Maddie’s POV
My hands shake as I flip through the folder. I force myself to slow down, breathing through my nose while scanning the first document.
Contract clauses. Restrictions. Relocation terms.
"Long-term contract?" I whisper, flipping the page with fingers that don't feel like mine. "I never signed this."
The next page makes my stomach drop. Restrictions on outside relationships. Public image clauses. Mandatory relocation strategy. I reread the paragraph three times because the first time through feels impossible, like reading something in a language that resembles English but operates by entirely different rules.
"Approved social contact," I mutter, the words catching in my throat. "That's not coaching. That's control."
The wording gets worse as I keep reading. Clauses about public appearances. Clauses about controlling interviews. Clauses tying my skating career to Victoria's training brand so tightly that separating them later would require something that looks more like legal surgery than a normal resignation. And it goes on. And on.
My throat tightens.
"This isn't a coaching contract," I whisper to the empty room. "This is ownership."
I turn another page. Distance from previous influences. I stare at the phrase for a full three seconds, turning it over.
"Previous influences," I repeat quietly, letting the words settle into what they actually mean.
The meaning arrives instantly, without ambiguity. Emily. The name drops into my mind like a stone into still water, and the ripples keep going further than they should. I flip the page faster, my breathing shallower.
Relocation timelines. Facility transfer projections. Long-term placements in other countries — each one moving me farther from Lakeview, farther from everyone I walked away from, farther from everything the documents have decided is a distraction worth eliminating.
"Did you plan my entire life," I whisper, "without asking me once?"
I turn another page. The contents shift. Interview transcripts. Scoring breakdowns. Printed competition sheets with numbers highlighted in yellow.
At first it looks like routine judging data. Then I start recognizing names. Athletes who have spoken publicly about being LGBTQ+. Athletes who posted photos with partners between competitions. Athletes who were visibly, openly queer when they stepped on the ice.
Their scores are lower. Not dramatically. Just consistently — component marks shaved, artistry scores slightly reduced, judging notes citing "inconsistent presentation" with the bland authority of someone who knows exactly what they're doing and has arranged things so no single number gives them away.
My stomach turns. I flip another sheet. Same pattern. Another. Same.
"This isn't a coincidence," I breathe, and the word feels completely inadequate for what I'm looking at.
My eyes move to the next document: an interview draft. Not the published version. An earlier one, with Victoria's answers printed beneath a list of questions. I read the relevant paragraph twice, then a third time because I want to be certain I'm not misreading it.
I'm not. The wording is harsher than anything that made it to print. She talks about "maintaining the traditional integrity of the sport." She calls certain public behaviors "incompatible with competitive discipline," in language that leaves very little room for interpretation and no room at all for people like me.
My hand tightens around the paper until the edge creases. "God," I whisper, setting it down carefully.
A sound echoes in the hallway outside — footsteps, unhurried but getting closer. I pull out my phone and open the camera, already moving. My hands shake as I photograph the first page, blurred, and retake it. Second page. The scoring sheets. The interview draft. Each photo takes three seconds that feel like thirty.
Another footstep echoes. My pulse is so loud in my ears it feels like the walls should be able to hear it.
The final photo saves. I shove the documents back into the folder as carefully as I can, trying to keep the pages in the same rough order I found them, and slide it back into the drawer with the same small gap as before.
The footsteps stop. I count to five, breathing silently, pressing myself flat against the wall like that will help.
Then I move — out of the administrative room, down the corridor at a pace that is controlled enough not to announce itself. The hallway stretches ahead of me, empty and fluorescent, and I walk the entire length of it without looking back once.
Outside, the cold night air hits my face like a correction. I inhale sharply and my hands are still trembling when I pull out my phone and call David. He answers on the second ring.
"Maddie?" he says, and I can hear him already reading the situation in the single word. "What's wrong?"
"I found something," I say, and my voice cracks in a way I don't try to fix.
"Tell me," he says simply. So I do.
I tell him about the folder — the contract clauses I never signed and was never shown, the relocation timelines, the phrase previous influences printed neatly on a document with my name across the tab. The scoring patterns. The interview draft with its ugly, careful language that stopped just short of saying what it meant out loud.
He listens without interrupting, without interjecting, without redirecting toward what I should have done instead. It is the most useful thing he has done in months.
"I took photos," I say. "Of everything."
A pause follows, long and careful. "Maddie," he says quietly, "are you safe right now?"
"I'm outside the building," I say, leaning against the exterior wall, brick cold through my jacket. "I'm okay."
"Good," he says, and something in his voice settles. "Stay there a minute."
"I thought this was discipline," I say, the adrenaline metabolizing now into something that just feels heavy. "I thought this was what elite training looked like. I thought I was making the right choice."
"I know," he says, and for once the words aren't followed by a correction or a redirect.
Silence stretches between us on the line. "Dad," I say finally. "I think I made a mistake coming here."
"I think so too," he says, and I almost laugh, because a month ago that sentence from him would have landed entirely differently.
"Do you want to come home?" he asks.
The question lands harder than I expected. I sit with it for a moment, letting it be real. "Yes," I say. "I think I do."
I end the call and go upstairs. My laptop glows on the desk. I open it, find the travel site, and book the earliest available ticket back to Lakeview without letting myself hesitate long enough to reconsider.
The confirmation email arrives almost immediately. Departure: tomorrow morning.
I stare at the screen, my chest doing something complicated that might be relief and might be terror and is probably both at once.
Then I close the laptop, lie down fully dressed, and wait for morning.