[Maddie’s POV]

The textbook in front of me might as well be written in ancient Sumerian.

I’ve read the same paragraph about macroeconomic indicators four times, and I still couldn’t tell you what a fiscal multiplier does if my scholarship depended on it.

I’m not actually studying. I’m waiting.

Listening for footsteps in the hallway, for the click of a key card, for any indication that Emily has returned from the showers. The anticipation makes me feel pathetic, which is fitting.

Pathetic is my natural state lately.

The door opens and Emily walks in, hair damp, wearing an oversized t-shirt that shouldn’t be distracting but somehow is. She doesn’t acknowledge me. Just moves to her side of the room, starts organizing things that don’t need organizing.

The silence stretches like taffy, pulling thinner and thinner until someone has to break it.

“Congratulations, I guess,” I say, not looking up from my meaningless textbook.

The word could be sincere. It could be sarcastic. I’m not entirely sure which I intend, and that ambiguity feels safer than commitment either way.

Emily’s hands pause on her desk drawer. “Thanks.”

Her voice is careful. Measured. Like she’s navigating a minefield and every syllable could detonate something neither of us wants to clean up.

I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t. Just returns to her drawer like I’m not worth the conversational effort.

I should leave it there. I should return to pretending I understand fiscal policy and let us exist in our usual hostile silence. But my mouth has other plans.

It always does when Emily is involved.

“Must feel good,” I continue, pen tapping against my notebook in a rhythm that betrays my false calm. “Being Coach’s new favorite. She practically had stars in her eyes watching your program.”

Emily shrugs, turning to face me with an expression I can’t quite read. “You were less than three points behind. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

The jab lands with surgical precision and my pen stills.

Three points. Three fucking points that might as well be three hundred given what they represent. Given what they cost me. Given how easily she dismisses the gap like it’s nothing.

I recover quickly because recovery is what I do. Survival requires elasticity.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I say, managing something approximating nonchalance. “The exhibition showcase is what counts for the captain position decision. And I’ll have that locked down. Derek and I have been rehearsing pretty hard.”

Emily raises an eyebrow but doesn’t argue. Smart girl.

She knows I’m performing confidence I don’t feel. She probably knows I barely slept last night, replaying her program on loop like some kind of masochistic film critic.

The conversation dies and I return to my textbook as she returns to whatever she’s doing at her desk. But my laptop screen has become a mirror, and I keep catching her reflection.

Emily keeps not-looking at me in a way that feels deliberate. Intentional. Like she’s working very hard to pretend I don’t exist. The effort is almost flattering.

My mind betrays me, rewinding to that hotel closet. The darkness. The heat. The almost-contact that technically wasn’t anything but also was everything.

Her hand on my throat and the unsettling desire for her to squeeze harder. Her breath on my lips. Her intoxicating glimpses of strength I don’t possess. The way my body leaned toward hers like she was gravity and I was tired of fighting physics.

“How are things going with Chris?”

Words slip from my mouth unexpectedly, because apparently I’ve decided tonight is the night I destroy any remaining peace between us.

My tone is light. Teasing. The kind of casual inquiry that means absolutely nothing and everything simultaneously.

“I’m not interested in girls,” she says flatly. “And definitely not in you.”

“Literally nothing happened.”

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