_The second-floor communal bathroom had transformed into a hazardous, unspoken neutral zone—a fragile sanctuary where the rigid hierarchies of our hockey team dissolved into the heavy mist.
It was well past midnight when I finally pushed the door open, desperate for the scalding relief of a shower to numb the deep, persistent throbbing radiating from my ribs. The remnants of Kane’s cruelty had blossomed across my skin in a sickening mosaic of deep indigos and sickly greens. Every breath, every minor shift of my weight, served as a agonizing reminder of just how close he had come to shattering me entirely—shattering me the exact same way he had broken Lila before us.
The small room was already choked with thick, swirling steam, the moisture clinging to the walls. The mirror above the sink
