[Emily’s POV]
Lakeview without Maddie feels wrong. Classes blur together—I take notes I'll never read, nod along to lectures I'm not processing.
My mind keeps drifting to Maddie, wondering if her ankle hurts, if she's nervous about surgery, if she misses me.
Practice is mechanical. I land every jump, nail every spin, execute every transition with technical perfection while feeling nothing.
Coach pulls me aside after I complete a flawless triple lutz with all the emotional investment of someone filling out a tax form.
"Your technique is perfect," she says, then adds, "but you're skating like a very talented corpse."
"Corpses can't skate," I point out. "Rigor mortis would make the footwork challenging."
"Emily." She gives me that look—the one that says she knows exactly what's wrong. I don't take the bait.
I just promise to inject more life into my skating and escape before she can ask questions I don't want to answer.
Three days later, Thursday afternoon finds me walking back from the library, backpack heavy with textbooks I haven't opened.
The campus looks like a postcard but I'm too busy mentally composing my next text to Maddie to notice.
"Well, well. If it isn't Emily Harper." Derek Williams blocks the path ahead, flanked by two hockey teammates. They're wearing matching smirks that make my stomach drop.
"Derek," I say flatly. "Move." He doesn't. Instead, he tilts his head like he's figured out something fascinating.
"Heard about your roommate's accident. Maddie, right? How's your special friend doing?" The way he says "special friend" makes my blood freeze.
I try to step around him but he shifts to block me, his teammates mirroring the movement. "She's fine. Now move."
"You know, I visited her at the hospital." Derek's smile widens. "Saw you there too. You looked really worried. Like, way more worried than a normal roommate should be. And I was talking to her parents—they mentioned how you rushed to be there the second she fell. Dropped everything. Didn't even wait to hear how your own competition went."
My hands clench into fists. "What's your point?"
"No point. Just observations." He steps closer, his teammates following. "It's just interesting, you know? You missing your own competition prep to sit in a hospital. Maddie reaching for you instead of her parents. The two of you living together despite supposedly being big rivals. Everyone's talking about what you two really are."
The words hit like a punch. My brain scrambles through damage control—denials, deflections, lies. But my voice comes out steady. "Leave me alone, Derek."
He laughs. His teammates echo it like the world's worst backup singers. "I'm just stating the obvious. No need to get defensive unless you've got something to hide."
That's when I remember my phone. My hand moves on autopilot—pulling it out, swiping to camera, hitting record. The red dot appears. "What are you doing?" Derek's smile falters.
"Recording this conversation for documentation. In case I need to file a harassment complaint with campus security. Which I will. The second you move and let me pass."
Derek's face cycles through surprise, anger, calculation. One teammate mutters something. The other looks uncomfortable. "We're just talking," Derek says, confidence wavering.
"You blocked my path. You made implications about my personal life. You made me feel unsafe." I keep my voice clear for the recording. "That's harassment. Now move."
We stand in tense standoff. Finally, Derek steps aside, jaw tight. "Whatever," he mutters. "Everyone already knows anyway."
I walk past on legs that might give out any second. I don't stop recording until I'm around the corner.
Only then do I lean against a building and remember how breathing works. My hands shake so badly I almost drop my phone.
Two hours later, I'm back in our dorm with a case number, a security officer's business card, and bone-deep exhaustion.
They took my statement, watched the video, and said they'd "follow up." I'm choosing to interpret that optimistically.
I stare at Maddie's contact for twenty minutes before pressing call. She answers on the second ring. "Hey! I was just thinking about you. How was—"
"Something happened with Derek on campus today."
Silence. Then: "What do you mean?" I tell her everything. Derek blocking my path, his questions about our relationship, how he connected the dots—the hospital visits, us living together, how we act around each other.
His comment about everyone talking. The recording. Campus security. The words tumble out while Maddie stays silent. "Maddie? You still there?"
"Yeah. I'm here. I'm just processing." More silence. I lie back on my bed, staring at the ceiling.
"Is he right?" she asks finally. "Do people know?"
"I don't know. Maybe? He seemed confident everyone's talking, but I don't know if that's true or if he's trying to get in our heads."
"It's working. Because now I'm paranoid that everyone we know has figured it out."
"That's a lot of knowing."
"You know what I mean." She pauses. "This is exactly what I was afraid of. Everything unraveling because we couldn't keep our distance."
The words sting. "We were careful, Maddie. We've always been careful in public."
"Were we though?" Her laugh is sharp and bitter. "Think about it from an outside perspective. Two rivals who suddenly decide to live together. Who spend all their time pushing each other to be better.”
She continues, voice hitching. “Who can barely hide how they feel when they look at each other. To anyone paying attention, we probably look exactly like what we are—two people with feelings they're trying to hide and failing miserably at it."
She's not wrong. I hate that she's not wrong. "So what do we do now?" I ask quietly.
Another long pause. "I don't know. Be more careful? Keep our distance when other people are around? Try not to look at each other like we're in a Nicholas Sparks novel?"
"That last one might be harder than it sounds."
"I know." Her voice softens slightly. "But we have to try. I can't have this blow up before my surgery. Before I even know if I can skate again. I need to focus on recovery, not on dealing with everyone knowing our business."
I want to argue. Want to say that hiding is exhausting, that pretending takes more energy than being honest, that maybe people knowing wouldn't be the disaster she thinks it would be. But she's right about the timing. "Okay," I say. "We'll be more careful."
"Thank you." She sounds relieved. "And Emily? Thank you for recording that interaction with Derek. For standing up for yourself. For us."
"Someone had to," I say lightly, even though my hands were shaking the entire time.
We talk for a few more minutes about inconsequential things that feel comforting in their normalcy. But when we hang up, I'm left with this hollow feeling in my chest.
The conversation felt like a step backward. Back to hiding. Back to fear. Back to carefully monitoring every word, every glance, every moment we're in public together.
I lie in bed that night replaying Derek's words. Everyone already knows anyway. Is he right? Have we been fooling ourselves this whole time, thinking we were being subtle when we were actually broadcasting our feelings to anyone who cared to look?
And if everyone does know, what does that mean for us? For our skating careers? For the careful balance we've been trying to maintain between being together and being safe?
I don't have answers. Just questions that multiply in the dark like rabbits with anxiety disorders.