The arena was cathedral-quiet after the game.
The crowds had drained away hours ago, their energy dissipating into the night like heat from cooling metal. The players had showered and departed, their laughter echoing briefly in locker room corridors before fading into silence.
Now the ice stretched smooth and empty under dimmed lights, a frozen stage waiting for performers who'd already gone home.
I stayed late because staying was easier than leaving.
The medical office had become my refuge—a small, cluttered space where I could bury myself in paperwork and pretend my life wasn't spiraling out of control.
Injury reports needed filing, supply orders needed placing, mundane tasks that required just enough attention to keep my mind from wandering into dangerous territory.
My phone glowed on the desk beside me, two messages waiting like unanswered questions.
Jay's had arrived an hour ago: I know you need space. I meant everything I said—about waiting, about fighting for this, about you being worth whatever it takes. Just... let me know you're okay. Please.
Xavier's came twenty minutes later: Can we talk tomorrow? I'll give you whatever space you need, I promise. But I can't stop thinking about you. I can't stop reaching for you, even when I know I shouldn't.
Two men. Two futures. Two versions of myself I could become, depending on which path I chose.
I stared at the screen, paralyzed by the weight of deciding. Every time I thought I knew what I wanted, something shifted—a memory, a moment, a reminder of everything each of them represented.
Safety versus passion. Stability versus fire. The man who'd lied to me versus the man who'd never seen me until I transformed into someone worth seeing.
Neither choice felt right. Neither choice felt wrong. They just felt... impossible.
I didn't get the chance to answer either message.
Footsteps echoed through the empty corridor—sharp, deliberate, the particular rhythm of heels against concrete. I looked up from my phone, expecting a member of the cleaning staff or maybe a security guard making rounds.
Mariana Voss stood in the doorway.
Her composure was fractured in ways I'd never seen before. Makeup slightly smudged beneath her eyes, as if she'd been crying or rubbing at her face compulsively. Her usually perfect hair was escaping its pins.
And her eyes—those calculating green eyes that had haunted my nightmares for a decade were bright with something that looked almost unhinged.
She'd been waiting, watching, planning this moment.
"Working late?" Her voice was deceptively light, but the edge beneath it cut like broken glass. "How dedicated, how professional. The ugly duckling, all grown up and playing doctor."
I stood slowly, putting the desk between us. "What do you want, Mariana?"
"I want to talk." She stepped into the office, her heels clicking against the floor. "Just the two of us. No audiences, no interruptions. The way we used to talk in high school, remember? Those intimate little conversations we'd have in bathroom stalls and empty classrooms."
The memories rose unbidden—cornered against tile walls, her voice dripping poison while her friends laughed. I forced them down.
"We never talked. You talked. I survived."
"And now look at you."
She circled the desk slowly, her gaze cataloguing every detail of my face, my posture, the way my hands had curled into fists at my sides.
"Surviving so beautifully. I have to admit, Summer, I underestimated you. I really did. I thought you'd stay invisible forever. That's what mice do, isn't it? They hide in their holes and hope the cats don't find them."
"I'm not hiding anymore."
"No." Her smile was razor-thin. "No, you're not. You're out here in the open now, taking things that don't belong to you. Making yourself impossible to ignore. Fighting back when you should know better."
"If this is about Jay…"
"Of course it's about Jay! Everything is about Jay."
The civility shattered, her voice rising to something raw and desperate.
"My entire life has been about Jay—preparing for him, waiting for him, building the perfect future that our families promised us since we were children. And then you show up with your new face and your new body and your pathetic little transformation, and suddenly he can't see anyone else."
I held my ground, refusing to retreat. "I didn't steal him from you. You can't steal someone who was never really yours."
"He IS mine." Mariana's composure cracked further, fury bleeding through the polished surface. "Legally, publicly, permanently. That engagement is binding. Those families made promises. You don't get to waltz in and destroy everything I've spent years building just because you finally learned how to use mascara."
"Jay made his own choices. He's been trying to escape that engagement since before I ever came into the picture. If you want to blame someone for losing him, blame yourself. Blame your cruelty. Blame the years you spent making other people miserable because it was the only way you knew how to feel powerful."
Something shifted behind her eyes—surprise, maybe, that I was fighting back. That the mouse had grown teeth.
"You think you know him? You think a few weeks of flirtation and whatever pathetic little romance you've constructed means you understand who he is?"
Her voice dropped low, dangerous.
"I've known Jay my entire life. I know his family, his secrets, the leverage that keeps him trapped. You're nothing but a distraction, a fantasy. The moment reality sets in, he'll come back to where he belongs."
"If you were so confident about that, you wouldn't be here." I met her gaze without flinching. "You wouldn't be cornering me in empty arenas trying to scare me off. You're here because you know you're losing him. Because you know that whatever hold you had is slipping away, and you can't stand it."
"You should have stayed invisible." The words came out cold, final. "You should have stayed the pathetic little nobody I spent four years putting in her place. This is what happens when mice forget they're prey."
She moved faster than I expected.
Her hands connected with my chest—a hard, deliberate shove that sent me stumbling backward. My hip caught the edge of a chair, throwing off my balance. I reached for something to grab, something to anchor myself, but there was nothing except empty air and the horrible sensation of falling.
The world tilted sideways.
I saw the concrete steps leading down from the medical office to the main floor—a short flight, maybe eight steps, enough to seem harmless under normal circumstances. My arms flailed uselessly, my feet searching for purchase that didn't exist.
Then I was falling.
The first impact came at my shoulder, a burst of pain that stole my breath. The second caught my hip, my elbow, my ribs striking the edge of a step with force that made colors explode behind my eyes.
I tumbled down the concrete like a rag doll, each collision adding new notes to the symphony of agony building through my body.
The final impact was my head.
The back of my skull met concrete with a sound I heard from inside—a wet, terrible crack that seemed to echo through my entire being. Pain exploded through my brain, white-hot and absolute, drowning out everything else.
Above me, somewhere far away, I heard Mariana's voice.
"You should have stayed invisible."
Then her heels—clicking rapidly away, fleeing, vanishing into the silence of the empty arena.
I tried to move. My body refused. My vision blurred, darkness creeping in from the edges like ink spreading through water. My phone lay somewhere above me, shattered on the floor, both messages still unanswered.
Jay. Xavier. Nathan. Someone. Please.
The thoughts fragmented, scattered like leaves in a wind I couldn't feel. The pain was fading now—not healing, just retreating behind a wall of numbness that felt more terrifying than the agony had been.
My eyes closed.
The last thing I saw was the dimmed lights of the arena, swimming above me like distant stars.
Then nothing.
Silence.
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