But the word feels like a lie.
I don’t mean to walk past the rink. It’s out of my way. But my feet carry me there anyway, like I’m caught in an undertow I can’t resist. Curiosity is too soft a word. It’s compulsion. I need to see for myself what kind of monster I’m sharing a campus with.
This isn’t just about noise anymore. It’s about seeing who he is when no one’s watching.
It’s dusk. The sky is a deep, bruised purple. The arena lights burn a hazy, pale yellow through fogged glass. It looks quiet. Empty.
I pause on the sidewalk, hidden in the shadow of the neighboring arts building. My breath hangs in the air, a pale ghost.
I hear it, even from here.
Clack.
A sharp, echoing report.
Then a long, scraping hiss.Shh-shh-shh.
The sounds are distinct, separate. The violence of the puck hitting the boards, and the rhythm of the skates slicing ice.
I move closer to a side door and peer through the wired-glass window. The metal frame bites cold into my fingers.
He’s there. Declan.
Alone on the ice, in full gear. He shouldn't be here—the rumors said he was sent away—but looking at him, I know nothing could keep him out.
He drops into a butterfly, pads slamming the ice with a heavy thud. Then he stands.
Tap. Tap.
Stick against the posts. A metronome.
He skates a tight, small circle, blades carving white lines. His movements are economical, precise, like the arena is a dark cathedral and this is his liturgy.
He looks like he did during the game. Calm. Focused. Untouchable.
A wall of controlled stillness. A monk in armor.
Then he turns, and he fires a puck against the boards.CRACK.
The sound is gunshot loud. It vibrates through the glass against my fingertips.
The monster.
He turns his head, scanning the stands, even though they’re empty. The same slow sweep as before, the same systematic check of exits and angles. Habit. Hypervigilance. Paranoia. Survival. I don’t know which.
Maybe all of them.
I press closer to the glass, my breath fogging the wire-reinforced pane. I know he can’t see me clearly like this—outside lights behind me, ice glare in front of him—but when his scan crosses my side of the arena, my body still reacts.
I jerk back from the window, heart slam-dancing against my ribs, flattening myself into the shadow of the doorway like a criminal caught spying.
How can he be both? The silent, watchful monk who follows a ritual and the violent force who dents steel?
My pulse trips over itself, caught between the urge to bolt and the awful recognition of that constant scanning. That need to know where every exit is. I know what it’s like to live as though danger is always in the room, even when it’s empty.
The contradiction sits like a cold knot in my stomach. He’s dangerous. I can feel it.
My body screams at me to run, to put as much distance as possible between me and that kind of uncontrolled, possessive rage.
