When he can’t sleep, he goes to the rink.
When I can’t breathe, I go nowhere.
Tonight, I pick somewhere.
The hallway outside my room is dim, carpet worn in the center from years of stressed-out students pacing between exams and bad decisions. Someone’s microwaving something that smells aggressively like burnt popcorn. A door opens down the hall; laughter spills out, then muffles when it shuts.
The exit door at the end is heavy. My hand hesitates on the bar, waiting for the impact that doesn’t come. I push it open anyway.
Choice. Mine.
Night air bites my cheeks the second I step outside. The sky is a low, solid gray, leaking cold instead of rain. Breath fogs in front of me—little clouds that disappear fast.
Campus is mostly empty. A couple cutting across the quad, heads bent together. Someone zipping past on a skateboard,wheels rattling against concrete. Distant music bleeding out of an off-campus house, bass thumping like a heartbeat with heartburn.
I tug my hood up and shove my hands into my pockets, feet automatically finding the route I know by heart now.
Dorm. Library. Rink.
The closer I get, the more I feel it—the low industrial hum under the quiet. The rink sounds different than the rest of campus at night. Like the building itself is exhaling.
Glass doors are locked for civilians. I’m not a civilian.
The side entrance code isn’t complicated when you grow up watching the person who sets it. Dad uses his old jersey number and the year he met Mom. He hasn’t changed a password since 2005.
I punch it in. Fingers move on muscle memory. The lock clicks. The door groans as I pull it open, sending a draft of colder air against my face.
Inside, hallway lights buzz faintly. Posters line the walls—old Titans teams, trophies, championship banners. The smell hits me immediately: rubber, cold metal, old sweat, cleaning solution. Not pleasant. Familiar.
I pause at the top of the tunnel, where it slopes down toward the ice. The hum is louder here. Sound bounces off the concrete, a steady, low vibration.
Light spills up from the rink itself, soft and bluish. I walk down the tunnel, footsteps echoing. The closer I get, the more my pulse tries to sync with the noise.
I step out at the corner of the rink and look down.
Declan’s there.
Not on the ice. In the players’ box.
He sits on the bench with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. No gear. No mask. Just a black hoodie,gray sweats, bare throat, taped knuckles hanging loosely in the space between his legs.
Hair damp, curling a little at the edges. He looks like he just got off the ice and peeled the armor away, stripping down to the part of him that always feels too big for rooms like my dad’s office.
He hasn’t seen me yet. He stares straight ahead at the empty crease, watching ghosts skate patterns only he can see.
For a second, I think about turning around. Backing out. Letting the door close quietly and pretending I was never here.
He deserves peace. I don’t know what this is—what I’m doing—beyond wanting to be near him when the world is like this.
Then he drags a hand over his face, fingers pressing into his eyes like he’s trying to push something back in.
My choice hardens.
I’m not running.
The door clicks softly shut behind me as I step fully into view.
He goes still. Shoulders lock, then slowly roll back as he straightens. His head turns, just enough to catch me in his peripheral vision. When his eyes find me, something in them shifts—a flare of surprise, then a flicker of something sharper.
