Sage: Did you send flowers?
The reply comes quicker than I expect.
Leo:No. Why?
That’s it. No emoji, no follow-up. Just denial. Simple and cold. The same kind of wall he’s been building since this morning.
I stare at the text until the words blur, then glance back at the bouquet. The petals glisten faintly in the low light — delicate, beautiful, unasked for.
And suddenly, the thought hits me like ice water: what if they weren’t meant as an apology at all?
My fingers tighten around the counter edge. Outside, somewhere in the distance, a car door slams. The noise echoes through the empty street.
The flowers sit silent, perfect, waiting.
Chapter 14
Rumors in the Air
Leo
The airin the rink feels heavier today. Not cold, not sharp—just heavy. Like even the hum of the lights above is judging me.
Coach’s whistle shrieks and the guys skate to the boards, sweat streaking down necks, breaths fogging in the air. I tug off a glove, flexing my fingers, pretending my stick doesn’t feel foreign in my hands.
“Run it back,” Coach says. His tone is flat, but there’s that twitch in his jaw—he’s hunting mistakes.
We replay the drill. The puck slides to me, perfect feed from Gabe. I drop my shoulder, snap a wrist shot high glove side. It’s clean. Crisp. But before I can exhale, Coach kills it again with another blast of the whistle.
“Too slow on your pivot, Voss,” he calls out. “You want to score in slow motion, maybe join a beer league.”
Laughter bubbles from a few guys, nervous more than mean. My jaw locks. I force my gaze down, eyes on the ice, tracing the scuff lines like they might open up and swallow me.
He cues the tape on the screen at center ice. We huddle, watching footage from last game. My highlight reel, apparently. Every near miss. Every play where I hesitated half a second.
“Your legs are fine,” Coach mutters, clicking the remote like he’s scraping the words out of his throat. “It’s your head that’s heavy.”
That one stings. Not because he’s wrong—but because he’s close to the truth.
The screen flickers off. Everyone scatters, shoving gloves into lockers, chattering about nothing. My chest feels too tight for the gear still clinging to me.
I linger, pretending to retape my stick.
In my head, I replay the whistle, the look on his face, the way even a solid practice can feel like failure when people are waiting for you to crack.
I used to thrive on pressure. Feed on it, even. Now it just feels like static in my veins—loud and useless.
Someone laughs behind me, a slap of skates on tile, but I tune it out. Keep working the tape. Keep my head down.
The ice smell clings to me as I finally walk off the rink, helmet tucked under my arm. My reflection in the plexiglass looks like someone else—tired eyes, clenched jaw, shadows under cheekbones that weren’t there a month ago.
“Your head’s heavy.”
Yeah, Coach. You don’t know the half of it.
I’m halfway through untying my skates when I hear her voice.
“Rough day, Voss?”
