ANMELDEN[Mason Pov]The hockey rink is chaos in the best way possible.We're up 3-2 with two minutes left in the final match of the festival, and I'm so in the zone that I don't even feel my body anymore. It's just instinct. It's just knowing where the puck is going to be before it gets there. It's my stick connecting with the puck and sending it straight past the goalie into the net.We won. The entire arena erupts. My teammates are swarming me, jumping on top of me, screaming. The coach is yelling something I can't hear over the noise. The crowd is going insane. This is the moment. This is what we've been training for.I'm scanning the stands and I see Ezra on his feet, cheering like his voice is going to give out. Lila's jumping up and down next to him. Kai's got his phone out like he's recording, which is probably going to be some terrible video he'll torture me with later.They won their events too. Ezra placed second in figure skating—which he's upset about but shouldn't be. Lil
[Lila Pov] Wednesday comes faster than I expected. The birthday dinner with my parents is at this upscale restaurant that I don't really like—the food is good but small, and the atmosphere is too formal. My mom looks exhausted, which makes me feel guilty because I know she was supposed to be at this conference but she chose to stay for my birthday. My dad is trying way too hard to be jovial about the whole thing. "So, senior year next year," my dad says, like this is a natural conversation starter. "Have you thought about where you want to apply to college?" I haven't. I've thought about the festival and Kai and my friends and whether I want to keep doing cheerleading next year, but college feels like a thing that belongs to a different version of my life. "Not really," I say. "I'm only a senior and still early so I still have time." "You should be thinking about these things," my mom says, and it's not mean, just factual. "Top schools have early applications." "I know. I'll thi
[ Lila’s POV]Our lunch table has become this weird sacred space. Like, I know I've thought this before, but it's getting more true every day. The four of us sitting together while everyone else at school is doing their own thing. It's become so normal that I don't even think about it anymore—it's just where we belong.Today Kai's stealing my fries. Again. Like, there's a pattern here, and he refuses to break it."You have your own food," I tell him."Your fries are better," he says, mouth full. "Scientifically proven.""That's not how science works," Mason says."That's not how anything works," Ezra adds, but he's smiling.It's Monday lunch, and we're all in this weird space where the festival is close enough to feel real but far enough away that we're not actively panicking. Mason's been talking about his hockey matches. Ezra's been complaining about ice time. Kai's been insufferable about his tennis ranking. And I've been trying not to think about the fact that my birthd
[Mason pov]I was lying in my bed at like nine in the morning on a Saturday, which is basically unheard of for me. Usually I'm up at six for training or doing something productive, but today my parents are out, probably to see their friends for some charity thing my mom insisted they both attend, so I have the house to myself. And I can't stop thinking about Ezra. Not usually in the frantic way I used to, where thinking about him felt like a threat to my stability. This is different. This is soft. This is the way my chest feels warm just from the memory of him.Last weekend we had the whole space to ourselves for like 10 hours, and we spent most of it talking, eating and trying out new things. Not even in a performative way. Just... together. His head on my chest, my fingers in his hair, talking about stupid things and then not talking at all, just existing in the quiet of it.At one point he looked up at me and asked, "What are you thinking about?"And I told him the truth: "Tha
[Kai’s Pov]I'm not usually a "let's go to a club" guy, but apparently that's what we're doing now. Lila texted me like an hour ago saying she needed to get out, needed to do something that wasn't cheerleading or school or any of the normal shit, and somehow I ended up getting dressed in something that doesn't look like I got it from my dad's closet.Black jeans. A fitted shirt. Cologne that probably cost. I look ridiculous. I look good. Whatever.The club is exactly what I expected—too loud, too many people, everyone either dancing like their life depends on it or standing in corners pretending they're cool. The lighting is dim enough that you can't see how tired everyone actually is, and the drinks are definitely overpriced for what they are.But then Lila shows up. She's wearing this dress that's black and fitted and probably violates like three dress codes simultaneously. Her hair is down, falling over her shoulders. She looks like she walked straight out of every fantasy I
The ice is mine right now. Empty rink, just me and the sound of my blades cutting through, and it's the only place my brain stops running in circles.I've been doing the same routine for like forty minutes—jump, spin, land, recover. The festival is two weeks out and I can feel Coach wanting more from me. He doesn't say it, but it's there in the way he watches my landings, the way he stays late to see my run-throughs. He knows I can be better. He knows I'm capable of placing.But my brain isn't cooperating today.Every time I go into a spin, I see Mason's face. Every time I land a jump, I feel the weight of the ring on my hand under my glove. We don't wear them at school anymore because apparently that's "asking for trouble," but I wear it when I'm alone. When it's just me and the ice.I love him. That's the thing that keeps hitting me while I'm out here. Not the complicated version of love that gets tangled up with timing and fear and not knowing if it's real. But actual love. The kind
By the time I came back to school on Monday, everybody already knew. Not the full story obviously, but enough. People stared a little too long when I walked through the hallway. Conversations lowered when I passed. Even some teachers gave me those careful sympathetic looks that somehow made everyth
Three weeks in, and this forced training crap still felt like punishment. Every morning at five, Mason and I dragged ourselves onto the ice half-awake and irritated. He was improving — slowly — but he still skated like a hockey player trying to survive a natural disaster. Too stiff, rough and just
The next morning felt colder than usual.I was already on the ice doing laps when Mason walked in. He didn’t look at me. He kept his head down, dropped his bag, and started lacing up his skates like I wasn’t even there.He was acting weird. Shy almost. Like he wanted to disappear into the boards.I
“You wanna say that shit again?” Mason Reid didn't even wait for him to finish. His fist was already bunched in some skater kid's collar. the cafeteria went dead silent until a plastic tray ckattred behind me, breaking it.Brighten High school was the type that never gets quiet. You would always







