Chapter Four
Matt
The fact that I'm fifteen minutes earlier than I was yesterday, giving me a better chance of running into her before practice, is also coincidental.
And the fact that I spent twenty minutes last night researching whether blueberries have any actual nutritional value so I could justify the muffin as a reasonable breakfast choice is... okay, that one's harder to explain.
The arena is dark except for the emergency lighting, and for a moment I think I might have miscalculated.
Maybe she doesn't come this early every day.
Maybe yesterday was an anomaly. And maybe I'm standing here like an idiot with a muffin and no logical explanation for why I'm at the rink before sunrise.
Then I hear the soft sound of blades on ice.
The rink lights are on, casting their familiar glow over the surface, and there she is. Sophia Turner, moving across the ice like she was born to it, practicing what looks like the same sequence of jumps over and over with the kind of focused intensity that makes everything else disappear.
I've seen her skate before, obviously. We've been sharing ice time for months, and it's hard to miss someone when they're spinning in the air ten feet away from you.
But I've never really watched her, not like this.
I've been too busy being annoyed about ice schedules and territorial disputes to pay attention to what she actually does out there.
She lands a jump that sends her gliding backward in a perfect arc, arms extended, and something in my chest does this weird flip thing that has nothing to do with caffeine intake. She's incredible.
Not just technically—though even I can tell she's operating on a completely different level than the other figure skaters I've seen.
There's something else, something that makes it impossible to look away.
She moves like the ice is an extension of herself, like she's having a conversation with the rink that only the two of them understand. This is what she meant about flying.
I lean against the boards and watch her run through the sequence again. Jump, land, spin, glide. Jump, land, spin, glide. She's completely absorbed in what she's doing, lost in that focused state that athletes know but can never really explain to anyone else.
She's wearing practice clothes—black leggings and a fitted jacket that somehow manages to look both practical and graceful—and her hair is in that same perfect ponytail that I'm starting to realize isn't about control at all.
It's about keeping distractions to a minimum so she can focus on this thing she loves.
Or used to love, before she turned it into another item on her resume.
The thought bothers me more than it should. Yesterday, when she talked about not remembering the last time she ate something for pleasure, there was something heartbreaking about it. Like she'd systematically stripped all the joy out of her life in pursuit of some impossible standard of perfection.
She attempts the sequence again, and this time something goes wrong with the landing. She stumbles slightly, catches herself, and I can practically see the frustration radiating from her as she glides to a stop near the center of the ice.
"Dammit," she mutters, and the sound carries clearly in the empty arena.
She takes a deep breath, adjusts her position, and starts the approach again.
Same jump, same technical precision, but I can see the tension in her shoulders now.
She's overthinking it. The second attempt is worse.
She lands hard, nearly falls, and stops abruptly with her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
"Sophia."
The word comes out before I can stop it, and she spins around so fast I'm surprised she doesn't fall over. Her eyes find me standing by the boards, and I watch her expression cycle through surprise, embarrassment, and something that might be pleasure before settling into careful neutrality.
"Matt," she says, skating over to the boards with quick, efficient strokes. "You're early again."
"So are you."
"I'm always early."
"I know." I hold up the paper bag. "I brought you something."
She stares at the bag like it might contain a live snake. "What is it?"
"Breakfast. The kind you eat because it tastes good, not because it's been nutritionally optimized for peak performance."
"Matt—"
"It's a blueberry muffin, Turner. Not a marriage proposal."
That gets me almost-a-smile, which I'm learning to count as a victory. "Why are you bringing me breakfast?"
Good question. Because I couldn't stop thinking about you. Because you looked like you were enjoying that waffle more than you'd enjoyed anything in months. I want to see that expression on your face again—the one where you let your guard down and remember how to be happy.
"Because," I say instead, "you were right about the waffle yesterday. Sometimes the non-optimized choice is the right choice."
She takes the bag and peers inside. "Blueberries are actually quite nutritious. High in antioxidants and vitamin C."
"I know. I looked it up."
She goes very still. "You looked it up?"
Shit. That was supposed to stay in my head. "I wanted to make sure I wasn't sabotaging your academic performance with empty calories."
"You... researched the nutritional value of blueberries. For me."
"It wasn't research. It was like thirty seconds on Google."
"You spent thirty seconds on Google researching the nutritional value of blueberries," she repeats slowly, "so you could bring me a muffin that you thought I'd enjoy."
When she puts it like that, it sounds either really sweet or mildly stalkerish. I'm hoping for sweet.
"Maybe," I admit.
She stares at me for a long moment, then opens the bag and takes a bite of the muffin. I watch her face carefully, looking for that same expression she had with the waffle—the moment when pleasure breaks through all her careful control.
There it is. A tiny smile, followed by another bite.
"Good?" I ask.
"Unreasonably good," she says, echoing yesterday's words. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
We stand there in comfortable silence while she eats, and I try not to think about how domestic this feels. How right it feels to be here with her in the quiet arena, sharing breakfast before the rest of the world wakes up.
"How did your exam go?" I ask.
"Better than expected, actually. I think the waffle helped."
"Told you."
"You did." She takes another bite of muffin. "I've been thinking about what you said yesterday. About my systems."
"What about them?"
"Maybe they're not as perfectly calibrated as I thought." She looks out at the ice, where the marks from her practice session create patterns in the surface. "I've been so focused on controlling variables that I forgot some variables might actually be improvements."
There's something in her voice that makes me think she's not just talking about breakfast choices.
"Like what?"
"Like..." She hesitates, then seems to make a decision. "Like spending time with people who notice things. Like eating food that tastes good instead of just functional and remembering why I started skating in the first place."
"Which was?"
"Because it felt like flying." She looks back at me. "You were right about that, too. I did turn something I loved into another resume item."
"Doesn't mean you can't love it again."
"Maybe not." She finishes the muffin and carefully folds the paper bag. "What about you? What made you start playing hockey?"
"Honestly? I was seven and thought the uniforms looked cool."
She laughs and the sound echoes through the empty arena. "That's it? No deep emotional connection to the sport?"
"Well, that came later. But yeah, originally it was pure vanity."
"And now?"
"Now?" I think about this. "Now it's about the team. About working together toward something bigger than any individual performance and having eleven other guys who'll have your back no matter what."
"That sounds nice," she says, and there's something wistful in her voice.
"You don't have that with the figure skating club?"
"I have people who depend on me to organize everything and make sure nothing goes wrong. It's not quite the same thing."
"When's the last time someone had your back?"
She goes quiet, staring down at her skates. "I don't know. I'm usually the one making sure everyone else is okay."
And there it is—the thing I've been sensing about Sophia Turner but couldn't quite articulate. She's so busy taking care of everyone else, so focused on being perfect and reliable and in control, that she's forgotten how to let anyone take care of her.
"Turner," I say carefully.
"Yeah?"
"What if you didn't have to be perfect all the time?"
She looks up at me, and for a moment I see something vulnerable and uncertain in her expression. "I don't know how to be anything else."
"Sure you do. You were something else yesterday morning, when you talked about flying. And just now, when you laughed."
"That's different."
"How?"
"Because..." She struggles with the words. "Because perfect is safe. Perfect gets you into medical school and keeps you from disappointing people and means you always know what's expected of you."
"And what does imperfect get you?"
"I don't know. I've never tried it."
"Maybe," I say, "it's time to find out."
She stares at me like I've suggested she take up extreme base jumping. "You want me to try being imperfect."
"I want you to try being human."
"I am human."
"Are you? Because from where I'm standing, you look like someone who's trying really hard to be a very efficient machine."
"That's not—" She stops, considering. "Okay, maybe a little. But efficient machines get results."
"So do humans. They just have more fun doing it."
"Fun," she repeats, like it's a foreign concept.
"Yeah, fun. You remember fun, right? That thing people do when they're not optimizing their performance metrics?"
"I optimize my fun too."
"Jesus, Turner." I can't help but laugh. "You can't optimize fun. That defeats the entire purpose."
"Why not? If you can identify the activities that provide the most enjoyment per unit of time invested—"
"Stop." I hold up a hand. "You're giving me a headache."
"I'm just being logical."
"You're being ridiculous. Fun isn't supposed to be logical. It's supposed to be... fun."
"But—"
"No buts. Here's what we're going to do." The words come out before I've fully thought them through, but suddenly I know exactly what she needs. "Tomorrow's Saturday. No classes, no exams, no official practices. You're going to do something completely unproductive and illogical."
"Like what?"
"I don't know yet. But something that serves no purpose other than making you happy."
She looks terrified. "What if I don't remember how to be happy?"
"Then we'll figure it out together."
The word 'together' hangs in the air between us, loaded with implications that neither of us is quite ready to acknowledge. But something shifts in her expression, like she's considering possibilities she hadn't allowed herself to think about before.
"Okay," she says quietly.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I'll try being imperfect. On Saturday."
"Good." I check my phone. It's 6:15, which means her club members will start arriving soon. "I should let you get back to practice."
"Yeah." She doesn't move away from the boards. "Matt?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For the muffin, and for..." She interlaces her fingers. "For caring about whether I'm human or machine."
"Anytime, Turner."
She pushes off from the boards and glides backward a few feet, then stops again. "And Matt? Whatever we do on Saturday? Maybe we could make it involve food that tastes good instead of just functional."
"I think that can be arranged."
She smiles—a real smile this time, bright and unguarded—and skates away to start her routine again. I watch her for another minute, noticing how much more relaxed she looks now, how the tension has left her shoulders.
As I head toward the locker room, I find myself already planning Saturday activities that have absolutely nothing to do with productivity or optimization.
For someone who's supposed to be focused on hockey and law school applications, I'm spending a suspicious amount of time thinking about figure skaters and their happiness levels.
But as I listen to the sound of her blades cutting through the ice behind me, I realize I don't mind the distraction.