Laughter. The sharp, barking kind that bounces off locker room tiles and amplifies until it sounds like an audience.
"Honestly, she is good, though. Like, credit where it is due, she can skate."
"Oh yeah, she is talented. Nobody is saying she is not talented. But talented does not mean she belongs here. My golden retriever is talented. Doesn't mean I'm putting him on the starting lineup."
More laughter. Louder this time.
I stop walking.
My hand tightens on the shaft of my stick until I can feel the wood grain pressing into the lines of my palms. The blisters protest. My knuckles whiten. The old scars across my fingers stretch tight, each one a souvenir from a fight I started because someone said the wrong thing at the wrong time, and I chose violence over silence.
Walk away, Sage.
They are not worth it.
They are never worth it.
Their words are not new. Their cruelty is not original.
Every insult they throw has been thrown a thousand times by a thousand different mouths, and letting it land just gives them power they did not earn.
I keep walking.
Past the corridor…the laughter. Past the muffled conversations that dissolve into whispers as my footsteps announce my presence, and the Alphas go quiet with the guilty awareness of people who were just caught being exactly who they are.
I do not look at them.
Do not give them the satisfaction of seeing whatever is written on my face right now. Anger, probably. Hurt, definitely. The specific cocktail of rage and grief that has become my default emotional state after years of being told I am extraordinary and unacceptable in the same breath.
My gear bag is where I left it, shoved against the wall outside the women's changing room that doubles as a storage closet because no one bothered to build proper facilities for female players at this rink.
I strip my pads methodically, layering each piece into the bag with the practiced efficiency of someone who has packed and unpacked her hockey gear in parking lots, bathroom stalls, and the backseats of cars because “changing rooms are for the boys, Sage, you understand, right?”
I understand everything.
That is the fucking problem.
The cold hits my skin like a slap when I push through the arena's back exit, the November air biting through my damp compression shirt with teeth sharp enough to make me hiss. The parking lot stretches out before me, mostly empty except for the stragglers loading equipment into trucks and SUVs with university logos plastered on the doors.
My ride is waiting at the very back of the lot.
The black Cadillac Escalade gleams under the parking lot's industrial lights like a polished obsidian monument to wealth I did not earn, comfort I did not ask for, and expectations I will never satisfy. Jeffrey is behind the wheel, his posture military-straight even while idling, his salt-and-pepper hair visible through the tinted windshield.
I throw my gear bag into the trunk with more force than necessary, the satisfying thud of canvas hitting carpeted interior doing absolutely nothing to ease the pressure building behind my sternum. The cold air burns in my lungs as I round the vehicle and reach for the rear passenger door.
Pulling it open, I duck inside with the automatic greeting that Jeffrey and I have perfected over a decade of car rides.
"Hey, Jeffrey. Sorry for the wait."
"No trouble at all, Miss Holloway."
His voice is warm. Familiar.
The voice of the one person in my family's orbit who has never once made me feel like an inconvenience. Who drives me to tryouts and waits in parking lots for hours without complaint, who keeps protein bars in the glove compartment because he knows I forget to eat after practice, who has perfected the art of comfortable silence during the drives home when the rejections hit too hard for conversation.
I slide onto the leather seat, exhaling a breath that fogs in the Escalade's interior before the climate control catches up.
And freeze.
