes—liability, Title IX, program risk, safety.
Then he asks, “Did you win the bet?”
Something drops through me, fast and heavy.
“Yes.”
Coach leans back, exhaling.
“And you’re telling me now,” he says, “after the entire campus watched her shut you down.”
“Yes.”
He looks at the monitor. Then back at me.
“Do you understand what you did to this girl?”
“Wren.” I swallow. “Yes.”
“No,” he says quietly. “You understand what this did to you. That’s why you’re here.”
The correction lands clean.
I steady my voice. “She was my target,” I say. “Then she became someone real. And that doesn’t matter, because I started with her as a target.”
Coach holds my gaze.
“You didn’t just lie,” he says. “You engineered proximity. You used your status. You used your access. And you did it to someone with less power than you in every way that counts on a campus.”
“Yes.” I swallow, then force the rest out. “And I created the environment that made Reed think what he did was acceptable. The jokes. The culture. The way we talked about—” My throat closes. “I broke his nose. But I built the world that told him it was okay to try.”
Coach’s expression doesn’t soften, but something shifts behind his eyes. Recognition.
“Yes,” he says quietly. “You did.”
“Compliance will open a parallel review,” he continues. “Not for Reed. For you.”
My stomach sinks.
“They’ve already asked whether the relationship began consensually.”
“It did,” I say quickly. “I didn’t force myself on her.”
“After you manipulated the conditions,” he corrects.
“Yes.”
Silence stretches.
Then he says, “Here’s what’s going to happen.”
My hands curl, then I force them open.
“You’re suspended from all team activities,” he says. “Effective immediately.”
I nod.
“You will not practice. Travel. Dress. Or enter the locker room.”
Another nod.
“You will turn in your alternate captain letter today.”
My throat burns. I nod again.
“And you will not contact her.”
My head lifts. “Coach—”
“No,” he says sharply. “You don’t need to explain. You want relief. You want to put your guilt on her and call it closure.”
I swallow. “I’m in love with her. I need to make sure she’s ok.”
“If you love her,” he snaps, “you leave her alone.”
Silence.
“Title IX may issue a no-contact directive,” he adds. “You will comply.”
“Yes.”
“If she files a formal complaint,” he says, “you will not retaliate. You will not influence witnesses. You will not play the victim.”
His gaze pins me.
“You will take it.”
“I will.”
He studies me once more. “You did the right thing with Reed.”
I don’t move.
“But you don’t get to balance the scales,” he says. “Good men don’t keep score.”
“I’m not asking for credit.”
“Then don’t,” he replies. “Just take it. Quietly.”
He slides a form across the desk.
Interim Suspension Pending Review.
“Sign.”
I do.
“Side exit,” he says. “No teammates. No scenes.”
I stand. My hand closes around the knob.
“Coach,” I say.
He waits.
“I didn’t mean to destroy her.”
He answers without softness. “Intent doesn’t undo impact.”
“Yes,” I manage.
The hallway noise hits me like water—pucks, laughter, blades on ice.
A world that belonged to me. Except now it doesn’t anymore.
I walk toward the side exit like I’m carrying my own body out of a wreck. For the first time since she said she loved me and still walked away, I understand.
This isn’t the part where I win her back.
This is the part where I pay.