chapter 3

The next morning the sky looked like it had been scraped raw.

I left the hostel while the corridors were still dark and the only sound was the low hum of the vending machines. My bag felt heavier than it should have. Everything did. Even the air. I walked the long route again, past the maintenance sheds and the empty visitor lot, because the shorter path still carried the shape of Daniel waiting for me.

The rink lights were already on.

I pushed through the side door and the cold hit me clean across the face. I welcomed it. Inside, the ice stretched out under the harsh white lights like something that had never been touched by lies. I laced my skates in the empty locker room, the only noise the soft creak of leather and the distant drip of melting snow from someone’s boots left near the heaters.

When I stepped onto the ice I expected to be alone.

I wasn’t.

Damian was already there, moving through a set of tight figure-eights at the far end, stick handling a puck with the kind of precision that made the rest of us look like we were still learning how to stand. He didn’t look up when the door closed behind me. He just kept skating, the sound of his blades clean and sharp against the quiet.

I started on the opposite side. Simple crossovers. Long strides. Nothing that required thinking. My body knew the patterns better than my mind knew how to stay whole. After a few minutes the rhythm settled into my bones and the worst of the noise in my head dropped to a manageable level.

He crossed the center line without warning.

I felt him before I saw him—an awareness that raised the fine hairs on my arms. He stopped a stick-length away, snow spraying from his edges in a perfect arc.

“You’re here early,” he said.

“So are you.”

His eyes moved over my face like he was cataloguing damage. “You sleep at all?”

“Enough.”

He didn’t call the lie. He just held my gaze long enough that something in my chest tightened, then he dropped a second puck at my feet.

“Again. From the blue line. Harder this time.”

I didn’t ask why. I just went.

We worked in silence after that. He set the pace. I matched it. Every time I thought I had found a rhythm he changed the drill—quicker transitions, tighter turns, shots that demanded perfect weight transfer. Sweat ran down my spine. My lungs burned. The physical demand was almost a relief. It left no room for anything else.

Almost.

Because every time our paths crossed I caught the way he watched me. Not the way a captain watches a player. Something heavier. Something that sat behind his ribs and waited.

Practice proper started at seven. The rest of the team filtered in with the usual noise—stick taps, half-awake curses, the smell of coffee and cold gear. Daniel arrived in the middle of the group. He kept his eyes on the floor when he passed me. Good. I didn’t have anything left for him.

Coach ran systems work until my thighs shook. Damian’s voice stayed low and constant, correcting angles, calling for more speed, more control. When he skated past me during a scramble in front of the net his glove brushed the small of my back. Accidental. Maybe. The touch lasted less than a second and still left heat under my jersey.

I scored twice in the final scrimmage. Both times I felt his eyes on me as I cut to the net. Both times the celebration died in my throat before it could form.

After the last whistle I stayed on the ice while everyone else filed off. Habit. Or punishment. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. The Zamboni hadn’t started yet. The building felt hollowed out and waiting.

Footsteps approached from behind. Heavier than Daniel’s. Certain.

“You’re going to break if you keep this up.”

I didn’t turn. “I’m still standing.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Damian stopped beside me at the boards. Up close I could see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw and the way his pulse moved at the base of his throat. Something restless lived under his skin today. I had noticed it during the last few drills—small delays in his usual control, a sharpness that edged toward something less precise.

“Whatever’s eating you,” he said, “leave it off the ice.”

“I am.”

“No. You’re bringing it with you and letting it bleed into every stride. The team sees it. I see it.”

I finally looked at him. “And what exactly do you see, Captain?”

For a moment the careful distance he always kept slipped. Something darker moved behind his eyes—hunger or anger or both. Then it was gone, locked down so fast I almost doubted I had seen it.

“I see a player who’s one bad hit away from disappearing,” he said. “And I don’t allow that on my roster.”

He left before I could answer. The door to the tunnel closed with a soft final sound.

I stayed until the ice crew arrived and forced me off. In the locker room the other girls spoke in low voices that stopped whenever I walked past. I changed quickly, shoved my gear into my bag, and walked out into the pale late-morning light.

Daniel was waiting by the bike racks.

I almost turned around. Almost. Instead I kept walking until I was close enough that he had to step aside or be hit by my shoulder.

“I talked to her,” he said. His voice was rough. “She said she tried to see you last night.”

I stopped. “Don’t.”

“Arabel, please. We can fix this.”

I turned on him so fast he actually took a step back. “There is no we. There hasn’t been a we since the moment you put your hands on her. You don’t get to stand here and talk about fixing anything.”

His mouth opened. Closed. The boy I used to love looked smaller than I remembered.

“I never stopped loving you,” he said quietly.

“Then you should have remembered that before you climbed into her bed.”

I left him standing there under the gray sky and didn’t look back.

The rest of the day passed in fragments. Classes I sat through without hearing. Food I bought and threw away untouched. By late afternoon the sky had turned the color of wet concrete and the wind carried the promise of more snow. I walked until my legs ached, until the campus lights began to flicker on one by one, until I found myself back at the rink without meaning to.

The side door was unlocked. Habit of the late skaters. I slipped inside and the cold wrapped around me like something familiar. The main lights were off. Only the emergency strips along the boards glowed dull yellow. I didn’t bother with my full gear. Just skates and a stick I found leaning against the wall.

I moved slowly this time. Long, quiet strokes that barely made a sound. The darkness made the ice feel larger, emptier. I let myself drift into the far corner where the shadows were deepest and stopped there with my forehead against the glass.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that.

Long enough for my breath to fog the surface. Long enough for the silence to start feeling like a living thing.

Then the tunnel door opened and closed.

I didn’t need to look to know who it was. The way the air changed was enough.

Damian stepped onto the ice without a word. He didn’t put on a helmet. Just skates and the same black hoodie he wore when he stayed late to review film. He skated the perimeter once, then twice, the soft hiss of his blades the only sound in the building.

When he finally stopped near me he didn’t speak right away. He just stood there in the half-dark and looked at me like he was deciding something.

“You shouldn’t be here alone,” he said at last.

“Neither should you.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. Up close I could see it again—that same restlessness under his skin, stronger now. His pupils looked too wide for the low light. A faint sheen of sweat sat at his temple even though the rink was freezing.

“Go back to the hostel, Arabel.”

The order was quiet. Absolute.

I should have listened. Every instinct I still possessed told me to leave. Instead I stayed where I was, heart kicking hard against my ribs, and watched the careful control he always wore start to fray at the edges.

Something was wrong with him tonight.

I just didn’t know what yet.

And the way he was looking at me said that whatever it was, I was already too close to the center of it.