Saving The Hockey Captain

~Lena’s POV~ "Stay away from Noah Calloway, unless you want your life ruined." I didn't know that girl yet. I didn't know her name. But by the end of my first hour at North Ridge University, she wasn't just talking. She was warning me. And I should have listened. This came after I was already at North Ridge. Let me back up a little so you could understand how I got into this. I got to North Ridge with one suitcase and a scholarship letter folded so many times it was starting to soften at the edges. I kept it in my bag like it was something holy. Because it was. It was the only reason I was standing there. The campus looked like something out of a movie. Glass buildings, green grass cut so straight it looked painted on. Students walking around like they owned the sidewalk, like money was just something that existed in their pockets without them even thinking about it. I looked down at the shoe I was wearing. Worn out. Wrong. Everyone around me looked like they'd never had to think twice about anything in their whole life. I wasn't born into this. I earned my way in. My grades did. Not my last name. I thought about Evelyn back home, how she used to tell me, "Baby, work hard enough, and one day the world will have no choice but to notice you." I held onto that as I walked into the administration building to get my ID and my dorm key. The hallway after that was packed. Class change, probably. Everyone moving in different directions, loud, laughing, shoving past each other like I wasn't even there. I kept my head down. Small steps. Don't look at anyone. Don't give anyone a reason to look at you either. That's when I heard her voice for the first time. "Oh my god, is that a thrift store bag?" I didn't even turn around to look who that was. I figured she wasn't talking to me. Girls like that never really are, until they are. I felt the hit before I fully understood what was happening. Something slammed into my back, hard, and my body flew forward like I was thrown. My hands shot out, and instead of hitting the floor, they hit something solid. A chest. A person. "Whoa…" a deep voice said above me. I looked up and my whole body went cold. Noah Calloway. I didn't need anyone to tell me who he was. Everyone on that campus knew his face. Hockey gear bag still on his shoulder, hair damp like he just walked off the ice, phone still in his hand like he hadn't even had the chance to put it away before I crashed into him. For one second, neither of us moved. His eyes met mine, confused, not angry, just startled, like he was trying to figure out what just hit him. And for a second, something passed between us. I don't know what to call it. Not attraction. Just... strange. Like my body knew something my brain hadn't caught up to yet. Then I heard the gasps. "Oh my god." "Did you see that?" "She's literally been here five minutes and she's already on Noah Calloway." "Bro get your phone out, this is going to go viral, trust me." Phones came out of pockets like people had been waiting for a reason to use them. I heard the little camera clicks. I heard someone laughing behind me. My face burned. I stepped back fast, my hand still hanging in the air where his chest had been a second ago. I tried to say something. Sorry. I'm sorry. I swear the words were right there in my throat, but nothing came out except a stammer. "I— I didn't— someone pushed…" That's when I heard the crash. I spun around and there was Vanessa, a few feet away, standing over a laptop that had somehow ended up smashed on the floor. Her hand was still stretched out from where she must have let it slip on purpose, but she gasped like it had just fallen from the sky. "Oh my god, she pushed me!" she shrieked, loud enough that the whole hallway turned. "She shoved into me and now my laptop is broken!" I blinked at her. "What? No, I didn't…" "She literally shoved me into Noah on purpose!" Vanessa said, her voice cracking like she was about to cry, one hand pressed to her chest like I'd wounded her. "I can't believe this. I don't even know her!" I turned back toward Noah, my apology still sitting useless on my tongue, but he wasn't even looking at me anymore. Everyone was staring at Vanessa now, at her shaking hands, at her broken laptop on the floor. "That poor girl," someone whispered. "Wait, so she just walked in and did that? On her first day?" "This is insane, someone post this." "Noah Calloway's trending already, I swear." I felt the ground shift under me, like the hallway had turned into something I couldn't control anymore. "I didn't push anyone," I said, louder this time, but my voice sounded small against all the noise. "She bumped into me first, I swear, I didn't even…" "Sure," a boy near the wall said, laughing, phone raised. "Keep telling yourself that." A girl beside him was already typing something into her phone, thumbs moving fast. "This is way too good, I have to post this." Somebody in a campus security uniform pushed through the crowd, and for one second I actually felt relief. Finally, someone who'd let me explain. But I was wrong about that. He didn't even look at me at first. He went straight to Vanessa, crouched down, asked if she was okay, if she needed to sit down. She sniffled and nodded, dabbing under her eyes even though I hadn't seen a single actual tear. "You," the guard said, finally turning to me with a finger pointed at me. "You need to report to the dean's office. Now." "But I didn't do anything," I said immediately. "She bumped into me. I never touched her laptop." "The dean's office, now!" he said again, like I hadn't spoken at all. I looked around at the crowd, at all those phones still pointed at me, at the whispers that hadn't stopped, the laugh, at Noah standing there quiet, watching everything with an expression I couldn't read at all. He didn't say a single word. Not to defend me. Not to say what he saw. I turned and walked away, my head down, my whole body shaking. I didn't even remember which direction I was walking in. I just needed to get away from all those eyes. Nobody asked what really happened. Nobody cared. It didn't matter that Vanessa bumped into me first. It didn't matter that I never touched her laptop. All that mattered was the story that was already spreading before I even reached the end of the hallway. ***** I made it back to my dorm room somehow. The key I wanted to get before all the mess was already given to me. I don't even remember the walk to this dorm. I sat down on the bed, still unmade from whoever had it before me, and just stared at the wall for a while, trying to breathe normal again. Then my phone buzzed. I looked down, thinking maybe it was Evelyn's neighbor checking in on her. That's what I was hoping for. Something normal. Something safe. Instead, my screen was full. Notifications stacked on top of each other, tags, messages from numbers I didn't even have saved, my name already trending inside the campus group chat like it had always belonged there. My hands started shaking as I opened the first one. A video. Me, crashing into Noah Calloway, my hands on his chest, my bag spilled on the floor. Someone had cut it perfectly, starting right at the moment of impact, nothing before it, nothing that showed Vanessa's hand shoving me from behind. The caption underneath made my stomach drop straight. "New girl already trying to trap Noah Calloway on day one. Some people have no shame." I sat there frozen, watching the number under the video climb. Fifty views. A hundred. Two hundred. My phone buzzed again. Another tag. Another message. Then one more notification popped up at the top of my screen, a new message from a number I didn't recognize at all. "Stay away from Noah Calloway... unless you're ready to die." My whole body went still immediately after I read it. I hadn't even survived my first hour at North Ridge, and somehow, someone already wanted me gone.