Chapter 24
ZANE
I don’t sleep.
I lie in my hotel bed staring at the ceiling, watching the numbers on the clock change. The world is supposed to be quiet and my brain is supposed to shut up.
It doesn’t.
She lied.
The thought circles back again and again, a shark in murky water. She lied to me. To all of us. For weeks. Walked into that locker room every day pretending to be something she wasn’t and no one knew.
I think about that night with her. I don’t want to go there yet.
But it comes back anyway.
The way her body fit against mine like we’d been doing this forever.
Was any of it real?
She didn’t plan that. I believe her. I have to believe her, because if I don’t-
I roll onto my side. Punch the pillow. Stare at the wall.
The chemistry on the ice was real.
I’ve been playing hockey my whole life. I know what it feels like when it works. You can’t fake that. You can’t manufacture the way we didn’t need to talk because we were already reading each other’s minds.
But she knew.
That’s the part I keep coming back to. She knew who I was at Halloween. She’d been playing beside me for weeks by then. Watching me. Learning me. Passing me the puck and skating beside me in practice.
And she still came home with me.
She still let me-
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes.
Let me.
That’s the wrong word. She didn’t let me do anything. She was there. Present. Wanting. How she looked at me, touched me, kissed me-
That wasn’t letting.
That was choosing.
I think about what Russo said between periods.
You care about him.
Not him. Her.
I’ve been caring about her for weeks and didn’t even know it. The way I watched for her on the ice. The way I noticed when she was tired, when she was hurting, when she was playing through something she shouldn’t have. The way I stepped in front of that hit against the Eagles without thinking.
The way my hands shook when she went down tonight.
I thought it was teammate loyalty. Camaraderie. The bond you build with someone who plays on your line.
It wasn’t.
It was her.
It’s always been her.
There was nowhere else for me to play.
I think about what that means.
She didn’t just want to play. She needed to play.
The way I need it. The way hockey is the only thing that makes sense when everything else falls apart.
She’s been surviving on borrowed time. And I’ve been playing the best hockey of my life beside her.
I think about her face when I walked out.
The tears she tried to hide. How she said my name like she was already losing me.
She wasn’t trying to hurt me.
I know that now. The anger is still there - a low burn in my chest - but underneath it, there’s something else.
Understanding.
She didn’t do this to me. She did it for herself. For the game. For the chance to feel what I get to feel every day without thinking about it.
I think about what I’d do if someone took hockey away from me. If I had to watch from the stands while other people played. If the only way back onto the ice was to lie.
I don’t know if I’d have the courage to do what she did.
The clock hits midnight.
I’m still staring at the ceiling.
Tomorrow - today - we have two more games.
She’ll be there.
Lee Shaw. Leonora. Whoever she is.
She’ll be on the ice beside me, passing me the puck, reading my moves, doing the thing she loves more than anything.
And I’ll have to figure out how to play beside her without falling apart.
I don’t know if I can.
LEONORA
The hotel room is too quiet.
I lie on my back staring at the ceiling, counting the same cracks over and over.
I’ve been here for hours.
The game feels like a lifetime ago. The blood, the way Zane looked at me in the medical room - all of it distant now, like something that happened to someone else.
But it happened to me. And he knows.
A soft knock on the door.
“It’s me.” Tara’s voice, low and calm.
I go and open the door for her.
She steps inside carrying a takeout container. The smell hits me immediately. Soup. Chicken, maybe. Warm and salty.
“You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I don’t care.”
She sets the container on the nightstand and sits on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips under her weight. I still don’t move.
“Let me check the wound.”
She peels back the bandage carefully, studies the line of the cut in the dim light from the bathroom.
“It’s healing well,” she says quietly. “You can play tomorrow.”
I should feel relieved.
I don’t feel anything.
“What if he tells someone?”
The words come out flat.
Tara’s hands still for just a second. Then she presses the bandage back into place.
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know him. And I also know this is his opportunity. The scouts are here because of this run. Because of how the team is playing. And whether he likes it or not right now - he needs you on that ice.”
“That’s a terrible reason to trust someone.”
“It’s not trust. He wants this as badly as you do. Maybe more. He won’t risk it.”
I want to believe her.
But I saw his face when he walked out. The hurt underneath the anger. He looked at me like he didn’t know me anymore.
Tara stays for a while.
She makes me eat the soup - sits there until I’ve finished half of it and checks the wound one more time before she leaves.
“Try to sleep,” she says at the door. “Big day tomorrow.”
The door clicks shut.
I’m alone again.
I don’t sleep.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, the soup sitting heavy in my stomach, my mind spinning in circles.
Could I have trusted him?
The question won’t let go.
If I’d told him earlier, what would he have done?
Would he have turned me in?
But he protected me before he even knew me.
That has to mean something.
But then he could still turn me in. He could walk straight up to Coach Calloway tomorrow morning and tell him everything. One conversation and it’s over. The team gets disqualified. The wins get stripped. My life at Blackwood - my degree, my friends, everything - implodes.
And Zane would probably be fine. He’d be the victim. The poor guy who got tricked by some crazy girl pretending to be his teammate.
I press my palms against my eyes.
I think about what Tara said.
He needs you on that ice.
Is that true?
I don’t know.
I don’t know him that well. Not really. I know the way he skates. The way he laughs. The way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not watching.
But I don’t know what he’ll do when the sun comes up.
I think about Dad and start crying again.
What would he say if he could see me now? His daughter, playing on a men’s team, lying to everyone, falling for her teammate.
He’d probably be furious. But maybe he’d be proud.
He’d probably tell me to stop crying and figure it out.
The ones who want it more, they’re the ones who win.
I want it. God, I want it.
But wanting isn’t enough anymore. Now it’s about what Zane wants. What he’ll do with the truth I gave him.
I roll onto my side and stare at the door.
Waiting for morning to find out if my life falls apart.