Chapter 10
ten
MORGAN
The cursor blinks at me like an accusation, and I've written exactly three words in two hours:
Formal Complaint Re:
That's it. That's all I've managed.
And the last word isn't really even a full word.
The laptop screen burns my retinas with its glow, the only light source in my apartment. My shoulders ache from hunching forward, and the desk edge presses a line into my forearms that will leave marks.
The recipient line is almost as empty as the subject field, because I can't decide who deserves this particular brand of rage—Galloway with his wandering eyes, the university president who probably golfs with him on weekends…
or someone else who might give a shit that Mills almost had her windpipe crushed today.
I complete the subject line:
Formal Complaint Re: Unsafe Conduct, Men's Hockey
It's so sanitized. So professional. Like this is about policy violations instead of the way my heart stopped when I saw that barbell tilting toward Mills's throat, or the fact I can still hear the scrape of metal against metal, Kellerman's voice breaking on "Oh shit," the wet gasp Mills made when the bar kissed her throat.
My fingers hover over the keys, but the words won't arrange themselves into anything that captures it.
How do you quantify a near-disaster in bureaucratic language?
How do you explain that your best player and only friend almost got hurt because some overgrown golden retriever couldn't spot a bench press?
But I can't write that, even though it's true. So, with a sigh, I rub my eyes hard enough to see starbursts. The truth is, I shouldn't be surprised, because this is what happens when you're forced to share facilities with a team that treats professional spaces like their personal frat house.
Yesterday, Nash and Stiles turned the squat racks into their own private comedy club, complete with dick jokes loud enough to hear through my earbuds. The day before that, someone—definitely one of the men—left a protein shake to ferment in the sauna until it smelled like something died.
But I can document all that.
What I can't document is the way James materialized like some kind of guardian angel, moving faster than I've ever seen him move off the ice, or how his whole body changed in that moment from class clown to something else entirely.
Something that made my chest tight.
A feeling I hate, especially here.
As usual, my apartment is silent except for the mechanical hum of my laptop fan.
I've cultivated this silence, built it brick by brick.
There are no roommates with their messy emotional spillover and no decorations that might invite questions.
Just me, my equipment bag in the corner, and the discipline that keeps me sharp.
But tonight the silence feels viscous, pressing against my eardrums.
I force myself to focus on the screen. The last few days of cohabitation play out in my mind, and Monday's cologne warfare deserves its own special commendation.
Because apparently the men's team discovered a warehouse sale on Axe body spray and decided to mark their territory through chemical warfare.
Then there's the systematic pilfering. Three rolls of athletic tape gone like a magic trick, except the only thing disappearing is our budget. Mills had shown me the empty supply cabinet with this tight, controlled fury that reminded me why I made her my lieutenant.
"Twenty-seven dollars a roll," she'd said, jabbing at her phone's calculator hard enough to crack the screen. "They get ten times our budget and steal our shit."
And their music… bleeding through the walls… thumping bass lines about bitches and bottles that make my molars ache. We've tried playing our music louder, but it just becomes this sonic arms race that leaves everyone with migraines.
Yet all this is bearable.
Annoying, infuriating, but bearable.
But what actually broke me was watching Mills almost get badly hurt.
Fucking Kellerman with his puppy enthusiasm and the spatial awareness of a concussed goldfish. He'd missed it by just a split-second, then panicked and overcompensated, but physics doesn't forgive. I can still see it, the bar sliding left, Mills's eyes going wide.
I was moving, but too slow, my hands reaching for a bar already falling.
Then comes James, out of nowhere, his hands catching the bar six inches from Mills's throat. Mills had scrambled off the bench, hand to her throat, breathing in shallow, bird-like gasps. And James had looked at Kellerman with an expression I'd never seen on his perpetually goofy face.
Cold. Focused. Terrifying.
Kellerman had actually whimpered.
Then James had turned to me, and for one second our eyes met. His hands were bleeding, and there was something in his expression that looked like—
No. Not doing this.
I start typing.
At 15:42 hours, PBU women's hockey athlete Amelia Ramirez was engaged in supervised strength training when gross negligence—
Delete.
Too clinical, like I'm filing a report for a fender-bender.
New attempt:
The systematic harassment we've endured culminated today in an incident that required James Fitzgerald's intervention to prevent a tragedy his own team—
Delete.
Now I sound hysterical. Exactly what Galloway expects, another emotional woman who can't handle the pressure.
My political science brain kicks in, mapping the scenario and how it will play out.
If I send this email, Galloway will read it with that patronizing half-smile that makes his already leering eyes look even more predatory.
He'll schedule a meeting, play big-swinging-dick, and it'll be over for me and my girls.
Morgan, he'd say, using my first name like we're friends, like he hasn't spent weeks addressing my chest whenever we speak.
I understand you're struggling with the integration, but we need team players here, and complaints and publicity help nobody.
She wasn't hurt, and the boys are sorry, so let's just drop it?
Then would come the knife wrapped in concern:
Maybe we need to reconsider if this arrangement is working. I'd hate to see the women's program suffer because of… personality conflicts.
"Fuck," I whisper.
The word bounces off bare walls, and I turn away from the screen to really look at what I've created here. The living room that's not for living. The lack of photos because photos invite questions. No throw pillows because comfort suggests vulnerability. It's not an apartment, it's a bunker.
My phone sits dark on the table. I grab it, unlock it, and the call log lights up:
Coach Walsh.
Mills.
Mom.
Dad.
Gino's Pizza.
That's it. Four obligations and a food delivery service.
Christ, I'm twenty-one and my most intimate relationship is with a delivery driver, who's probably seen more authentic emotion from me than anyone else, because at least he's witnessed the sweatpants and unwashed hair combo. There's nobody else I'd be that messy in front of.
My thumb hovers over "Mom."
I'd love to talk to her about the incident, but a memory flashes and freezes my finger in place. I'm sixteen again, sitting at our kitchen island. The granite is cold under my palms, pressed flat to keep them from shaking. I'm sobbing so hard my ribs ache, each breath tearing on the way down.
My best friend had just finished her three-month systematic destruction of my life, all because I'd been named captain of the hockey team and she hadn't.
And after I'd found out that every lie and every surgical whisper in the locker room was her doing…
well… it all came pouring out between hiccupped sobs.
My mother had listened with that particular stillness that meant she was processing data, not emotion. The whole time, her face never changed. Not when I told her about the rumors. Not when I explained the wall of silence. Not even when I admitted I'd been eating lunch in bathroom stalls.
But what gutted me most was that, when I ran out of words and tears, she stood and walked away. The click of her heels on marble was precise as she walked to her office and returned with a legal pad, then slid it across the granite with two fingers.
"Write down the facts," she said, clinical as a medical examiner. "Emotion is a poor foundation, Morgan, so write down every instance, including times, dates, and witnesses. From there, fact and logic and documentation are what will help see you through… if you're going to make it through."
No hug.
No I'm sorry.
Just a legal pad and a lesson in emotional sanitization.
I haven't cried in front of her or anyone else since.
I set the phone down.
My fingers find the keyboard again. This time, I don't try for professional:
James—
Fuck you. Fuck your hero complex. Fuck the way you swooped in when your guy nearly killed Mills. Fuck the way you looked at me, for one second, before you blinked and buried it, because there was something in your eyes that looked like understanding.
Fuck you for that summer, when I trusted someone—you—for the first time in years. Fuck you for making me think that emotional connection was safe. For teaching me that letting my guard down means becoming a punchline. For being a coward who runs from anything real.
But mostly, fuck you for making me write this. For occupying real estate in my brain three years later. And fuck you for being right there today, close enough to touch, and still being unreachable. For bleeding for my player when you couldn't be real for me.
I highlight it all.
Every admission of weakness.
Then hit delete.
I close the laptop and the room plunges into darkness.
There's no light in here, just me and the understanding that's been creeping up like carbon monoxide poisoning.
The knowledge that I've got everything I thought I wanted—the team, the title, the respect—but that I'm completely, catastrophically alone.
The darkness presses in, and for the first time in three years, I wonder if safety might actually be killing me.
If the walls I built to keep the James Fitzgeralds out have left me with nothing but my anger for company.
I sit in the dark, listening to my breathing, the mechanical rhythm of survival without living.
Somewhere across campus, the men's team is probably at a party, doing keg stands and making bad decisions that at least involve other people. James is probably holding court, making everyone feel part of something bigger, and making loneliness look like a choice only idiots make.
Being everything I can't be anymore because I've chosen not to.
And, probably, forgotten how to.
My phone buzzes. It's probably Mills, checking with that earnest loyalty that makes me feel fraudulent, or Coach Walsh with another scheduling conflict, or my mother asking about the LSAT because apparently being pre-law means your future is already carved in stone.
Someone needing the woman I've convinced them I am.
But I don't answer, and the phone goes as dark as the room.
As dark as me.
For another few minutes, I sit in my perfect fortress, indulging in self-loathing.
The whole time, I try not to think about how James's hands looked, bleeding but not letting go, strong in a way that had nothing to do with muscle.
Try not to think about how, when he looked at me, for a moment, he saw me.
Past the ice, to the girl drowning under it.
But then I shake it off. Because tomorrow I'll wake up and choose it again, because the alternative—needing someone, trusting someone—is the one thing I can't survive a third time. The first betrayal was surgery without anesthesia. The second was proof the wound won't heal. A third would be fatal.
"Is this it?" I ask myself. "Forever?"
But the darkness doesn't answer.
It never does.