All Chapters of Collision on Ice: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

Jace's POVThe puck came at me low and fast, and instead of squaring up the way I’d drilled into my own bones a thousand times, I took the hit clean on the shoulder from a guy twice my patience and half my speed, let it throw me into the boards hard enough that the glass rattled and somebody on the bench swore.“Whitfield, what the hell was that?”Coach’s voice, somewhere behind me, muffled by the ringing in my ear. I pushed off the boards and skated it off, rolling my shoulder, grinning at nothing in particular because the impact had done exactly what I needed it to do. For one clean second there was nothing in my head but pain, simple and located and mine.Then the second passed and my head filled right back up.My mother’s voice, twenty years younger than it is now, coming through the thin wall of our old apartment. Mrs. Callahan from next door, standing in our doorway with a foil dish of something she didn’t need to bring, asking, the way nosy neighbors ask, careful and syru

Roselle's POV The email came in at 8:52 that Thursday morning, and I read it standing in the dining hall line with a tray in one hand and my whole day already collapsing in the other.The corrected documentation submitted Tuesday had apparently gone to the wrong department entirely, some digital filing error nobody could explain, and now I needed a physical copy signed in person by close of business, today, because tomorrow the financial aid office would be closed for a staff meeting and Monday my file would automatically roll into the review queue Pam had warned me about. Two to six weeks. My scholarship sitting in limbo for two to six weeks while my mother picked up a fourth week of double shifts to cover a gap that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.I called my father immediately, walking fast, tray abandoned somewhere behind me that I don’t even remember setting down.“Dad, I need you to fax the original disability determination letter again, the whole thing, not just

Roselle's POV“Ma’am, you need to come with me.”The security guard’s hand hovered near my elbow without quite touching it, which I appreciated in some distant, disconnected part of my brain even as the rest of me was still trying to catch up to what had just happened. My knee throbbed where I’d gone down on the ice. My bag had slid somewhere across the rink floor during the fall, and someone I didn’t know was holding it out to me now like it was evidence in a trial I hadn’t agreed to be part of.“I didn’t mean to, the door was open, I was trying to find the financial aid office, they relocated here for the day and I—”“You’ll want to explain that to the front office.” The guard’s voice wasn’t unkind, exactly, just tired, the voice of a man who had clearly dealt with far stranger campus emergencies than one panicked freshman crashing a hockey drill. “Come on.”I didn’t look back at him. I couldn’t. I’d caught one glimpse of his face right before the guard reached me, jaw tight,

Roselle's POV Dean Whitmore’s office smelled like old coffee and expensive furniture polish, and she did not ask me to sit down until she had finished reading something on her computer screen for a full, deliberate thirty seconds, which felt less like an accident and more like a technique she’d perfected over many years of making nervous freshmen wait exactly long enough to properly sweat.“Ms. Adair.” She finally looked up, glasses pushed down her nose, expression unreadable in the specific way that administrators seem to train for. “Please, sit.”I sat.“I’ve watched the footage,” she said, no preamble, sliding a folder across her desk that I did not touch. “Multiple angles, in fact, since apparently half the athletics complex had their phones out yesterday afternoon. I understand you were attempting to reach a relocated financial aid office.”“Yes, ma’am. There was a note on the door redirecting appointments to the athletics building because of the showcase, and I couldn’t fi