[Maddie’s POV]

Derek’s apartment smells like protein powder and the specific brand of masculine confidence that comes in aerosol cans. Three nights on his couch have taught me that leather furniture retains body heat like a grudge, and my spine has filed formal complaints in triplicate. Sleep arrives in fifteen-minute installments like a subscription service I never signed up for.

“You can share the bed,” Derek offered the first night with the enthusiasm of someone who thinks proximity equals intimacy. “Plenty of room for activities or whatever you’re avoiding at your dorm.”

“The couch is perfect for my current emotional architecture,” I’d responded, arranging myself on leather that squeaks with every movement like it’s providing commentary. “Very supportive of my commitment to suffering horizontally.”

Now it’s day three and my body feels like someone disassembled it and reassembled it using instructions from a different skeleton entirely. Practice looms like a dental appointment for someone with aggressive feelings about teeth. My phone shows fourteen unread texts from Jenna that I’m not reading because fuck her.

At the rink, I perform stretches that feel more like negotiations between muscle groups that have ceased diplomatic relations. Coach Marquette’s whistle sounds like someone weaponizing frequencies against my temporal lobes. She points at Emily, then at me, then at her office with the efficiency of someone who’s decided words are unnecessary.

“Both of you. Now. Unless you’d prefer to resolve your obvious interpersonal disaster through interpretive dance on the ice, which frankly might be more productive than whatever you’re currently doing.”

Emily’s face maintains the specific neutrality of someone who’s achieved enlightenment through spite. We follow Coach like defendants approaching sentencing, maintaining exactly eight feet of distance like we’ve measured it with emotional surveying equipment.

Coach’s office contains motivational posters that seem personally offended by our presence. She sits behind her desk with the exhaustion of someone whose job description didn’t include teenage crisis management but got it anyway through contractual small print.

“Your tension is poisoning the team environment like carbon monoxide but less subtle,” she begins, fingers steepled like she’s praying for patience or possibly our immediate disappearance. “The other skaters are developing sympathetic stress responses. Tina started crying during warm-ups yesterday for no discernible reason.”

“Coach, we’re maintaining professional distance,” I offer, though the words taste like lies marinated in denial sauce.

“Professional distance doesn’t usually involve one person sleeping on hockey players’ couches while the other one looks like she’s planning murder through skating techniques.” Coach’s eyes narrow with the precision of someone who’s witnessed too much drama to maintain plausible deniability. Of course Derek’s been talking.

“I don’t care if you two had a romantic explosion or just discovered you’re allergic to each other’s existence. Fix it before Nationals or I’ll reconsider both your positions on the competition roster.”

The threat lands like a piano dropped from insufficient height—damaging but not quite fatal. Emily’s jaw tightens with the specific tension of someone converting fury into potential energy. My stomach performs gymnastics that didn’t make the Olympic cut.

“Is that clear?” Coach asks with the tone that suggests the question is decorative.

“Crystal clear, like threatening water,” Emily responds, achieving sarcasm through purely professional vocabulary.

“Completely understood with mathematical precision,” I add, because apparently we’re competing at who can be more professionally hostile.

Coach dismisses us with the wave of someone who’s considering early retirement. We stand in the hallway outside her office like two magnets with matching poles, repelling through pure physics. The fluorescent lights buzz with the frequency of judgment, probably. The silence has weight and texture, like emotional pudding nobody ordered.

“I need my marketing textbook from the dorm,” Emily finally says, addressing the wall slightly to my left like it’s my designated representative. “The one about consumer behavior that ironically failed to predict this particular consumer disaster.”

“I’ll come get my stuff,” I respond to the air molecules between us. “Be completely out of your sphere of influence within standard evacuation timeframes.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify