Chapter 3 #2
The muscles between my shoulders lock. “Sir?”
“I saw you in warm-ups,” he says. My pulse spikes. The stumble. He saw it. “And in the tunnel after.” His voice lowers, shifting tone. He doesn't sound like a coach anymore. He sounds like a father patrolling a fence line. “Talia was there.”
Her name lands like a puck to the chest.
He doesn’t say it like a warning. He says it like she’s the most important sentence in his life.
“She transferred back here for a reason,” he says, eyes locked on mine, the worry lines around them deepening. “But she won’t tell me what it is. She thinks she’s hiding how hard this is. She’s not.”
He glances toward the arena, jaw tightening, helpless rage flickering behind the discipline.
“I saw her looking at you,” he says, softer now. “And I saw you stop. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a problem. For either of you.”
My throat goes tight. “No problem,” I say. The lie comes too smooth. “She just surprised me.”
He studies my face like he’s trying to read the parts I don’t say out loud. Then, instead of pressing, he nods once.
“I trust you,” he says simply. No heat. No edge. Just fact. “You’re steady back there. If you ever feel like something’s off with her, you come to me. If you ever see her cracking and I miss it... get my attention. She’s fragile right now. I can't lose her.”
The words hit harder than any threat could.
He trusts me. With his net. With his team. With the girl who stood in the tunnel and saw straight through me.
He trusts me.
He shouldn’t.
I shoulder through the exit. Night air knifes into my lungs.
The parking lot is a frozen wasteland, the cold so sharp it feels like it could cut from the inside.
My breath fogs, ghosting in front of my face.
Sodium lights buzz, throwing hard halos onto wet asphalt.
Every sound is magnified out here—the distant scrape of a Zamboni, laughter bleeding from a far door, the high tick of cooling engines.
I unlock the truck; the thunk of the latch echoes painfully in the oppressive quiet.
I throw my bag in the back and slide into the driver’s seat. The cab is dark. Silent. My sanctuary. I lean my head back against the cold headrest and close my eyes.
Her face is already burned into the backs of my eyelids. Hazel. Direct hit. Jacket pulled tight, hands jammed into pockets. The way she looked at me in the tunnel—not like a fan, not like she wanted something. She knew something. She saw the man, not the goalie—she saw the fracture.
My phone lights up the cab, screen filling with demands disguised as messages.
Father: Good win. Keep the numbers down next time.
Translation: Don’t let it get close.
Beatrice: Heard you won! Thinking of you! ??
Translation: My father’s choice. The merger in human form.
Adrian: Elm House. Get over here.
Translation: Pretend you belong.
I kill the screen, plunging the cab back into darkness. I don’t do parties or people. And apparently, I don’t touch the coach’s daughter.
Silence fills in around me, thick as wool. I flex my fingers on the wheel once, twice, until the tremor burns out. The fracture doesn’t close.
I start the engine, the low rumble a familiar comfort that doesn’t reach the cold knot in my stomach. I pull out of the lot, the arena shrinking in the rearview. This night should’ve been simple. Play. Win. Keep my head down.
But now it isn’t simple. Now I know she’s hiding something so dark even her father can’t reach it. Now I know he trusts me anywhere near that fight.
He didn’t tell me to stay away. That should make it easier. It doesn’t. It makes every thought I have about her feel twice as dangerous.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles white. Anger burns clean and hot—less at him, more at myself. It’s easier than the other thing—the quiet, unnerving sense that she saw something behind my mask. Not the goalie. Not the wall everyone thinks I am.
The fracture.
Elm House pings on my phone with another group text flashing across the screen.
I grip the wheel. I could go. The thought hits like a physical pull, a sharp need to see if she’s there, if Clara dragged her out, if she’s as still and broken up close as she was from the ice.
To confirm she’s real—and that the damage wasn’t imagined.
My truck idles at the intersection. Left is home. Right is Elm House. Right is… her.
The blinker ticks. Tick. Tick. Tick. Loud as a metronome. Loud as a bomb counting down.
My foot eases off the brake. The truck creeps forward, an inch, two, drawn toward the right turn like metal to a magnet. My pulse thuds in my ears, syncing with the blinker. Just one look. Just to see if she’s cracking.
I slam my hand on the shifter and crank the wheel left.
The movement is violent, a physical wrenching that feels like I’m ripping my own skin. I force the truck toward my apartment. A strategic retreat. Not a defeat.
Coach Addison trusts me. He doesn’t know what I am under the mask, or what she’s already turning me into. He doesn’t know how badly I wanted to go right.
The light turns green. I accelerate, muscles tight, jaw tighter.
The line has been drawn.
Fine—I’ll learn every inch. Then I’ll decide where to break.