The comments I don’t mean to read but can’t stop myself from seeing.
Disgusting. He’s ruining hockey.
Figures. Should’ve stayed in juniors.
Bet he can’t even skate without holding the captain’s hand.
It’s a poison. I try to shake it off, but it clings. The arena and locker room feel different now.
At first, it’s subtle. Missed passes in drills. No one looking me in the eye. Laughter in the corner stalls that cuts off when I walk by. But it grows.
During scrimmages, I’m wide open at the blue line and the puck goes anywhere but my stick. Nobody calls my name.Nobody calls plays to me. Even warnings—those sharp yells when a defender’s coming hot—go silent. It’s like I’m not there.
Jax is the only one who isn’t treating me like some ghost whore skating on the sidelines. He runs drills with me, throws me the puck when no one else will. He plants himself next to me during warm-ups, daring anyone to make a joke loud enough for him to hear. I owe him more than I can say.
Phoenix sees it all. I know he does. He doesn’t blow up, though—not like he used to. He doesn’t throw his stick or slam lockers or tear strips off the team. Instead, he doubles down. He pushes practice harder. He demands more. He drives everyone until sweat soaks through pads and tempers fray.
I know what he’s doing. He’s saying: if you want to cut Leander out, then you’ll suffer for it. It helps, but it also makes me ache. Because every time he pushes them harder, I can feel the weight of it settling on his shoulders.
At night, when we’re home and the world is quiet, he doesn’t have to say anything. I can see it in the tight set of his jaw, in the way his hands tremble when he finally lets himself rest.
I cup his face sometimes, force him to look at me. “Don’t carry it all. Don’t tear yourself apart for me.”
But I know he will because that’s Phoenix. Part of me loves him all the more for it. Still, every day in that locker room, I feel smaller. Every practice, more invisible.
And I can’t stop asking myself the question that keeps me awake at night.
If the investigation didn’t find proof… if I’ve worked for every inch of ice time I’ve gotten… then why does it feel like the team has already decided I don’t belong?
The locker room is suffocating the next morning. Practice hasn’t even started, and the air feels thick. Sticks clatter against concrete. Tape squeaks against blades. But the silence between words is louder than everything.
I sit at my stall, tying my laces slow, steady. Trying to look unfazed. I don’t flinch when a helmet gets slammed too close. Eric mutters something under his breath to another guy. They both laugh. I don’t need to hear the words to know what they mean.
I keep my head down, but my fists curl tight against my knees. No matter how much I try to pretend or how much Phoenix tries to lead, I can feel it: the team doesn’t see me as one of them anymore.
I tell myself it’s fine, that I can take it, that I knew backlash would come. But all day the silence has gnawed at me: open ice and no one passing, open mouth and no one answering. Just me, isolated, while the rest of the team skated circles around each other.
And layered over it, the media storm keeps raging. Every headline twisting Phoenix into a villain. Every clip of us slowed down, analyzed, replayed like some guilty piece of evidence. They call him obsessive. They call me naive. They call us a scandal.
By the time we get home, my skin feels too tight. I can’t breathe.
Phoenix drops his bag by the door and heads toward the kitchen, like nothing’s wrong. Like he doesn’t feel the whole team icing me out. Like he doesn’t care that the world is painting him as something cruel, something dangerous, when he’s the safest person I’ve ever known.
It makes something in me snap.
“Why aren’t you angry?” The words come out sharp. Louder than I mean.
He pauses mid-step. Turns slowly. “What?”
I push off the couch, pacing fast, restless energy burning under my skin. “Why aren’t you furious? They’re treating you like a monster, Phoenix. Like you’ve trapped me. Like I don’thave a mind of my own.” My chest heaves. “And the team—they won’t even look at me. Won’t pass me the puck, won’t talk to me. I might as well not exist out there.”
Phoenix watches me with a calm in his eyes that has begun to feel familiar.
I rake a hand through my hair, tugging hard at the roots. My voice cracks as it rises. “I can’t stand it, okay? Watching them act like you’re some villain and I’m some idiot. Watching them freeze me out like I didn’t bleed to get here. Like I didn’t fight for every damn shift.”
My throat feels raw. My fists ache from clenching so hard.
Phoenix finally moves. Slow, deliberate. He crosses the room and puts his hands on my shoulders. They’re heavy, grounding. His voice is low. “Lee. Breathe.”
