ROOMMATES WITH MY FIRST LOVE THE HOCKEY CAPTAIN

Sienna's POV The air inside the university’s hockey arena was freezing, but my hands were sweating. I pressed my palms flat against the cold glass, staring at the boy wearing the number seventeen jersey. Callum Ryder. It had been four years since he suddenly ended our relationship, breaking my heart into a million pieces and refusing to give me a single reason why. We had grown up together as childhood sweethearts, sharing every milestone and planning our entire future side by side. Then, during our final year of high school, he walked away without a word. Seeing him now, taller, broader, and moving with complete confidence across the ice, made all those old feelings rush back. He laughed with a teammate, effortlessly hitting a hockey puck toward the net. He was twenty-two now, and from what I had heard around campus, he was the university's star hockey captain. My chest hurt just watching him. He looked completely fine. He looked happy. Meanwhile, I felt like I couldn't breathe. "Pull it together, Sienna," I whispered to myself, taking a step backward away from the glass. "You came to this university to become a sports journalist. You didn't come here for him." I turned around and walked straight out of the rink, heading toward the journalism building. I needed to focus on my classes and forget that Callum Ryder even existed on the same campus. An hour later, I was sitting in a warm classroom, tapping my pencil against my notebook. My sports journalism professor, Mr. Hayes, stood at the front of the room with a stack of papers in his hands. "Welcome to Advanced Sports Reporting," Professor Hayes said, leaning against his desk. "This semester, you will not just be writing articles from your desks. I am assigning each of you to a specific university athletic team. You will cover their practices, attend their home games, and write weekly feature stories on the players." I smiled to myself. This was the exact reason I had transferred to this university. I wanted to build a real career and prove to myself that I could succeed on my own. "Sarah, you will be covering women's basketball," Professor Hayes called out, reading from his list. "Marcus, you have soccer." He paused, looking down at his paper before looking straight at me. "Sienna Vale, you're covering the men's hockey team." My heart dropped straight into my stomach. "Hockey?" I blurted out, my voice ringing across the quiet classroom. Professor Hayes raised an eyebrow. "Is there a problem, Miss Vale?" "No," I lied quickly, swallowing the giant lump in my throat. "No problem at all, sir. Just making sure I heard you right." "Great. Practice is at three o'clock every afternoon. Don't be late." As soon as class ended, I packed my bag, walked out into the hallway, and pulled out my phone to call my best friend. "Tell me you didn't just get assigned to his team," she said as soon as she picked up the phone. "I did," I said, my voice shaking as I leaned against the brick wall. "Out of every single sport on this huge campus, I got assigned to cover hockey." "Sienna, can you ask for a different sport? Go talk to the professor!" "I can't," I sighed, gripping my phone tightly. "If I ask for a transfer on the very first day, I'll look unprofessional. I just have to deal with it. Callum is just another athlete now. He doesn't mean anything to me." "Are you sure you can handle that? You haven't spoken to him since high school." "I'm sure," I said, trying to convince myself more than her. "I spent four years getting over him. I can do my job." By three o'clock that afternoon, I was standing high up in the bleachers at the ice rink, clutching my notebook against my chest. Down on the ice, Callum was shouting directions to the rest of the team during their practice drills. "Move the puck faster!" Callum yelled, his deep voice echoing off the high ceiling of the arena. "Keep your heads up and watch the pass!" A younger player made a mistake and fell hard onto the cold ice. Instead of getting angry, Callum skated over, reached down, and pulled the younger guy back onto his feet. "You're fine, man," Callum said, patting the player gently on the shoulder. "Just watch the blue line next time, okay?" I felt a strange twist in my stomach. It made me furious to see how nice he was being. It was the same caring boy I used to love when we were kids, and it confused me. How could he be so gentle and supportive to his teammates, but treat me so coldly four years ago? Suddenly, a sharp whistle blew across the ice. "Take a five-minute break, guys!" the coach yelled from the sideline. The players skated toward the bench to grab their water bottles. Callum pulled off his padded helmet, shaking out his dark hair and wiping sweat from his forehead. Then, he suddenly stopped. He tilted his head, as if he felt someone staring at him from above. Slowly, his eyes scanned up the empty bleachers until they locked directly onto mine. I froze in place. Callum stopped dead in his tracks. His blue eyes went wide with shock, and his grip on his helmet tightened until his knuckles turned completely white. "Sienna?" he murmured. I couldn't hear his voice from where I stood, but I could read his lips clearly across the cold air. "Hey, Cap, you good?" one of his teammates asked, bumping Callum's shoulder with his glove. "What are you looking at?" Callum didn't answer his teammate. He just kept staring up at me, looking as if he had just seen a ghost. My heart pounded frantically in my chest. Four long years of hurt, anger, and unanswered questions rushed back into my mind all at once, making it impossible to breathe. I couldn't stay there for another second. I turned around, ran down the bleacher stairs, and pushed open the heavy exit doors, bursting into the fresh outdoor air. He remembered me. And as much as I hated him for what he did, I realized in that moment that I hadn't forgotten him either.