CHAPTER 4
826 Words
Wren
Two weeks in, and I found the notebook.
Not on purpose. The hot water in our bathroom was acting up and the maintenance guy said to check the valve under the kitchen sink. Kael was at a captain's meeting. I crouched down, opened the cabinet, and a black Moleskine fell from where it had been wedged behind the pipes.
I should have put it back.
I opened it.
The first page was practice notes. Line combinations. Penalty kill adjustments. Normal captain stuff, detailed and precise and written in handwriting so controlled it looked printed.
The fourth page was about me.
Not a note. A list. Undated, untitled, in the same precise handwriting.
Things I've noticed about Calloway:
She chews her bottom lip when she's reading a play. She tapes her left wrist tighter than her right. Old injury. Won't talk about it. She drinks coffee black. Gets a headache by noon if she skips it. She hums in the shower. Doesn't know the walls are thin. She looks at me when she thinks I'm not looking. She's wrong. I'm always looking.
My hands were shaking.
I turned the page.
She's going to destroy my season. She's going to destroy everything I've built. Every time she steps on my ice in that gear, I lose something. Focus. Control. The ability to think about anything else.
I told Coach to cut her. He said no. I told the board she wasn't ready. They pulled her stats and told me I was wrong. I told myself I didn't want her here.
I was wrong too.
The front door opened.
I slammed the notebook shut. Shoved it back behind the pipes. Stood up so fast my head hit the edge of the counter and I saw white.
"What are you doing?" Kael's voice from the doorway. Keys dropping on the counter. Bag hitting the floor.
"Hot water valve. Maintenance said to check it."
He looked at me. At the open cabinet. At my face, which I was sure was doing something I couldn't control.
"Did you find it?"
"The valve? No, I think it's further back, I was just…"
"Not the valve."
He walked toward me. Slow. The apartment shrank the way it always did when he moved, like the walls were pulling closer to make room for whatever he was carrying.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.
"You're lying. You chew your lip when you're nervous and you're chewing it right now."
My teeth released my lip. Too late.
He was in front of me. The kitchen counter pressed into my lower back. His hands landed on either side of me, gripping the counter edge, caging me without touching me.
"How much did you read?" he asked quietly.
"Kael…"
"How much?"
"Enough."
His eyes closed. When they opened, they were different. The November grey had cracked and something underneath was showing through, something dark and raw and furious in a way that wasn't directed at me.
It was directed at himself.
"It doesn't mean anything," he said.
"You wrote a list about me."
"It's observations. I observe everyone on the team."
"Do you write about how Petrov chews his lip? Do you know how Holloway takes his coffee?"
"That's different."
"Why?"
"Because I don't…" He stopped. His arms were locked on either side of me, the veins in his forearms standing out, his knuckles white against the counter. He was holding on to the granite like he was holding on to the last version of himself that made sense.
"Because you don't what?" I whispered.
"Don't make me say it."
"I'm not making you do anything. You're the one who wrote it. You're the one who kept a list. You're the one who told me to lock my door."
"And you should have."
"What happens if I don't?"
His breathing changed. His head dropped. Not to kiss me. Just to rest his forehead against mine, a gesture so unexpected and so raw that every smart thing I'd ever thought about Kael Thorne evaporated.
"If you don't lock your door," he said, his voice barely a sound, "then I'm going to come through it. And I won't have a coaching excuse for what happens after."
The fridge hummed. The faucet dripped. My heartbeat filled the rest.
Then his phone rang.
He pulled back like he'd been burned. Answered without looking at the screen.
"Yeah." Flat. Dead. Captain's voice. "When?" Pause. "I'll be there."
He hung up. Looked at me with an expression that was already shutting down, the walls coming back up brick by brick.
"Team meeting. Emergency."
"Kael, we need to…"
"Lock your door tonight, Calloway."
He grabbed his keys and walked out.
I stood in the kitchen with his notebook behind the pipes and his words still pressed against my forehead like a burn, and I made a decision that was either very brave or very stupid.
I wasn't going to lock my door.
- Writer
