Emily’s POV
The cafeteria is louder than it should be for seven in the morning, which feels like a personal offense.
I sit across from Ava with my coffee, the protein bar I bought more out of obligation than appetite sitting open in front of me. Chris is beside her, hunched over his phone with the intense focus of someone trying to intimidate a spreadsheet into retracting its findings.
"This is ridiculous," he says, turning the screen toward us. "Tell me how that component score makes any sense. Explain it to me. Use small words."
Ava takes the phone and scans the breakdown with the focused expression she gets when something is genuinely wrong and she's building a case about it.
"It doesn't," she says flatly. "The performance quality was stronger than half the skaters ranked above them."
I glance at the screen. The numbers are clean and official and completely wrong.
"I am calm," I say, taking a bite of the protein bar. "I'm eating breakfast. That's the international symbol for emotional stability."
Ava lowers the phone and looks at me with the expression she's been perfecting since September. "No, you're angry," she says.
"I'm aware of the existence of injustice," I reply, taking a sip of coffee. "That's a different and significantly more sophisticated emotional state."
Chris keeps scrolling, because Chris handles distress by finding more of it. "Look at the execution notes," he says. "You landed everything. Maddie landed everything. The numbers still drop. That's not random variation. That's a pattern."
At the mention of Maddie's name, something sharp moves under my ribs, unbidden and unhelpful.
Ava catches it in my face. She softens her tone slightly. "Emily," she says, setting the phone down.
"I'm fine," I say.
"I didn't ask if you were fine," she replies. "I said your name. And this doesn't feel like a coincidence," she adds, glancing at the numbers again.
"A lot of things don't feel like what they are," I say, folding the protein bar wrapper with unnecessary precision.
Chris makes a small sound of theatrical grief. "I miss the days when sports injustice only ruined my mood and not my entire breakfast experience."
I stand before either of them can get any further into whatever this is. "Enjoy your collective tragedy," I say. "I have practice."
The rink is brighter than the cafeteria and considerably simpler in its demands. Cold air, clean ice, sharp sounds.
The moment my blades hit the surface, everything narrows into the things I can control: edge, turn, speed, landing. The numbers in the cafeteria are someone else's problem for thirty seconds.
Coach stands by the boards with her clipboard, watching warm-ups with the quiet attention of someone who notices everything and chooses what to say about it carefully.
I launch into my first run harder than I should, my takeoff sharper than the sequence calls for, my landing heavier, the force shooting up through my legs in a way that feels like controlled anger dressed as effort.
I reset and run it again, faster. The entry tightens, the second jump is cleaner, the landing sharp enough that I feel the ice respond.
"Emily," Coach calls from the boards.
I skate over, breathing evenly. "I landed it," I say, because I did, and I'm preemptively making my case.
"You did," she agrees. "That's not the problem." She watches me with the patience of someone who has already identified the thing I'm not saying.
"You're using moves that are objectively dangerous in skating. This can lead to an injury. Or disqualification, if you go too far."
"I'm careful. Dangerous is the way to potential if you use it right," I say, crossing my arms.
"That's how it starts," she says. "Then it starts making decisions on its own."
I look at the ice for a moment, because she's not wrong. "I'll keep it at the point where I don't die," I say.
She lets that pass. "Control it," she says, "before it starts controlling the program."
I push away from the boards. The next run is flawless — combination landed clean, held position, everything where it belongs. When I stop, Coach gives me a short nod that functions as acknowledgment rather than approval, and I'll take it.
By the time practice ends, the frustration hasn't gone anywhere useful. I throw my bag over one shoulder and head down the corridor.
"Emily." Maddie's voice catches me before I make the turn. I stop, don't even turn around immediately. "What?" I ask.
She steps closer, close enough to be heard, far enough to respect the boundary I've been maintaining with some dedication. "I need five minutes," she says.
"It's about the scores," she says, her voice urgent in a way she's kept controlled. "The component scores. Please."
I stop again.
Her jaw tightens when I don't immediately respond, but she doesn't retreat. She holds her ground the way she always has, which is one of the things that has always made her difficult and occasionally admirable. "Emily," she says, quieter now, "Victoria's judging history might not be neutral."
That gets my full attention before I can decide to withhold it.
I turn to face her. "What does that mean," I say, and it comes out flat because I'm not sure yet whether I want the answer.
"It means I've seen enough to think this probably isn't random," she says, holding my gaze. "I'm not asking you to take my word for it. I'm asking you to look."
I study her face for a moment. She looks exhausted in the specific way that comes from weeks of something, not just last night.
She looks certain, which is the thing about Maddie that has always been both the problem and the point.
"What about the scores?" I finally ask.
"Compare competition records across multiple events. The same athletes get marked down in the same categories regardless of how well they skate. The ones it keeps happening to have something in common."
She stops. Doesn't fill in what that something is. Let me get there.
I should walk away. I know I should. Trust is not automatic. But something in the steadiness of her expression lets doubt in where I've been keeping anger.
"Alrighty, I will look into it," I say, as Maddie exhales.
"That's all I'm asking,"
I nod once and leave for the library, the right kind of quiet for this. I tell myself I'm here to study. That lasts about forty seconds. I open my laptop, pull up competition records, and start cross-referencing.
Event names. Judging panels. Athlete breakdowns. Categories. Years.
My stomach tightens slowly as the numbers line up in a shape I recognize even before I can name it.
I already knew what was going to happen when I followed the pages, and I was right.
Notes repeat with different wording and the same outcome. Traditional, distracting and inconsistent presentation.
I sit back and stare at the spreadsheet until there's no honest way to pretend I'm imagining the shape of it.
Victoria keeps scoring openly athletes like us, like me and Maddie, low. And purposely.