She hesitates.
“That’s… in jeopardy.”
The room feels smaller suddenly.
We were supposed to go home tonight.
Back to campus.
Back to normal.
Now nothing feels normal.
I glance toward the window.
The sky outside is pale, winter light stretching across the city.
“I just wanted to play,” I say again, softer this time.
It sounds smaller now.
Less certain.
Like something I’m trying to convince myself of as much as anyone else.
Tara rests a hand lightly on my shoulder - careful of the bandage.
“I know,” she says.
And I believe her.
But it doesn’t change the way it feels.
Because somewhere between the moment my helmet came off and now I stopped being a player and became a story.
ZANE
I shouldn’t have opened my phone.
I know that the second Mercer drops down beside me and shoves his screen into my face.
“Have you seen this shit?” he says.
I don’t answer.
I just look.
And immediately wish I hadn’t.
The comments scroll past faster than I can process them, a blur of usernames and profile pictures and words that feel… ugly. Not just angry -ugly.
“Imagine getting bodied by a girl and then finding out she was a girl the whole time. These guys should retire.”- @grittygritty
“She tricked them. That’s not feminism, that’s fraud.”- @oldhockeydad
“Her dad must be rolling in his grave. He built this program and she destroyed it.”- @giantsfan4life
“Scouts were there to watch REAL players and got a circus instead.”- @scoutswatch
