The variable of You

The ice and the ledger

The varsity athletic complex smelled exactly like everything I had spent three years trying to avoid: expensive floor wax, stale sweat, and unearned confidence. But as I descended into the sub-level of the arena, the air took on a sharp, freezing bite. This wasn't just the sports world; it was the hockey world, a subculture that felt even louder and more violent than the rest.

I checked my watch for the fourth time in five minutes. 3:05 PM. Our scheduled session had started five minutes ago. I was sitting at a scratched metal folding table in the auxiliary media room, a cramped concrete bunker tucked away behind the visiting team's locker rooms. It was drafty, lit by buzzing fluorescent bulbs, and occasionally rattled whenever a heavy puck slammed against the boards of the practice rink down the hall. The athletic department had insisted on this location, claiming it was "logistically necessary" for Lucas’s rigorous training schedule. Translation: they didn't want their star player seen carrying a textbook across the main campus.

I tapped my pen against the slick surface of the blue folder. I had spent the previous evening reviewing Lucas Cross’s academic file. His transcript was a battlefield of barely scraped-by passing marks, punctuated by withdrawal codes and incomplete grades that magically transformed into passing marks right before big games. The advanced statistics class was different, though. Professor Sterling was notoriously immune to the charms of athletic glory, and he had explicitly noted that Lucas hadn't turned in a single homework assignment since the midterm.

The heavy metal door to the media room suddenly groaned open, letting in a blast of freezing rink air and the metallic scent of skate guards.

I didn't look up immediately. I wanted to establish one thing right from the outset: I was not one of the girls who giggled in the bleachers while he ran drills. I kept my eyes focused on my tablet, highlighting a section on probability distributions.

"You're late," I said to the sound of heavy footsteps.

"Coach held us over for video review," a low, raspy voice replied. It sounded entirely unbothered by the tardiness.

I finally looked up, and despite my absolute determination to remain unaffected, my brain took a split-second to adjust to his sheer physical presence. The file said he was six-foot-three, but seeing that height packed into a dark gray university hockey hoodie and heavy track pants in a small, low-ceilinged room was entirely different. Lucas Cross had sharp, angular features—a jawline that looked like it had been carved out of granite, dark brows that were currently drawn into a slight, defensive V, and messy, dark hair that was still damp from the post-practice shower. He carried a massive canvas equipment bag over one shoulder, dropping it onto the floor with a loud, heavy thud that made the metal table vibrate.

He didn't sit down immediately. He just stood there, towering over the table, looking at me like I was an unexpected speed bump in his season.

"Ariana, right?" he asked, pulling out the chair opposite me. The metal scraped harshly against the concrete floor. He sank into it, his long legs instantly crowding the space under the table, forcing me to pull my own feet back.

"Ariana Lin," I corrected, closing my tablet and sliding the statistics textbook toward the center of the table. "And since we are already ten minutes behind schedule, let’s skip the pleasantries. Dr. Vance gave me your current syllabus. You have an exam in exactly two weeks, and you are currently sitting at a fifty-four percent. If we don’t get that up to a seventy, the NCAA academic eligibility rules kick in and you are benched for the frozen four tournament. Do you understand the stakes?"

Lucas leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest. A faint, mocking smile tugged at the corner of his lips, though his eyes remained entirely cold. "Look, Ariana. Let's save us both some time. The last three tutors the department hired tried to give me the exact same speech. The first one tried to do the work for me, the second one cried when I didn't pay attention, and the third one just wanted free tickets to the glass seats. Which one are you?"

My grip tightened on my pen, but I kept my face entirely expressionless. "None of the above. I don't care about your hockey games, I don't need your tickets, and I certainly won't be doing your homework for you. My only goal is to secure my summer research grant, which requires you passing this class. I view you as a calculation error that needs fixing. Nothing more."

For a second, his smile vanished, replaced by a flicker of genuine annoyance. Clearly, he wasn't used to being referred to as a calculation error.

"Fine," he muttered, reaching into his hoodie pocket and pulling out a crushed, bent notebook and a cheap plastic pen. He threw them onto the table. "Let's fix the error. Where do we start?"

"Open the textbook to page 142," I said, opening my own notes. "We are starting with linear regression and standard deviation. Since you missed the last three weeks of lectures because of your away games, we need to build the foundation before we even look at the practice exam."

What followed was the most grueling forty-five minutes of my academic life. It wasn't that Lucas was incapable of understanding the math; it was that he was actively resisting it. Every time I explained a concept, he would stare past me at the whiteboard, tapping his fingers against the table in a rapid, impatient rhythm that sounded like a hockey stick tapping the ice for a pass. When I asked him to solve a basic probability equation, he scribbled out a half-hearted answer that was completely wrong, then shoved the notebook back toward me.

"It doesn't make sense," he said, his voice tight with growing frustration. "Why do I need to calculate the variance of a sample size when the computer does it automatically? It's completely useless to me."

"It's not useless if it keeps you on the ice, Cross," I fired back, pointing at the formula on the page. "The computer calculates it based on rules. If you don't know the rules, you can't interpret the data. Try it again. Look at the variable xand apply the standard deviation formula we just walked through."

Lucas stared at the page, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched near his ear. He grabbed the pen, his knuckles turning white as he attempted the math again. I watched him closely. Up close, away from the roaring crowds and the glare of the rink lights, he didn't look like a campus deity. He looked exhausted. There were faint dark circles under his eyes, and his shoulders were tense, carrying a weight that felt entirely disconnected from a simple math class.

"Is this right?" he growled, pushing the notebook forward.

I looked down. The numbers were chaotic, written in a rushed, messy scrawl, but the logic was finally there. He had applied the formula correctly.

"Yes," I said quietly, genuinely surprised. "That's correct."

Lucas let out a breath that sounded almost like a scoff, leaning back in his chair again. "Great. Can I go now? Coach wants us back in the gym for weight training in twenty minutes."

I checked the time. The hour was up. "We're done for today. I expect you to complete the first five problems on page 148 before our session tomorrow at the same time. If you don't do them, we spend the entire hour doing them together, which means we fall behind."

He didn't answer. He just stood up, grabbed his massive gear bag, and threw it over his shoulder. He gave me one last, unreadable look before turning and walking out of the media room, the heavy door slamming shut behind him.

I let out a long, shuddering breath I hadn't realized I was holding. My head throbbed from the sheer effort of maintaining my composure. Gathering my things, I packed my bag and left the suffocating atmosphere of the athletic center, desperately needing the fresh air of the north campus.

By the time I reached my small, off-campus apartment later that evening, the stress of the day had settled into a dull ache. I made myself a quick dinner, cleared off my desk, and opened my laptop. Writing my thesis was supposed to be my escape, but my brain was too fried to focus on academic literature.

Instead, I opened StudyBuddy—an anonymous, encrypted academic networking app that many students used to share peer notes or vent about university stress without revealing their real identities. I had been using it for a few months, mostly talking to a user named lucrux17, a fellow student who seemed to share my absolute exhaustion with campus life. We didn't know each other’s names, majors, or faces, but our nightly chats had become a comforting routine.

I logged in, and a notification instantly popped up.

lucrux17: You won't believe the day I've had. Officially convinced the universe wants me to fail.

I smiled faintly, my fingers flying across the keyboard.

Academic_Ace: Let me guess. Another brutal practice session?

lucrx17: Worse. The athletic department forced a new tutor on me today. Some hyper-focused, rigid girl from north campus who treats me like a broken machine that needs fixing. She literally called me a 'calculation error.'

I froze, my fingers hovering over the keys as my heart gave a sudden, violent thud against my ribs.

A calculation error. My breath caught in my throat. I stared at the screen, the words blurring before my eyes as a terrifying realization began to settle in. I slowly looked over at the blue folder sitting on the corner of my desk, the bold letters of the surname staring back at me.

Lucas Cross.

Before I could even process the sheer panic rising in my chest, another message blinked onto the screen from Alpha99.

lucrx17: Honestly? She hates my guts, but she's the first person on this campus who didn't look at me like I was just a jersey number. I kind of want to see what happens when I actually try tomorrow. Don't tell anyone, but I think she might actually be the only one who can save me.