All Chapters of Hate Should Be A Hockey Term: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

SLOANEAva.For one frozen second, neither of us moved.The faucet dripped behind me. A single bead of water slid from my jaw down the collar of my sweater. My hands were still braced on the sink, my coffee sat abandoned beside the syllabus, and my reflection looked like a girl who had just tried to drown her bad decisions in public school plumbing.Ava stood near the last stall, a manila folder tucked against her chest.Not hiding. Not exactly. Just... there.Pale sweater. Dark skirt. Hair clipped back with a pearl barrette that made her look softer than she actually was. Her eyes met mine in the mirror — sharp, unreadable.My stomach dropped.“How long have you been standing there?” I asked.Ava glanced at the faucet, then at my wet face, then at the folder in her arms.“Long enough to know second term is going great for you.”My fingers tightened around the edge of the sink.Great. Fantastic. Wonderful.Exactly what I needed this morning: Ava Donnelly materializing behind m

SLOANE We sat on that bench for over an hour.The triggers were layered. NHL scouts. His father's phone calls. The captaincy. The weight of expectation that sat on his shoulders like a physical thing — not metaphorical, not abstract, but felt, in his trapezius muscles, in his jaw, in the way his hands would clench before his brain registered the threat."The scouts are going to keep coming," I said."I know.""This doesn't go away because we talked about it.""I know.""You need to tell Feinstein about the frequency increase. Twice a week is escalation, not a phase.""I will.""And you need to sleep."He looked at me sideways. "Yes, Mom.""Don't. Don't do that.""Do what?""Deflect with humor when I'm giving you clinical recommendations.""You're not a clinician.""I'm the closest thing you've got in this rink."He held my gaze. Then, slowly, nodded."I'll talk to Feinstein," he said. "I'll try the grounding. I'll use the document.""And?""And I'll call you. If it's level three.""G

SLOANEThe morning after Riley’s sleepover, I woke up to three things.First: sunlight pressing through my curtains with the quiet aggression of a world that refused to acknowledge I had barely slept.Second: Riley, sprawled diagonally across the foot of my bed like a starfish that had given up on form, one arm hanging off the edge, the tangerine from last night balanced precariously on her sternum.Third: my phone.I reached for it slowly, the way you reach for something you know has the power to ruin your morning before your feet even hit the floor.Two new notifications.**Unknown:** Good morning, Sloane. **Unknown:** Tick tock.The messages had arrived at 4:17 AM.I stared at them until the screen dimmed. Then I locked the phone, set it face-down on the nightstand, and went to brush my teeth.When I came back, Riley was sitting up.The tangerine had rolled onto the carpet.“You look like you’re defusing a bomb,” she observed.“I’m brushing my teeth.”“Same energy.” She stretched

SLOANEThe auditorium doors burst open behind me.Students spilled into the hall in noisy clusters, voices overlapping and rising like static.“Did you see his face when—”“Two cars, dude.”“I heard he broke that coach’s jaw.”“No, he punched him once.”“Isn’t that Sloane’s brother?”“Stepbrother.”“Whatever.”I shoved my phone into my pocket and kept walking. Not fast enough to look like I was running. Not slow enough for anyone to stop me.Riley caught up near the stairwell. She grabbed my elbow and dragged me through the nearest door — a janitorial closet that smelled like bleach and regret.The door clicked shut. Darkness swallowed us for half a second before Riley slapped the wall until the fluorescent bulb flickered on.She looked at my face.“Oh no.”“I’m fine.”“You look like someone just read your autopsy results aloud.”“Ethan knows.”Her mouth closed.For once, Riley didn’t fill the silence.“He figured it out,” I said. “Not everything. But enough.”“What did he say?”“That

SLOANEThe Dalton Arena smelled like cold and ambition.I badged in at the media entrance at 4:47 PM.The credential hung from a lanyard around my neck — SLOANE WINTERS, MEDIA FELLOW, SEATTLE VIPERS / DALTON ATHLETICS — printed on white plastic with a headshot that made me look like I was being processed into witness protection. Maren Cho had emailed the orientation packet three days ago. Sixty-two pages. I’d read it twice, annotated it once, and built a supplementary spreadsheet cross-referencing player profiles with existing content gaps.Riley had called it psychotic.Riley was correct.The media room was a glass-walled box above the east stands — two rows of desks, monitors, a printer that sounded like it was digesting itself, and a whiteboard covered in a content calendar that stretched through February. Three other fellows were already seated. Two from Northwestern’s sports journalism program. One from a digital agency in Portland whose application essay had apparently included