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She hesitates.

“That’s… in jeopardy.”

The room feels smaller suddenly.

We were supposed to go home tonight.

Back to campus.

Back to normal.

Now nothing feels normal.

I glance toward the window.

The sky outside is pale, winter light stretching across the city.

“I just wanted to play,” I say again, softer this time.

It sounds smaller now.

Less certain.

Like something I’m trying to convince myself of as much as anyone else.

Tara rests a hand lightly on my shoulder - careful of the bandage.

“I know,” she says.

And I believe her.

But it doesn’t change the way it feels.

Because somewhere between the moment my helmet came off and now I stopped being a player and became a story.

ZANE

I shouldn’t have opened my phone.

I know that the second Mercer drops down beside me and shoves his screen into my face.

“Have you seen this shit?” he says.

I don’t answer.

I just look.

And immediately wish I hadn’t.

The comments scroll past faster than I can process them, a blur of usernames and profile pictures and words that feel… ugly. Not just angry -ugly.

“Imagine getting bodied by a girl and then finding out she was a girl the whole time. These guys should retire.”- @grittygritty

“She tricked them. That’s not feminism, that’s fraud.”- @oldhockeydad

“Her dad must be rolling in his grave. He built this program and she destroyed it.”- @giantsfan4life

“Scouts were there to watch REAL players and got a circus instead.”- @scoutswatch