Maddie’s POV
The dorm room looks unfamiliar once the decision becomes real.
I stand in the middle of it for a moment, staring at the half-packed suitcase on the bed like it belongs to someone else. Then I start throwing clothes inside without folding them, which would normally be unthinkable. Tonight it isn't. I don't have it in me to care about neat stacks and careful layers when I'm finally doing the thing I should have done weeks ago.
My phone buzzes on the desk.
Dad: I'm outside.
I grab my jacket and take one last look around the room — the bare desk, the empty shelf, the institutional walls — and feel nothing that resembles regret. Just the specific tiredness of someone who stayed somewhere longer than they should have, and knows it now with complete clarity. I turn off the light and close the door behind me without looking back.
David is leaning against his car in the dim parking lot when I step outside, the engine already idling, like he understood that this wasn't a situation requiring him to park and wait. He straightens the moment he sees me and studies my face with the particular attention of a man who knows he has lost the right to ask how I'm doing.
"You look like you didn't sleep," he says carefully.
"I didn't," I answer, shifting my bag on my shoulder. "That tends to happen when you discover someone has been planning your future without mentioning it to you."
David nods slowly, absorbing that without deflecting. "Let's go get your things," he says.
We walk back upstairs together. The stairwell is quiet at this hour, our footsteps the only sound, and the strange normalcy of my father helping me carry luggage out of a building feels nothing like any version of this moment I imagined when I first arrived here.
When we step into my room, David looks around once with the quiet expression of someone taking inventory. "This place is smaller than I expected," he says.
"It's a dorm," I reply, lifting the suitcase from the bed and setting it on the floor. "They're not known for generous square footage."
He takes the handle from my hand without asking, the way parents do when they've decided the conversation should start moving somewhere rather than staying still. We go back downstairs, and he loads the suitcase into the trunk while I lean against the passenger door and watch the parking lot sit empty and indifferent around us.
"Are you sure about this?" he asks finally, closing the trunk with a quiet click.
"Yes," I say, which is the most unambiguous thing I've said in weeks.
He nods once, but his expression stays serious in the way it does when he's building toward something. "You need to understand the risks," he says carefully. "You might not get your place back at Lakeview. The team could have adjusted their roster."
"I know," I say.
"You left abruptly," he continues, leaning against the car beside me. "Coaches don't always forgive that. Your career could take a hit — possibly a serious one."
Something in my chest snaps, cleanly and without warning.
"Oh my god, Dad," I burst out, my voice sharp enough to carry across the empty lot. "Do you think I don't realize that?"
"I'm not accusing you of anything," he says, with the careful steadiness of someone who has decided to hold the line.
"You pushed me into this place," I fire back, pacing a step away from the car. "You told me it was the best move for my career, the best training environment, the best coach in the country. You were very specific. Very confident."
"Maddie —"
"And now you're warning me about the risks of leaving?" I interrupt, the anger finally finding its shape after weeks of nowhere to put it. "It was a mistake in the first place. Your mistake. And mine for agreeing."
My voice cracks on the last word. The silence that follows sits heavy in the parking lot air. David exhales slowly, looking at the ground for a moment before looking back at me.
"Alright," he says quietly. "Show me."
I blink. "What?"
"The documents," he says. "You said you found something. Show me what you found."
I hand him my phone. David scrolls through the photos slowly, his expression carefully controlled, and then less controlled. His eyebrows tighten when he reaches the relocation plans — the different countries, the transfer timelines, the phrase previous influences highlighted in the margin.
"What does that mean?" he asks quietly, though I think he already knows.
"It means Emily," I reply. "It means anyone who makes me harder to manage."
His finger moves to the interview draft. He reads it once. Then again. His shoulders sink, barely perceptibly, the way a building settles when the temperature drops.
"I trusted her," he says, handing the phone back slowly.
"Clearly," I say, and the word carries everything I don't add.
David looks up, and for the first time since this conversation started, something in his face is genuinely unsettled — not the performative concern he usually brings, but something real underneath it. "I thought she was pushing you toward excellence," he says. "I didn't understand the cost she intended you to pay for it."
He closes his eyes briefly. When he opens them again, they're steadier.
"I just wanted you to be the best," he says. "That's all I have ever wanted, and I trusted her judgment too blindly. That's on me."
The apology is simple, and maybe because of that, it lands. I stare at the pavement for a moment.
"I'm not ready to forgive you," I say. "But I appreciate that you said it."
"I didn't expect the first one," David replies. "I'll settle for the second."
The tension in my chest loosens, just slightly. "I just want to go home," I say quietly.
David watches me for a moment, then opens the passenger door without ceremony. "Then let's go," he says.
The car engine starts with a quiet hum. The headlights sweep across the empty lot, and we pull toward the exit without another word.
After a few minutes, David glances over. "There's still paperwork," he says, keeping his eyes on the road. "Re-enrollment isn't automatic. Transfer reversals take time."
"Funny you mention that," I say, pulling out my phone.
He glances at the screen — Lakeview University, Enrollment Services, the confirmation timestamp from two hours ago — and exhales.
"You work fast," he says.
"I didn't want to give myself the chance to change my mind," I reply.
He nods, and the car settles into the quiet rhythm of the road. On my phone screen, the confirmation message stays open. Maddie Reyes has filed paperwork to re-enroll at Lakeview.
It's the first decision in months that feels entirely mine.