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.

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