The Reset To Zero

Summer

The neon-lit chaos of the post-game wrap-up felt like a physical assault on my senses.

While the rest of the campus erupted into a drunken, euphoric celebration of the National Championship, the HypeTV production trailer was a quiet, clinical vacuum of moving paper and ticking clocks.

"Sign here, Summer. And here. Initial the bottom of page four," Sarah Sterling said, her voice completely devoid of its usual performative warmth.

She didn't look up from her tablet, her manicured finger tapping rhythmically on the edge of her glass desk.

My hand shook so violently I could barely keep the pen steady.

I dragged the blue ink across the lines, signing away the rights to the last six months of my life.

The Heartbreak Finale.

That was what the producers were calling it in the edit bays.

They had their narrative: the tragic hero who won the trophy but lost his heart to a calculating,

deceitful student journalist.

It was neat. It was viral.

It was exactly what the ratings demanded.

"And that’s it," Sarah said, finally looking up, a cold, professional smile stretching across her lips.

“Your tuition account for the upcoming semester has been completely cleared by the network's structural grant. Your placement with the metropolitan network in New York is locked. You got exactly what you wanted, Brooks. You should look a little happier."

"Thank you," I whispered, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

I stood up, my joints stiff, my wet sneakers squeaking loudly against the linoleum floor of the trailer.

I didn't wait for her to dismiss me.

I pushed through the heavy door, stepping back out into the gray, quiet dawn of the campus quad.

The rain had stopped, leaving behind a thick, freezing mist that clung to the brick buildings and the ancient oak trees.

The ground was littered with soggy blue and gold confetti, trampled into the mud by thousands of celebrating feet.

The party had moved indoors, leaving the quad completely deserted, silent, and haunted.

I pulled my damp jacket tighter around my shoulders, clutching my backpack to my chest like a shield.

I had won.

My debt was gone.

My future in New York was guaranteed.

I had achieved every single goal I had set for myself when I first walked onto this campus.

So why did it feel like I was walking through my own graveyard?

I took a sharp breath, turning the corner by the political science building, intending to cut through the courtyard to reach my apartment.

But as I stepped into the narrow stone archway, my boots froze against the pavement.

The air left my lungs in a sudden, sharp gasp.

Walking toward me, his massive frame cutting through the morning mist, was Jaxson.

He wasn't wearing his hockey gear anymore, just a heavy black hoodie with the hood pulled down, gray sweatpants, and a dark duffel bag slung over his right shoulder.

His left shoulder was noticeably stiff, a brutal reminder of the hits he had taken to secure that trophy.

He looked exhausted, the dark circles under his amber eyes stark against his pale skin, his jaw covered in a thick layer of dark stubble.

There were no cameras here.

No microphone packs.

No network producers hiding in the bushes to capture a scripted moment of high-friction drama.

It was just us.

The silence between us was so loud it made my ears ring.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a desperate, irrational panic seizing my throat.

Tell him, a voice screamed inside my head.

Tell him about the lawsuit.

Tell him about Layla's clinic.

Tell him why you closed the laptop.

I took a half-step forward, my lips parting, the truth burning at the back of my tongue.

Jaxson stopped dead in his tracks three feet away from me.

The air between us immediately turned to ice. He didn't look at me with the explosive, volatile fury he had thrown across the ice during the game.

This was worse. This was a flat, rigid, impenetrable wall of total detachment.

His amber eyes, usually so expressive, so warm whenever he looked at me in the quiet corners of the diner, were completely dead.

He didn't sneer.

He didn't curse.

He just looked down at me from his height, his expression a mask of pure, unbothered cynicism.

The physical proximity was agonizing.

I could smell the familiar scent of his laundry detergent, the faint trace of wintergreen ice-rub, and the crisp smell of the morning rain clinging to his jacket.

My hand twitched, my fingers remembering the exact texture of his skin, the heavy, reassuring weight of his grip.

The urge to reach out, to press my palm against his chest and feel his heartbeat, was so violent it made me dizzy.

Slowly, Jaxson shifted his duffel bag to his other shoulder, his movement smooth and entirely deliberate.

He didn't say a word.

He didn't give me the satisfaction of an argument, a confrontation, or a demand for answers.

He stepped to the side, his shoulder brushing mine so faintly it could have been an accident, and walked right past me.

He didn't look back.

The contract was fulfilled, the cameras were dead, and the fake romance was officially over.

We had reset entirely back to zero—back to the cold, rigid hostility of enemies who knew exactly how to hurt each other, and exactly how loud the silence could be.