A girl. Dark blonde hair, wide eyes, wearing an oversized hoodie and an expression that’s shifting from concern to something else. Something like horror.
“You’re bleeding,” she says, her voice strange. Tight.
I look down. There’s blood on the ice beneath me. Not a lot, but enough. I must have hit my head when I fell. Or maybe it’s from my lip.
“I’m fine,” I manage to say, which is obviously the most ridiculous lie I’ve ever told considering I’m currently sprawled on the ice in a pool of my own blood.
“You’re not fine. I need to call?—”
She stops again, and I watch something happen to her face. The color drains completely. Her breathing quickens, becomes shallow. Her hands start to shake violently.
She’s staring at the blood on the ice with an expression I recognize because I’ve felt it myself, pure, undiluted panic.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sit up and immediately regretting it. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m okay.”
But she’s not looking at me anymore. She’s backing up, one step, then another, her eyes fixed on the blood like it’s the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen.
Like blood on ice means something to her that it doesn’t mean to normal people.
“Wait,” I call out, and I don’t know why. Don’t know why I care if this stranger who found me bleeding decides to bolt.
But something about the terror on her face, the way her hands won’t stop shaking, the way she’s looking at the blood like it represents something much worse than a hockey player’s stupidity?—
I know that look.
I wear a version of that look.
She stops. Doesn’t turn around, but stops.
“I’m Ryder,” I say, still sitting on the ice like an idiot, my shoulder screaming and my head bleeding and everything falling apart in ways I can’t control. “I’m… I could use some help. Please.”
The silence stretches. I think she’s going to leave anyway. Think I’m going to have to somehow get myself off this ice and to a hospital and explain to everyone how I was stupid enough to practice alone while injured and make everything so much worse.
Then she turns around slowly, and I get my first real look at her face.
She’s pretty in that way that suggests she’s actively trying not to be, no makeup, hair in a messy ponytail, wearing clothes designed to hide rather than highlight. But it’s her eyes that catch me. Dark. Haunted. Carrying the same weight I see in my own reflection every morning.
“Maya,” she says finally. Her voice is still shaky, but she’s forcing it steady. Taking control. “My name is Maya.”
“Nice to meet you, Maya. Sorry about the dramatic introduction.”
She doesn’t smile. “We need to get you to health services.”
“No.”
“You’re bleeding on the ice.”
“It’s just a scratch. I’m fine.”
“Stop saying you’re fine when you’re clearly not.”
“You stop shaking and I’ll stop lying.”
The words come out harsher than I meant, but they’re true. We’re both standing here, well, I’m sitting, bleeding, performing being okay when we’re obviously not.
Maya stares at me for a long moment. Then, impossibly, she takes a step closer. Then another. Until she’s kneeling beside me on the ice, next to the blood, even though her hands are still shaking and her breathing is still too fast and every instinct is clearly screaming at her to run.
“Can you stand?” she asks.
