Taming the Obnoxious Hockey Captain

Hailey's pov. “Get her inside. Now. Hurry the f**k up.” “No—please—stop—please—” “Hey, man, get off. It’s my turn.” “Damn, she’s so hot. Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll make this painless.” The voices are wet and close, pressing against the inside of my skull like they’re still breathing on my neck. I try to scream. Nothing comes out. My body is a locked door and I’m trapped on the wrong side of it. Sleep paralysis again. I’m awake. I know I’m awake. The ceiling of my shitty campus single is right there, the peeling paint shaped like a bruised lung against the cheap plastic glow-stars peeling at the corners. But my arms, my legs, my tongue—everything is concrete. Only my eyes work, wide and burning, locked upward while my heart tries to punch its way out of my ribs. I count. One. Two. Three. The way my therapist taught me before the sessions stopped working. The panic doesn’t care about counting. It never has. Two years. Two years of this exact nightmare wearing different masks but always the same ending. Therapy put it on a leash for a while. Then the leash snapped and it came back hungrier. My chest heaves in tiny, useless gasps. Air scrapes in. Air scrapes out. The room tilts darker even though the desk lamp is on. Shadows in the corners feel like they’re leaning closer, waiting for me to stop fighting so they can finish what those voices started. I try to lift one finger. Just one. Nothing. The fear is animal, pure and stupid and absolute. If I don’t break free right now, something is going to reach out of the dark and drag me under for good. Somewhere outside my locked body the campus keeps living. Muffled horns from the street. Laughter too loud on the sidewalk three floors down. The cheap wall clock ticking like it’s counting the seconds until I drown. I force myself to listen to the ticking instead of the memory, but the memory doesn’t ask permission. ~~~~~~ Principal Mike’s office smelled like stale coffee and old leather. My prom dress was still on my body three days later because I couldn’t stand to take it off and look at what they’d done. The fabric was torn. My thighs were purple. I could still feel the rope burns on my wrists every time I moved. “Come on, Miss Nirvana. Don’t be so dramatic. They were only messing around.” That calm, sarcastic tone he used when he was about to suspend some kid for weed. The same tone that used to make the whole school laugh. “They tied me up. I was—” My voice cracked so hard the word broke in half. “I was violated.” He stood up so fast his chair screeched. The slap came before I even saw his hand. My head snapped sideways. The floor rushed up. Cold tile against my bare knees. The dress rode up and I yanked it down with shaking fingers, tears clouding my vision. “It’s just a joke,” he said, standing over me. “Kids your age hook up all the time. Grow up and stop making a big deal out of nothing.” "That's not fair! How...how can you say that sir?!" The next thing I feel besides disgust for my own body is a book. A heavy hardcover. He brought it down on my shoulder, my back, the side of my head while I curled into myself and screamed for him to stop. The nurse came. They wheeled me out, pouring calamine lotion for the welts my continuous itching had caused. No one asked about the rest. I scratched until my nails split and blood painted the insides of my wrists. It was the only thing that cut through the itching under my skin—the feeling that my body no longer belonged to me, that it was still being used even while I was alone. Rain poured outside the nurse’s window like the sky itself was disgusted I existed. I blacked out somewhere between the blood and the rain. That’s how the memory always ends. Heaven punishing me for being born a girl. Hell taking pity long enough to let me pass out. Tonight the paralysis lasts longer than usual. An eternity of staring at that water stain while my heart tries to kill me from the inside. Then—one finger twitches. Another. I drag my fists up, force my body to sit, and suck in a breath so hard it burns. The sun is already leaking through the cheap blinds, painting everything gold except the dark pocket around my bed. My oversized jersey sticks to the cold sweat on my spine. My hands are still shaking. The phantom itch under my skin is already starting again, the one that never fully leaves. I am Hailey Nirvana. Certified campus journalist and all round good guy. The girl every athlete at Easton U has learned to hate. I say the words in my head like a reminder, like proof I still exist outside of that locked body and those voices. Most mornings I wake up feeling hollowed out. Today is no different. The only difference is the phone buzzing face-down on the nightstand. I grab it with fingers that still feel half-dead. Notifications are stacked on top of each other, all the same headline from the university paper and half a dozen sports blogs: Star hockey captain and pride of Easton U, Ezra Donatello, suspended indefinitely by the NHL pending full review. For a second the words just sit there. Then something small and mean flickers in my chest — the first real feeling that isn’t pure dread since I opened my eyes. It isn’t joy. It isn’t triumph. It’s just… quieter. The panic has to share space with something else for once. A small, vicious smile cuts across my mouth before I can stop it. Yeah. I’m a sadist. Sue me. Watching golden boys fall is the only thing that makes mornings bearable anymore. Three weeks of digging through the injury reports of the rival captain before slamming it down on the perpetrator last night. Booster money that bought silence after a freshman almost died. I wrote the piece. I published it. And for a few seconds, while my heart is still slamming and my skin still remembers the rope, the knowledge that I took something from someone who thought he was untouchable is the only solid ground I have. It should feel like winning. It doesn’t. But it’s the closest I get. Three hard knocks rattle my door. I freeze mid-scroll. Another three. Louder. I slide off the bed on legs that wobbles, cross the tiny room, and put my eye to the peephole. The hallway light hits the sharp angle of his jaw first. Then the dark brows pulled low. Then the eyes—storm-gray and furious enough to burn through the wood. Ezra Donatello does not look suspended. He looks like he came here to finish something. My heart, already wrecked from the nightmare, starts a whole new kind of panic. The kind that knows the monster on the other side of the door is real this time. I don’t open it. I just stand there in my sweat-soaked jersey with the taste of old blood still ghosting across my tongue, staring at the boy whose future I just set on fire, and wait for him to knock again.