"What did you say to him Rhys?"
He was still damp from the ice, bag over his shoulder, hair pushed back. The hallway outside the locker room was empty – just us and the fluorescent lights and the question I'd been holding since I watched a nineteen-year-old freshman skate away from Rhys Maddox with his head down and his shoulders caved in like someone had scooped out his confidence with a spoon.
"He needed to toughen up."
"He's nineteen."
"This isn't a nursery."
Flat. Dismissive. The voice of the version of Rhys the campus was afraid of. I'd watched him check a kid half his size into the boards so hard the sound bounced off the rafters. Watched him lean in close and say something I couldn't hear but didn't need to – the kid's body told the whole story as he skated away with the look o
