Chapter 69: The Night Before

Georgia

I can’t sleep, so I go where I always go when I can’t.

The Classic is tomorrow.

I’m lying in bed, staring at the comma-shaped water stain on the ceiling. I’ve memorized it by now - every faded edge, every little discoloration blooming outward like a bruise. I’ve spent enough nights staring at that stain to know it better than I know some people, which says more about my life than I’d like to admit.

My brain refuses to shut up.

I run through my program again. Jump by jump. Spin by spin. Every entrance, every landing, every place where I need to hold my position for half a second longer than feels comfortable. I picture the ice beneath my blades, the exact pressure I need on each edge, the counts I whisper to myself when the music threatens to run away from me.

I’m supposed to be calming myself down.

It’s not working.

My fingers catch the edge of my blanket and twist the fabric into a knot. I smooth it out. Twist it again. Smooth it. Over and over, like some kind of ritual that might trick my body into believing it’s tired.

Still nothing.

Instead, my mind jumps from one problem to the next, refusing to let me rest on any single fear long enough to make peace with it.

Mollie’s cold promise surfaces first, delivered in that clipped voice she uses when she’s already decided how a conversation is going to end - when she’s three steps ahead of me and daring me to catch up.

Then the twins, being strangely nice to me, their sudden warmth sitting wrong in my stomach like food gone bad.

Then Bianca’s voice behind that door, low and certain.

It has to look like an accident.

I hear it again every time I close my eyes, the words looping with a patience that feels almost cruel.

Darcy hovers into the mix next, always a little too close, always watching, like she’s cataloguing something about me I haven’t figured out yet.

The scouts follow, sitting in the stands tomorrow in my imagination, clipboards in hand, deciding whether I still have a future in this sport or whether I’m just another name to cross off a list.

And then there’s Puck.

Two weeks.

Almost two weeks since we’ve had an actual conversation. Two weeks of passing each other in hallways, my chest tightening every single time. Two weeks of pretending not to notice him, which is its own kind of exhausting. Two weeks of wondering why he stopped looking at me, and what I might have done, or not done, to make that happen.

That one hurts more than I want to admit.

I roll onto my side, as if changing position might somehow rearrange my thoughts too.

Nope.

Sleep isn’t happening.

A little after midnight, I finally give up.

Mandi is completely dead to the world across the room, one arm thrown dramatically over her face, doing that soft, whistling snore she insists she doesn’t do. There’s something enviable about how completely she surrenders to sleep, like nothing in the world could touch her once her eyes close.

I stare at her for a second.

Lucky.

I pull on a jacket over my pajamas and slip out of the room, careful with my footsteps even though nothing could wake her.

The door barely clicks shut behind me.

The campus is cold and almost completely dark, the kind of darkness that makes the buildings look like they’re holding their breath. My shoes make quiet sounds against the pavement as I cross toward The Fang, but I don’t really think about where I’m going.

I just go.

I always end up here when my head gets too loud, like the ice has some pull on me that has nothing to do with competition and everything to do with quiet.

The rink is supposed to be locked this late. It isn’t.

There’s a side door that never quite catches properly, no matter how many times maintenance claims they’ve fixed it. I ease it open and slip inside, the familiar give of the hinges almost comforting.

Cold air hits my face.

The rink is dark except for the emergency lights, which leave the ice glowing faintly beneath them, silver and still. I can smell the rubber mats and refrigerant as soon as I step inside, that particular mixture that has meant home to me for longer than any actual house ever has.

Familiar.

Comforting.

Until I hear the blades.

I stop.

Someone is skating.

For half a second, I think about turning around, my heart already picking up its pace before I even know why.

Then I see him.

Puck is out at center ice.

He’s not practicing.

Not really.

There’s no puck, no drills, no stopwatch, none of the focused precision he usually carries even when he’s supposed to be relaxing. There’s none of the coiled tension I’ve come to associate with him, the sense that he’s always half a second from exploding into motion.

He’s just skating.

Slowly.

His arms hang loose at his sides, his movements easy. His head tips back slightly as he glides, and for once, he doesn’t look like he’s trying to prove anything to anyone, least of all himself.

I’ve never seen him this relaxed. It changes his whole face, softens the sharp lines I’ve grown used to.

I stay by the door, watching, telling myself I should leave before he notices, even as my feet stay rooted to the spot.

Then he sees me.

I know the exact second he does.

His rhythm falters. One blade catches slightly longer than the other, and his head turns toward me with an alertness that seems almost involuntary, like his body responded before his mind caught up.

We stare at each other.

Neither of us says anything.

For a second, I’m tempted to leave, to pretend I never opened that door.

Instead, I walk farther inside, some pull stronger than my pride guiding me forward.

The door closes behind me with a quiet thud.

I pull the spare rental skates from my bag. I keep them there out of habit now, which is probably weird, but I’m not going to think about that tonight. Tonight, I don’t have the energy to interrogate my own choices.

My fingers fumble with the laces.

Great.

Apparently, I can land a jump under pressure, but tying my shoes is where I fall apart.

I step onto the ice, the cold biting through the thin fabric of my pajama pants.

Puck doesn’t say anything.

Neither do I.

We skate.

Not together.

Not exactly.

We move in wide circles, sometimes passing close enough that I can feel him beside me, the warmth of his presence cutting through the chill, then drifting apart again like two planets caught in loose orbit.

The rink stays quiet around us.

Just the sound of blades against ice, rhythmic and steady, almost like breathing.

For a while, that’s enough.

I don’t have to think about tomorrow.

I don’t have to think about Mollie or Bianca or Darcy or the scouts.

I don’t even have to think about Puck.

Except I am.

Obviously.

Because he’s right there, and some part of me is always aware of exactly where he is in relation to me, like a compass needle that only ever points one direction.

Eventually, he slows.

I hear his blades scrape lightly against the ice before he comes to a stop a few feet away, close enough that I can see the faint clouds of his breath in the cold air.

"You’ve been favoring your left ankle on the entry," he says quietly, his tone careful, almost gentle. "Not much. Just enough that I noticed."

I blink.

Of all the things he could have said, that wasn’t on my list.

"You’ve been watching my program?" I ask, my voice cautious, uncertain what to do with the fact that he has.

"Hard not to," he answers softly.

His eyes stay on mine, steady in a way that makes my pulse stumble.

"You’re terrified. I can see it from across campus."

That lands harder than it should.

I look away, suddenly finding the ice beneath my skates fascinating.

"Scouts," I admit, rubbing my thumb against the side of my glove. "My mom. The twins being weirdly nice to me for some reason I can’t figure out."

I hesitate, the words piling up faster than I can sort through them.

"Everything, honestly."

Puck watches me for a moment, something unreadable passing across his face.

"The twins being nice sounds like a good thing," he offers, though there’s a wary edge to his voice, like he already suspects it isn’t.

"It doesn’t feel like one."

The words come out before I can stop them.

My arms fold across my chest, a small, useless attempt at armor.

I want to tell him why.

I want to explain about Bianca and the door and the voice I can’t get out of my head.

But how do I even begin?

Hey, remember how everyone here already thinks I’m losing it? I might have overheard something about a planned accident.

Yeah.

That should go well.

So I say nothing.

Puck doesn’t push.

He just nods, slow and thoughtful, as if he’s making a note of it somewhere in his head, filing it away for later.

Then he skates around me in an easy circle, the motion unhurried, almost deliberate.

When he comes back to a stop, he’s closer.

Much closer.

Close enough that I can feel the warmth coming off him despite the cold air, close enough that I have to tilt my head slightly to keep looking at him.

My stomach tightens.

I hate that my body reacts to him before my brain gets a vote, that two weeks of silence apparently mean nothing to whatever this pull between us is.

"Georgia."

My name sounds different when he says it.

Maybe because I haven’t heard it from him in almost two weeks. Maybe because there’s something in his voice now that wasn’t there before, something careful and deliberate, like he’s choosing each word with unusual weight.

I look up.

"Tomorrow, just skate for yourself," he tells me, his voice low and steady. "Not for your mother. Not for the scouts."

He pauses, and the silence stretches just long enough to feel significant.

His expression softens.

"For you."

I stare at him.

There are so many things I could say.

Thank you.

Where have you been?

Why did you stop talking to me?

Why did you leave me alone after the gala?

Why did you look at me like you wanted to say something and then say nothing?

Instead, I manage, "I don’t know how."

His brow furrows slightly, a small crease of concern.

"I’ve never skated just for me," I admit. "Not once. Not really."

"You will tomorrow," he says with quiet certainty, like it’s simply a fact he’s already decided is true.

The confidence in his voice makes me almost believe him.

"I’ve watched you skate when you forget anyone’s watching. It’s different."

He holds my gaze, unflinching.

"It’s better."

A beat passes, heavy with everything neither of us is saying.

"It’s you."

My chest tightens.

I look down at the ice because looking at him suddenly feels like too much, like he might see straight through whatever composure I have left.

I don’t know what I want from him.

An apology, maybe.

An explanation.

Maybe I just want him to stay.

That’s the worst part.

I’m still angry. I know I am. Two weeks of being ignored doesn’t disappear because he decided to talk to me tonight, no matter how gentle his voice sounds now.

But tomorrow is the biggest day of my career.

And right now, all I want is for him to still be here when I turn around.

My hand moves before I can stop it.

I reach toward him.

Not far.

Just enough that the space between our hands becomes painfully small, charged with everything unsaid.

My pulse pounds in my ears.

I could close the distance.

I could touch him.

I almost do.

Then I remember the gala.

His silence.

The way I’d needed him to say something and he hadn’t, the way that silence had felt like a door closing.

The last two weeks.

The hallways.

The way he’d turned and walked in the opposite direction like being near me was something he couldn’t risk, like I was a danger he needed to avoid rather than a person he cared about.

My fingers curl.

I pull my hand back.

Not yet.

I can’t.

"I should go," I say quickly, the words tumbling out before I can second-guess them.

I skate backward, putting a little more distance between us, needing the space to think clearly again.

"Big day tomorrow."

Puck watches me retreat, something flickering across his face that I can’t quite name.

"Yeah," he replies softly.

His eyes stay on mine, unwavering.

"Skate for yourself, Georgia. Not for anyone else."

I nod because I’m afraid my voice will betray me if I try to speak.

Then I turn toward the boards.

I take my time unlacing my skates, mostly because my hands aren’t cooperating and partly because I don’t want to look at him, don’t trust myself to walk away if I do.

I gather my things.

I stand.

I walk toward the door.

At the last second, I stop.

My hand closes around the cold metal handle.

I look back.

Just once.

Puck is still standing at center ice.

He hasn’t moved.

He’s watching me.

Not casually.

Not distractedly.

He’s looking at the door like he’s trying to memorize the exact shape of me leaving, like he’s afraid this might be the last time.

My throat tightens.

I turn away before I can do something stupid, before I can cross the rink and ask him all the questions I’ve been swallowing for two weeks.

The door swings shut behind me.

Cold air hits my face again.

I start walking across campus, my shoes crunching softly against the pavement, the sound the only thing keeping me tethered to the present moment.

Tomorrow is waiting.

The Classic.

The scouts.

My mother.

Everything I’ve been trying not to think about, all of it rushing back now that I’m alone again.

But the image that follows me all the way back to my room isn’t my mother’s cold expression or the twins’ unsettling smiles. It’s Puck standing alone beneath the dim rink lights, still and golden-eyed, watching the door long after I’d walked through it, as if some part of him hoped I might come back.