Dylan
Kennedy helps me understand the text and teaches me how to put it into my own words. I close my laptop, feeling brain-dead. I stayed up all night last night, turned a few things in after she left, and now it’s the next morning.
“Thanks for coming so early,” I say, leaning back. I pull out my wallet and start counting out cash. “Here’s that.”
“Thank you,” she says, taking it. She folds it and places it in her bag. “So, why are you failing anyway?”
I laugh, staring at the table. I run my hands through my hair.
She comments, “I hate Knox’s mullet. Isn’t the bet over?”
I nod. “Yeah, bet’s over.”
She rolls her eyes. “Good, because it needs to be gone. You should cut yours too.”
I chuckle. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“So, why are you failing?”
I shrug. “I was spending my free time working out.”
She blinks. “That’s not enough to tank all your classes.”
I pause, tapping my fingers on each other. I think about Cecily and how my mind wrapped around her, forgetting everything else. “Yeah, you could say that. I just went a little overboard.”
“Trying to impress someone?” she teases, standing. She doesn’t wait for me to answer; instead, she says, “How many more assignments do you have?”
I look through my folder. After getting frustrated with the email, I wrote it down on a piece of paper. I check one thing off. “Looks like three more.”
She nods. “We’ll get your grades up, okay.”
“Thanks, Kennedy.”
“I’m busy tomorrow, so I can meet you later today.”
I nod. “Sounds good.”
I reach for my phone to see if I have any notifications. Last night, Cecily didn’t text me back. I shake the feeling, putting my phone away.
I leave the library and head straight to practice.
The rink smells the same—cold metal, sweat, rubber—but it doesn’t hit like it usually does. Typically, the second my skates touch the ice, everything else shuts off. Grades. Girls. Noise. It all fades into muscle memory.
Today, it doesn’t.
I warm up with the guys, skating laps, stretching out my legs. My body feels fine. Strong. Loose.
Rocky sends a pass my way. I’m a half-second late. The puck clips my stick instead of landing clean, skidding away toward the boards.
“Jesus, Etta,” Rocky mutters, already chasing it down.
I shake it off and keep skating.
We run drills. Quick passes. Tight turns. I miss another one. Then another. Nothing dramatic—just sloppy enough to benoticeable. The kind of mistakes that don’t happen when my head’s right.
Rocky slams into the boards to stop, spraying ice. He looks at me like he’s trying to decide whether to chirp or check in.
“You alive over there?” he asks.
