The athletic center smelled like rubber and chlorine.Team hour in the weight pit officially ended at six, but I dug in for an extra circuit—deadlifts, rows, whatever punished thought into silence.Headphones blared nothing; I’d forgotten to hit play.
Fourth set, 225 on the bar, grip slipping.Shoulder barked.I added chalk, ignored the voice sayingenough.
On rep six, Ryan’s hand closed on the bar sleeve mid-lift.“Rack it.”
I let go; metal slammed rails.“What?”
“You’re tilting left.Gonna tweak something.”
“Need the volume.”
“Need the arm attached.”He folded his arms, sweat darkening the Frost Demons on his tee.“Talk to me.”
I wiped chalk on my shorts.“Earning ice time.”
“Coach wrote your name on the board, red marker.Stop acting like it’s penciled.”
“It is.”The words came out harsher than planned.
Ryan’s brows pinched, then he softened.“Look—whatever noise is chewing you, skate it out, don’t bench-press it.Okay?”
“Copy.”Automatic.He clapped my shoulder—wrong one—pain flared.He felt me flinch; eyes narrowed.He didn’t push, nodded at the exit.“Ice it.And if you don’t talk to Dalton, I will.”
He left.I stared at the bar, hands itching for another pull.Instead, I stripped plates, returned them to racks.Thirty-minute bike cooldown, heart rate at the top of zone three until it blurred into zone four.
Sweat drowned the worry for exactly eleven minutes.After that, Austen slid back in, uninvited: the hoodie he’d borrowed, the way his pulse had steadied under my hand when he fell asleep against me.
Focus.I upped the resistance.
Twilight iced the pavement on the walk to Stony Creek.My phone buzzed twice—Dad; voicemail.I swiped ignore.Another buzz.
Austen:All good to hang tonight?
My thumb hovered.I typed, erased, typed again.
Me:Need extra film, might rain-check.Sorry.
Three dots blinked, vanished.Nothing else.
My sweat drenched T-shirt started to freeze next to my body.I ran a hand through my crunch hair, ice crystals already forming.
Distance.
Third floor hallway smelled like microwave popcorn.Our door sat cracked two inches per rule.Light on.I palmed it open.
Room empty.Desk lamp on Austen’s side was off.Two blueberry bars centered on my chair, note on top:We iterate.
Guilt punched first, then relief.Distance easier if he wasn’t here to watch me manufacture it.
I set the bars on his shelf, unopened.After a quick shower, I swapped my sweat-drenched practice tee for a fresh one, then grabbed the shoulder peas.
I parked at my desk, opened SynergyStats film.Replay after replay of glove-side goals I’d already seen.Shoulder throbbed under cold.Brain still perseverating: Javier’s release time, Harper’s stopwatch, Ryan’s questioning, my father’s sixth call this week, my grades, Minnesota.
Somewhere across campus, Austen was probably recalculating the sample quiz, wondering if I still loved him.He’d call it data.I called it distraction.Distraction tanks careers.
Clock read 20:17.Quiet hours in three.I killed my lamp, crawled onto bed fully dressed, laptop flickering against the ceiling texture.Film kept playing; I watched pucks beat alternate versions of me until my eyes sanded over.
In the dark, radiator hissed its steady percussion.Usually, I matched its rhythm to calm down.Tonight, every tick underlined the distance I’d shoved between two beds.
