Kiss Me Captain (Emily and Maddie) novel Chapter 39

[Emily’s POV]

I listen to Maddie’s voicemail three times in Coach’s office, memorizing every syllable.

Her voice is so slurred from medication it sounds like she’s underwater, drowning in pain and fear and whatever they pumped into her veins to make the world softer around the edges.

“God, Emily, everything hurts,” she whispers through the phone. “Not just my ankle. Everything.”

I save the message. My thumb hovers over delete for a solid ten seconds before I back out of the screen.

I can’t erase her voice, can’t make it disappear like it never happened.

My performance is in two hours and I need to get my head straight, but all I can hear is Maddie saying “Skate for both of us” like I’m capable of carrying that weight without collapsing.

Warm-up is a disaster wrapped in a catastrophe tied with a bow made of my increasingly questionable life choices.

I run through my elements mechanically—triple Lutz, check, double Axel-triple toe combo, check, spins that probably look fine but feel wrong because my mind is stuck in that hospital room with Maddie.

My blades carve patterns into the ice but I couldn’t tell you what I just did five seconds ago.

My body goes through the motions on autopilot while my brain stages a full revolt, complete with protest signs and chants about how this is all a terrible idea.

“Looking good, Em!” Ava’s voice cuts through from the stands. I glance up and spot her next to my mother, both holding homemade support signs that are embarrassingly sweet and definitely against some unwritten rule of athletic cool.

Chris waves from a few rows back—he texted this morning asking if he could come support me, which was nice until I realized it meant I had an audience for my potential meltdown.

Seeing them all there helps. It does. But it also makes the empty space where Maddie should be screamingly, painfully obvious.

She should be in the locker room right now, taping her ankle for her own performance, throwing sarcastic comments at me about my hair or my music choice or literally anything because that’s what we do. That’s what we did.

When warm-up ends, I trudge back to the locker room and find my phone lit up with a new message. From Maddie. My heart does something medically concerning as I open it.

‘I’m watching the livestream from my hospital bed. My parents are here watching too. Skate like you know how. I believe in you.’

I stare at those words—”My parents are here watching too”—and feel a new wave of pressure slam into my chest like a zamboni going full speed. Mr. and Mrs. Reyes are going to watch me skate.

They’re going to sit there with their injured daughter and judge my every move, trying to understand the connection between Maddie and this girl who apparently matters enough that Maddie’s reaching out through a hospital bed to support her.

I need to show them that we pushed each other to greatness, that what we built wasn’t just rivalry or college roommate drama or whatever sanitized version Maddie’s told them about us. My fingers shake as I type back: I’ll skate for both of us. Talk soon.

“Emily Harper!” The announcement crackles through the speakers. “You’re up in five.”I stand, legs that feel like they belong to someone else carrying me toward the rink entrance.

Somewhere she’s lying in a hospital bed with her ankle destroyed and her season over and her future uncertain, but she’s watching me.

When I hit the final pose, the crowd erupts. The sound slams into me from all directions—cheering, screaming, someone’s air horn going off near the back. I know before I see the scores that I’ve won. You can just feel it when you’ve nailed every element, when you’ve skated the performance of your life.

In the kiss and cry, Coach wraps me in a hug that threatens to crack my ribs. The score flashes on the screen—first place by a margin so huge it’s almost embarrassing. My mother is crying in the stands, mascara running down her face. Ava’s jumping up and down like she’s won the lottery.

My phone starts vibrating before we even leave the kiss and cry. Messages flooding in from teammates, from coaches, from people I barely know offering congratulations. I scroll through them frantically, searching for one name.

There it is. Maddie. ‘Perfect. You were perfect. My mom cried. My dad said you reminded him of Maddie in her best days. Please come when you can. We need to talk before officials get here. They called—they’re coming to question me in a few hours. I need you. I don’t know what to say.’

My victory celebration freezes mid-smile. Officials. Coming to question Maddie. In a few hours. Coach is still hugging me. My mother is making her way down from the stands. The crowd is still cheering.

And somewhere across town, Maddie is lying in a hospital bed waiting for investigators to show up and ask questions she doesn’t know how to answer.

Questions about who sabotaged her skates, about team dynamics, about why someone would target her.

Questions that will unravel every carefully constructed lie we’ve been telling since September.

We need to figure out what to reveal, what to hide, what story to tell that won’t destroy both of us in the process. I need to get to that hospital. Now.