Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Caitlyn was seven when she learned that the world didn’t end in explosions or death–it ended in the wrong number of steps.

Four between her bed, and the door was okay. Five meant her father might not make it home from work.

She didn’t express this to anyone. Not at first. Just started walking even slower. Counting more. Even numbers were safe. Prime numbers sent her pulse skyrocketing. Especially three’s. That number alone made her chest tighten with unspeakable fear.

Her parents called it discipline; Cassandra constantly bragging to coworkers over dinner. “Such poise, especially for a child. She truly is her mother’s daughter.” This would earn nods of agreement.

Caitlyn was aware it wasn’t just poise…it was more. There was so much more lying underneath her controlled stare. Thoughts like vines, creeping, coiling, whispering warnings only she could hear.

She washed her hands until the skin between her fingers stung, convinced the wrong sensation meant something terrible was going to happen. That she’d let something in. She checked the locks twice. Then four times. Then eight. Each time she climbed into bed, she recited her goodnight phrases in a precise rhythm. One missed word and her mother’s next press appearance might end in disaster.

It was exhausting—being a child and also the keeper of catastrophe.

But Caitlyn didn’t complain. She knew better than to disrupt the rhythm of the Kiramman household. Her father moved through days like a ghost in a sharp suit, smiling for strangers and vanishing behind closing doors. Her mother operated like a machine—impeccable, immovable, and impossible to reach.

So Caitlyn mimicked. She wore the quiet like armor. Her dresses were always pressed, her hair neatly combed. She folded her hands in her lap and didn’t ask too many questions. She smiled when prompted. She said thank you to the house staff, even when her voice trembled with exhaustion from not crying all day.

She was so good at pretending to be okay that no one noticed when she wasn’t.

Until the skating rink.

It was a rare Sunday when both her parents were out of town—her mother at a summit, her father delayed by a foreign delegation. Her nanny suggested the public rink downtown. “Some fresh air might do you good,” she’d said, too tired to hear the warning in Caitlyn’s silence.

The rink was chaos. Screams and laughter echoed off the ice, children slipping in every direction like the world had no rules. No order.

Caitlyn stood frozen near the entrance, her gloved hands clutched tight at her sides. This place was too loud, too cold, too uncontrolled. Her heartbeat drummed in a frantic rhythm: not divisible by two.

She didn’t want to step onto the ice. She wanted to go home. But she didn’t say it. She never said it. Instead, she walked to the edge, forcing her breaths to even out. Four counts in. Four counts hold. Four counts out. Safe. Safe. Safe.

She was halfway through her second loop around the rink—small, deliberate, clinging to the railing—when someone crashed into the boards nearby.

Caitlyn startled. A blur of motion and color landed in a tangled heap near her skates, laughing. Not the sharp, artificial laugh of galas and interviews, but something loose and wild and completely unbothered by shame.

“Damn,” the girl muttered, grinning up at her. “You see that wipeout? Nailed it.”

Caitlyn blinked. The girl had bright pink scuffs on her jeans, a hand-me-down coat with a ripped sleeve, and rental skates two sizes too big. Her hair stuck out under a gray beanie in unruly tufts. Her grin was crooked and full of life.

“You okay?” the girl asked, getting up like it was nothing.

Caitlyn nodded automatically. She wasn’t sure she was, but the girl’s presence made the world tilt in a different way—less sharp, somehow.

Caitlyn knew better than to let her guard slip, but something about this stranger of a child, so wild and carefree, made her shoulders untense just slightly. Her breathing, once labored with silent fear, calmed to something manageable.

“You skate like a ballerina,” the girl said, observing her posture. “Kinda cool. Kinda scary.”

Caitlyn’s cheeks flushed. “You skate like you’ve never seen ice before.”

The girl laughed again, louder this time. “Fair.”

There was a pause. A shared breath between them, visible in the cold air.

“Wanna go around together?” the girl asked. “I won’t crash this time. Probably.”

Caitlyn hesitated. The thought of sharing space, of having someone there, felt strange. Unsafe. Wonderful.

“…Okay,” she whispered.

They didn’t exchange names. Just circled the rink, slowly, side by side. Caitlyn’s steps didn’t have to be perfect for once. The girl bumped into her twice. Caitlyn didn’t flinch the third time.

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Vi was not supposed to be here.

Technically, she was supposed to be in school. But Benzo had nodded off behind the pawn shop counter again, and Mylo was already halfway to the river with a stolen soda and two fresh bruises from yesterday, so… skating rink it was.

Not that she knew how to skate.

Vi clomped around in the dumb plastic rentals, legs wobbling like a newborn deer. She hated how quiet the cold was. Hated how her breath made clouds in front of her face. But mostly she hated standing still. Standing still meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering—and she was already full up on that.

So she moved.

Fast. Reckless. Not caring if she fell, because falling was better than freezing.

She made it two and a half laps before catching the toe of her skate on some invisible demon and eating shit right into the boards.

“Shit!”

Her knee smarted instantly. Probably bleeding. Definitely bruised. Whatever. She laughed anyway—because crying was for later, in the dark, where no one could see.

Then she looked up—and froze.

A girl was staring down at her. Not just any girl. This one looked like she’d wandered out of a snow globe. Hair pulled back so tight it looked like it might hurt, coat buttoned to the neck, gloves still white. Not a speck of dirt on her. Not a hair out of place.

The kind of girl who had a schedule and probably a pony named something like Duchess.

“Damn,” Vi said, grinning up at her. “You see that wipeout? Nailed it.”

The girl didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just nodded slowly, like Vi’s fall had confirmed something she’d already suspected about the world.

Vi stood, wincing at the sharp throb in her knee. She wobbled a bit, but grinned like she meant it. Because hell, what else was there to do?

“You skate like a ballerina,” Vi said, tilting her head. “Kinda cool. Kinda scary.”

The girl’s cheeks flushed just slightly. Not embarrassed—annoyed, maybe? Or trying not to be annoyed. Her mouth twitched.

“You skate like you’ve never seen ice before,” she replied. Her voice was clipped and proper but underneath it, Vi caught something else—like the girl had no idea why she was still talking.

Vi loved her instantly.

Not in a kissy way. Not yet. But in the way you find a quiet little thing and want to keep it safe, even if you’ve never known safety yourself.
“Wanna go around together?” Vi asked. “I won’t crash this time. Probably.”

There was a pause. The girl looked like someone had asked her to jump into a pit. But then, slowly, she nodded.

“…Okay.”

They pushed off, side by side. Vi’s strides were all wild knees and arms-out-for-balance, but she tried—really tried—not to bump into her. The girl glided with the kind of precision Vi had never seen outside of the TV in Benzo’s office. Like every movement had been rehearsed a thousand times. Like if she let herself slip once, she might fall apart completely.

“So,” Vi said as they passed a cluster of toddlers in penguin helmets, “you come here a lot?”

The girl hesitated. “Not really.”

Vi nodded. “Me neither. I’m supposed to be at school.”

A flicker of something—surprise?—passed over the girl’s face, then vanished.

“What about you?” Vi asked.

“My parents are out of town,” she said softly, eyes fixed ahead. “The woman who watches me brought me.”

Vi didn’t say anything for a second. She knew what that meant. Grown-ups too busy to show up. Grown-ups with more important things to do.

She coasted for a beat, then bumped her elbow lightly into the girl’s. “Guess that means we’re both not supposed to be here.”

To her surprise, the girl smiled. Just a little. Just at the corners.

They kept skating. One slow lap. Then two. Vi started to get the hang of it—pushing with the inside edge, knees bent, copying the way the girl moved. It wasn’t graceful, but it was better.

At one point, she got cocky and tried to spin around—bad idea. Her skate caught, and she nearly toppled. The girl reached out instinctively, grabbing her arm to steady her. Her glove was soft. Her grip was strong.

“Careful,” she said, and her voice was quiet, but not cold.

Vi grinned up at her. “You got my back, huh?”

Another almost-smile. That one felt like a trophy.

They did one more lap. Then two. The rink lights flickered slightly, signaling the next session would be starting soon. Kids began clearing the ice. Parents waved from the benches.

The girl slowed near the edge, looking around like she’d only just remembered she wasn’t alone in the world.

“My ride will be here,” she said, like it was a fact. Like she was used to things happening to her, not with her.

Vi’s chest twinged. She didn’t know why it felt like the end of something.

“Cool,” she said, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “I should bounce too.”

The girl glanced at her. “Will you come back?”

Vi blinked. “Here?”

A nod.

Vi shrugged, but her voice was soft. “Maybe.”

They stood like that for a second—neither moving, neither speaking. The cold crept in again. Loud voices, skate blades scraping the ice, the sound of lives moving around them.

Vi stuck her hand out. “Thanks for not letting me die out there, ballerina.”

The girl looked at the hand. Then took it. Her grip was colder than Vi expected.

“Thanks for not crashing into me again.”

They didn’t say goodbye.

Just turned, and left.

Vi didn’t know her name. She never found out. But she thought about her for years.

Especially on nights when the world felt like it was tilting sideways and she needed something steady to hold onto.

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The car was too warm.

The driver—Anika, or maybe Adrienne, Caitlyn hadn’t bothered to remember—had cranked the heat on the ride home, and now the windows were fogged and the air was thick with the scent of leather and vanilla. Caitlyn pressed her gloved hands flat against her thighs. Perfectly parallel. Elbows in. Back straight.

Twelve breaths between stoplights. Four taps of her toe against the floor mat. Two blinks every ten seconds.

Safe numbers.

She tried to ignore the pulsing heat blooming behind her ears. Her mind kept folding inward, rewinding the afternoon like a broken film reel.

The girl with the tangled hair. Loud. Laughing even when she fell. Skating like she’d never been taught and didn’t care if anyone noticed.

She was a mess.

She was also… interesting.

Caitlyn wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. Mother had said that once, firmly, over dinner between fundraiser speeches. Father had nodded, sipping his wine, already checking his watch.

But Caitlyn had spoken to her anyway.

No—she had spoken to Caitlyn first. Lying on the ice like she belonged there, grinning through a bruised knee.

And Caitlyn had answered.

That was the part that kept catching in her chest. She could’ve walked away. She should have. But something about the girl’s smile had disarmed her in a way that made Caitlyn uneasy.

She didn't like unease.

It lived in her bones like static. She could feel it now, crawling up her spine. The need to restore balance.

When she got home, she changed into fresh tights and arranged them in a perfect fold. She aligned her ballet slippers in parallel at the foot of her closet, even though she wouldn’t wear them until Monday. Her books were arranged by height and color. Her pencils all sharpened to identical points.

But nothing helped.

Not even when she turned the hallway light on and off—twice, then four times, then six—until she was certain the lingering feeling wasn’t dangerous. Still, the girl’s face stayed pressed into the inside of her mind.

Caitlyn didn’t know her name. She hadn’t asked. That was improper. Unnecessary.

Yet she remembered her voice. That rough, scratchy laugh. The way she didn’t flinch when she fell. The way she offered her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Caitlyn had taken it.

That was the part she couldn’t stop replaying.

She had taken it.

And the world hadn’t ended. Nothing had exploded. No one had died. But her thoughts hadn’t quieted either.

She stood in the hallway outside her parents’ room, listening to the click of her mother’s heels and the distant hum of her father’s phone calls. A hundred things moving without her. Everything always moving.

Except the memory.

That girl had crashed into her life for ten minutes, and now Caitlyn couldn’t make her leave.

She didn’t know why.

She only knew this: the girl’s grip had been warm. Her grin reckless. Her presence loud in a way that made the silence afterward feel like it might crush Caitlyn where she stood.

She stood there for a long time, staring out the window.

Counting headlights on the road.

Even numbers, always.

But in her chest—just beneath the ribs, where the softest thoughts lived—she found herself wondering:

Would she ever see that girl again?

And what would happen to her quiet if she did?

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Caitlyn, Age 13

Caitlyn didn’t speak much at school anymore.

She answered when called on, of course. She handed in her assignments early, used the margins of her notebooks for perfectly bullet-pointed notes. She joined clubs she didn't care about and said "thank you" at all the right times.

Her teachers called her “composed.” Her peers called her “intimidating.” Her mother called her “exceptional.”

Caitlyn called it survival.

The halls were loud, the rules were unclear, and the only way she ever felt safe was by building herself into something untouchable. Polished. Controlled. A girl made of schedules and symmetry.

But some days, no matter how many times she rearranged her books or rewrote her planner in three different colors of ink, it didn't help.

Some days, the memory slipped back in like a splinter under the skin.

The girl from the rink.

Caitlyn didn’t remember her name—because she’d never learned it. But the feeling of her had rooted itself deep, like ivy, winding through thoughts Caitlyn didn’t have the words for yet.

It wasn’t that the girl had been kind, exactly. She was too loud for that, too unfiltered. She said “shit” before she even said “hi.”

But she’d looked at Caitlyn like she wasn’t breakable.

Like she wasn’t strange.

And most disarming of all: she'd laughed with her.

Not at her precision. Not at her quiet.

Just… with her.

Now, years later, Caitlyn still thought about her sometimes when the sky turned a certain kind of gray. Or when someone in the cafeteria dropped a tray and the sound startled her heart into her throat. Or when the mirror fogged after a too-hot shower, and she traced a circle into the steam with a trembling finger before wiping it away. Four times. Always four.

Her compulsions had grown more complex since she was seven.

She no longer feared prime numbers in the same superstitious way, but she still couldn’t leave her room without tapping the doorframe with the knuckle of her index finger.

She still counted her steps. Still chewed each bite of food a calculated number of times—though that wasn’t about numbers anymore.

That was about control. About taking up less space.

About staying invisible, even as her mother kept dragging her into the spotlight.

“You should wear your hair up more often,” Cassandra had said just last week at a charity brunch. “You have such a lovely face—why hide it?”

Caitlyn hadn’t known how to say that hiding it felt safer.

That letting it down meant inviting the world in.

That sometimes, in her dreams, she still saw a mop of unruly pink hair and a crooked grin, skating clumsily across ice like gravity was just a suggestion.

She’d only known her for ten minutes.

But those ten minutes had been different.

And Caitlyn didn’t have many moments like that to cling to.

Sometimes, she wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing.

That maybe the girl hadn’t been real at all.

But then, in the silence between nightly rituals—in the gaps between numbers and routines and the ache behind her ribs—she’d remember the feeling of a warm hand catching hers. The wild, sudden thrill of not knowing what would happen next.

And the terrifying, wonderful truth that—for the first time—it hadn’t felt like danger. It had felt like freedom.

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Vi, Age 13

The first time Vi lit a joint, she coughed so hard her eyes watered and her throat burned like fire.

Mylo laughed so hard he dropped his lighter in the gutter. “You smoke like a fuckin’ grandma.”

“Yeah?” Vi rasped, wheezing. “Then maybe she can teach you how to roll next time.”

That shut him up.

They passed it back and forth, legs dangling over the ledge of some abandoned building on the edge of the Undercity. Vi leaned back against the crumbling brick wall, letting the buzz melt into her bones. It was cheap shit, probably laced with something, but she didn’t care. The burn in her chest was better than the ache that never really left. The one that curled up under her ribs and reminded her she was always waiting for someone who wasn’t coming back.

Benzo was gone. Vander was gone. Powder was off somewhere with her ghosts and her grief, leaving Vi behind like everyone else.

The smoke made her feel floaty. Not light—Vi had never felt light in her life—but untethered. Like maybe, for a second, she didn’t have to hold the whole damn world together with her bare hands.

She closed her eyes. Let the silence wrap around her.

And, like always, she saw her.

That weird little ballerina from the skating rink.

Vi hadn’t seen her again. Not at the rink, not anywhere. She figured the girl had gone back to whatever rich-piltover glass house she came from—polished floors and dinner parties where no one raised their voice.

But the memory stuck. Sharp as a skate blade and just as cold.

She remembered the girl’s gloves—how white they were. Like snow that hadn’t been touched yet. She remembered her voice too, precise and careful like she’d been taught to speak in full sentences before she’d learned how to play. And she remembered how the girl’s hand had closed around hers. Like she didn’t even realize she was saving Vi from falling.

Vi had never been touched like that before. Not with… care. Not like it mattered if she fell.

She didn’t even know her name. Didn’t get to say goodbye.

And yet, five years later, the memory still hit her sometimes. When she was high. When she was alone. When things got too quiet.

It made no sense, really. Vi had been with girls before—kisses in alleyways, breathless laughter near zaunite pipes, or under bleachers—but none of them had that same weird sting. That feeling like someone had seen her, even just for a minute, and not been afraid of what they found.

Sometimes, when she laced up her boots or walked by the empty city rink, Vi would wonder if the ballerina ever thought about her, too. If she remembered the pink scuff on Vi’s jeans. The way Vi made her laugh. The way they skated in slow circles, pretending—just for a second—that everything wasn’t broken.

Vi took another hit. The joint was almost gone. So was the sun. The city was just a smear of gray and rust now, and Vi felt like she was dissolving right along with it.

She blew out the smoke in a long, shaky exhale.

“Bet you never think about me,” she muttered to no one.

But part of her hoped she did.

Because Vi hadn’t stopped.

Chapter Text

Caitlyn, Age 16

Mel Medarda always knew how to hold a room.

She could dismantle someone’s ego with a single glance and rebuild it with a compliment so well-placed, they didn’t even realize it was condescending. She wore her confidence like silk—light, expensive, untouchable.

Caitlyn admired her. Envy crept in sometimes, but it was distant—respect shaped like longing.

Jayce, on the other hand, was loud and relentless. Always pitching some new idea to revolutionize the school’s science program or debating teachers with too much enthusiasm. He thrived on attention, and Caitlyn had learned to sit back and let him take it. It made things easier.

Then there was Viktor.

Quiet, sharp, and dry-witted, Viktor was the only one who didn’t seem to expect Caitlyn to perform. He’d sit with her in silence and never ask why she rearranged the pens on the desk before every test. Or why she tapped the table twice with her knuckle before beginning her essays.

He never asked, and she never explained. It was an agreement, of sorts.

The four of them had become a kind of unit—an unlikely square of privilege, politics, and overachievement. They filled their afternoons with debates over ethics and literature, café study sessions, and mock trial club meetings that Mel inevitably dominated.

And yet… sometimes, Caitlyn felt like she was watching herself participate from behind glass.

She was playing her part perfectly.

So why did she feel so off-script?

It always circled back to the same hollow echo.

That girl.

The one from the ice. The one who had laughed when she fell and didn’t seem to care about what anyone thought.

Caitlyn didn’t talk about her. Not to Mel, or Viktor, or Jayce.

How would she even explain it? “There was this girl I met when I was seven. She smelled like frost and trouble. I never got her name, but I think about her whenever the world feels too tight.”

No, that would sound unhinged. And Caitlyn worked very, very hard to never sound unhinged.

So instead, she kept the memory like a pressed flower in the back of her mind. Dried out and faded, but still shaped like something real.

Mel once joked, “If you don’t start dating someone soon, I’m going to assign you a suitable suitor myself.”

Caitlyn had smiled politely and pretended it was funny.

Jayce had chimed in, “You need someone who can keep up with you, not someone who’s intimidated by how terrifyingly brilliant you are.”

Viktor had just arched a brow and muttered, “She needs someone who won’t mind silence.”

And Caitlyn… she’d thought of a girl with scraped knees and wind-chapped cheeks who hadn’t been afraid of the quiet at all.

She’d never told them. She didn’t need to.

Because the truth was, no one—not even Mel—had ever made Caitlyn feel the way that girl had.

Seen.

Not as a prodigy. Not as a project. Not even as a daughter.

Just as.

Whoever that girl had been, Caitlyn hoped she was still laughing somewhere. Still skating without grace. Still disrupting the neatness of everything she touched.

Because part of Caitlyn—buried under years of perfection and polish—still wanted to be disrupted again.

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Caitlyn, Age 17

The café was too bright, and the milk in her tea wasn’t stirred properly.

Caitlyn swirled it clockwise. Four times. Set the spoon down gently against the saucer. Parallel. Not touching the cup. That would feel wrong.

Viktor noticed. He always did. He didn’t say anything. He never did.

Instead, he leaned across the table, picked up Jayce’s phone, and dropped it into Jayce’s half-empty water glass with a deadpan, “You’ve reached your maximum allowed minutes of self-congratulation.”

Jayce spluttered, dragging his phone out with a theatrical groan. “You just ruined a very important message from the dean.”

“You were reading your own student profile.” Mel didn’t even look up from her lipstick compact. “Out loud.”

“It’s well written,” Jayce defended, and then turned to Caitlyn like she was supposed to rescue him. “Come on, tell them. It’s a good summary. Strong verbs.”

Caitlyn blinked slowly over her tea. “You used the phrase ‘visionary mind’ three times. And referred to yourself as ‘unrelentingly humble.’”

Jayce leaned back with a wounded noise. “Et tu, Kiramman?”

Viktor snorted. “She’s been ‘et tu’-ing you since sophomore year, mate. Get used to it.”

Mel finally looked up, arching a brow in that way that made boys stumble over their words and teachers apologize for interrupting her. “Jayce, if you want to impress the dean, you might try doing something actually visionary instead of waxing poetic about your own GPA.”

“I have ideas!” Jayce declared. “You all just lack imagination.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mel said, resting her chin on one elegant hand. “We don’t lack imagination. We lack tolerance.”

Caitlyn nearly smiled. Not fully—just the kind of half-smile she’d learned to perfect, the polite sort that kept people from asking too many questions.

These afternoons were predictable. Tea, light bickering, Jayce pontificating about some new tech he wanted to design, Viktor knocking him down with dry sarcasm, Mel balancing detachment and engagement with the skill of a practiced diplomat. Caitlyn sat in the middle of it all—silent more often than not, but always present.

It was a strange sort of belonging. Familiar. Safe.

And yet…

She couldn’t stop thinking about how far away she always felt. Like the version of herself that sat here with them was a paper cutout—thin and precise, but hollow.

They didn’t know about the counting.

They didn’t see the way she rearranged her pencils during every exam, how she couldn’t sleep if the books on her shelf weren’t perfectly aligned by height and topic. They didn’t know she’d stopped eating full meals six months ago, hiding it under excuses and careful lies. They didn’t see the raw skin around her cuticles from compulsively washing her hands after even brief touches in the school hallways.

Even Mel, brilliant and unflinchingly observant, didn’t see that part of her.

Or maybe she did, and didn’t know what to do with it.

“Earth to Caitlyn,” Jayce was saying. “What would you invent, if you could?”

Caitlyn blinked. “Invent?”

“Yeah. Go wild. No budget. No laws. No rules.”

Mel raised a brow. “Jayce, that’s how your brain works. Not everyone else’s.”

Still, they all looked at her, waiting.

Caitlyn paused, eyes flicking to the condensation on her tea cup. She traced it absently with her finger, then said, voice quiet:
“Something that would make people mean what they say.”

Jayce blinked. “That’s… surprisingly poetic.”

“I think she means a lie detector,” Viktor deadpanned.

“I mean,” Caitlyn said softly, “something that tells you when people are being real. Or pretending.”

The table went quiet for a moment. Then Mel tilted her head, suddenly curious. “And which one do you think you are, Caitlyn?”

Caitlyn hesitated.

Jayce laughed before she had to answer. “She’s definitely real. She tells me the brutal truth at least three times a week.”

“That’s because you ask for it,” Caitlyn said. Another ghost of a smile.

Mel was still looking at her. Not unkindly. But sharply.

And under the table, Caitlyn’s hand curled into a fist.

Because none of them would ever understand that the only time she’d ever felt fully real was a decade ago, on a cracked rink, when a loud girl in a beat-up coat had crashed into a couple of rustic boards, which barely kept the rink standing, and laughed like it was the best thing that had ever happened.

A girl who didn’t know her name.

A girl she couldn’t stop remembering.

And even surrounded by friends—brilliant, witty, loyal—Caitlyn still felt like she was waiting for someone to find her again.

Someone who hadn’t known the rules.

And loved that she didn’t know how to break them.

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Caitlyn, Age 17

Caitlyn laced her skates with surgical precision.

Left foot first. Always. The knot had to sit flat against the tongue. Not too tight—she needed to feel her toes. But snug enough that she wouldn’t lose control on the turn.

She tightened, adjusted, breathed.

Then again—left foot first.

Coach Lan called it her “ritual,” but not unkindly. Most of the other girls on the team chalked it up to nerves. They didn’t see it as the cost of order.

Caitlyn didn’t correct them.

The rink was one of the only places her thoughts quieted. Everything became muscle memory—edges, posture, breath. She’d been skating since she was six, thrown into the sport at the suggestion of a business partner’s wife who once told Cassandra, “It teaches elegance. Grace. Control.”

Her mother had signed her up the next day.

Now, over a decade later, Caitlyn glided across the ice with practiced serenity, every movement sharp and clean. Coach called her style “precise to a fault.” Judges loved her for it. Cassandra used the medals as décor.

But under her breath, the other girls called her a machine.

She heard them. Of course she did.

But machines didn’t get hungry. Machines didn’t panic if the sequence of their routine changed. Machines didn’t stand in front of a plate of pasta and feel their lungs seize at the thought of too much.

Machines didn’t get weak.

And Caitlyn was getting weak.

It had started the year before, subtly. She’d read somewhere that lighter skaters had easier airtime. Better jumps. Cleaner landings. It made sense. Simple physics.

So she started “adjusting.”

First, it was skipping breakfast on practice days. Then half lunches. Then carefully tracked calories that had to end in even numbers—never three. Never seven. Her parents praised her "discipline." Her coach praised her “lean strength.” Mel side-eyed her, but didn’t say anything outright. Viktor noticed her starting to drink more tea than eat at their café meetups. Jayce offered her his sandwich once, and she waved it away with a polite, “I’m not hungry.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie.

She’d taught herself how not to be.

Because when she was light enough—when she floated through a spin like a breath of wind—everything else fell away. The noise. The pressure. The memory of that girl in her oversized hoodie who had made her laugh and never come back.

Caitlyn still thought about her when she skated.

Especially when she nailed the landing on her solo jump and that quiet exhilaration flooded her chest. That feeling that maybe—just maybe—she could escape herself for a second. Break through the glass and become something else.

She didn’t tell anyone about that part.

Not Mel, who would dig with her golden eyes until it hurt. Not Viktor, who might understand too well. Not Jayce, who’d probably offer to “engineer” her a treadmill desk and miss the point entirely.

And definitely not her mother.

Cassandra thought the sport was elegant. Poised. Not about freedom, not about escape. It was something Caitlyn could control.

Caitlyn let her mother believe that.

Let her believe the skates were just another avenue for achievement. Another line on a future résumé. Another proof that her daughter was exceptional.

But when Caitlyn stayed late on the ice—when the rest of the team was gone and the rink lights dimmed—she’d glide alone in long, silent circles and imagine what it would feel like if that girl from the rink showed up again.

Not clapping from the bleachers.

But crashing straight into her like last time, pink hair messy, grin crooked, breathless from laughing.

There you are.

Just that.

Just enough.

Caitlyn would never admit it, but some days, she skated as if she was trying to send out a signal. A shape on the ice. A pattern in the air. A map back to her.

In case someone was looking.

In case someone still remembered, too.

⋆˙⟡˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Vi, Age 17

Vi didn’t find lacrosse so much as it found her.

Technically, she’d been suspended when Coach Torres spotted her. Fight in the hallway. Some rich prick said something about Powder’s “druggy little hands.” Vi threw a punch before the sentence finished. The guy hit the floor. Principal had called her a “disciplinary problem with no self-regulation.”

Coach Torres called her “fast.”

“Ever played a sport, Violet?” he asked while she sat in the office with an ice pack pressed to her knuckles.

Vi shrugged. “I run sometimes.”

“You’re strong. You’ve got reflexes. You ever thought about lacrosse?”

“I don’t play team games.”

“You do now.”

She didn’t get a choice. Not really. Her record was hanging by a thread, and school meant free lunch for Powder and semi-consistent heating in the winter.

So she showed up.

She hated the stick at first. Hated the weird rules. Hated being told to pass instead of run it all the way herself. But something happened when she hit the field. Her mind, usually loud with worry, quieted. Her body moved before thought. Sprinting, dodging, checking—legal hits and not-so-legal hits. She liked the slam of bodies, the chaos, the contact. She liked bruises that didn’t come from home.

And then the weirdest thing happened.

She got good.

Really good.

Coach Torres started calling her “the hound.” Her team learned to keep up or get flattened. Colleges were suddenly sniffing around, trying to talk to a girl who hadn’t even filled out her FAFSA and smoked weed behind the gym most mornings.

“Scholarship potential,” Torres said one day, and Vi laughed so hard she almost dropped her joint. “No, seriously,” he said. “You’ve got raw instinct and speed people can’t teach.”

Vi didn’t believe him. But it was the first time anyone outside her crew had ever said she was worth something.

She never told anyone why she stayed.

That it wasn’t about competition. Or college. Or proving anything.

It was about motion. Speed. The feeling that if she ran fast enough, she could outpace the weight in her chest. The kind of pressure that felt a lot like grief, but older. Like a memory she couldn’t name.

Except sometimes… she could.

Just flashes.

A girl in a navy coat and a bright blue scarf. Skates clumsy. Eyes sharp.

Vi still remembered the fall. The crunch of the ice. The laughter. Not mocking—real laughter, the kind that vibrated all the way to your ribs.

She remembered thinking, I want to see her again.

But she never did.

Didn’t even get a name. Just one of those weird one-time things life throws at you to make you feel like maybe, just maybe, the world’s not completely rotten.

Vi didn’t talk about it.

She didn’t talk about a lot of things.

Instead, she put in her headphones, lit up before practice, taped her wrists, and let the game drain the ache out of her bones.

Powder called it her “rage sport.”

“Better you hit other people than walls,” she said, handing Vi a bottle of water after practice one day.

Vi grinned, teeth bared, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. “Walls don’t fight back.”

Neither did feelings.

But maybe that’s why Vi liked to pretend she didn’t have any.

Still, sometimes, in the quiet stretch after practice when the stadium lights flickered off and the weed buzzed warm in her lungs, she’d see the girl on the ice again.

Like a ghost.

⋆˙⟡˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Vi, Age 17

Vi woke up to the sound of Powder microwaving something she definitely wasn’t supposed to be microwaving.

She rubbed her face, sat up on the couch, and squinted into the tiny kitchen of their apartment. Powder was bent over the microwave like it owed her money, wearing one of Vi’s oversized sweatshirts and mismatched socks. The flickering overhead light made her look even paler than usual.

“Pow Pow, please tell me that’s not foil,” Vi croaked.

Powder turned, holding up a scorched mug. “It was tea.”

Vi groaned. “You're gonna set the whole place on fire.”

“Relax,” Powder said, dropping onto the couch beside her, tucking her feet under Vi’s thigh like she always did. “If we go up in flames, it’ll be from that weed smell baked into your hoodie.”

Vi grinned. “You’re welcome.”

This was their morning routine. Chaos, caffeine, and clinging to each other like they were the only things left standing.

Their place was tiny—one bedroom, one couch, and exactly two forks. Their parents had disappeared in different ways. Their uncle Silco floated in and out like a storm: sometimes helpful, sometimes frightening, always unpredictable.

So it was just them. Powder and Vi.

Vi carried the weight of that like armor.

After a quick shower—cold, because the water heater was half-dead—Vi threw on her lacrosse gear. Practice wasn’t until noon, but she liked being early. Liked the quiet of the empty field before anyone else showed up. There was something about the dew-wet grass and the stillness that helped her breathe.

She grabbed her stick, her backpack, and her worn-out cleats, and headed out.

On the way, she lit a joint. Just a small one. Just enough to take the edge off the noise in her brain.

Because there was always noise. The bills on the counter. Powder’s too-thin wrists. The empty space in her chest where her mom’s voice used to live. The kind of noise that didn’t shut up just because she was good at sprinting or checking or keeping her cool when the school therapist asked dumb questions.

Sometimes, being good at lacrosse felt like the only thing that made her real.

The coach had started talking about “potential” again last week. Said some scouts were coming to the season opener. Vi had shrugged it off, but her heart thudded behind her ribs like a drum.

What would happen if she got out?

What would happen to Powder?

What would happen if I fail?

She kicked a rock down the sidewalk, watched it bounce off a fence. When she got to the field, she was the only one there, just like she wanted.

She jogged the perimeter twice. Stretched. Rolled her shoulders.

And then she stood still at midfield, the stick resting against her thigh, breathing in the morning.

She thought about the girl again.

It was ridiculous—years later, and that memory still popped up. That smile. Those wide, intelligent eyes. Her coat was probably expensive. Her hands were delicate. She probably grew up in some high-rise with floor-to-ceiling windows and real silverware.

But Vi remembered how she didn’t laugh at her—how she’d laughed with her.

That mattered.

She’d never told anyone about it.

Hell, she barely remembered what the girl’s voice sounded like. Just the feeling of being seen. Not as a screw-up or a charity case or some angry street kid.

Just seen.

Vi didn’t believe in fate. But something about that memory clung to her like skate scratches on ice—faint, but permanent.

She snapped back to the present when Coach Torres barked her name.

“You’re early.”

“Always,” she said, smirking.

“Good. I want you running drills with the new girls. You’re the captain this year.”

Vi blinked. “Wait—what?”

“You heard me. Step up.”

And just like that, another weight settled on her shoulders.

She didn’t mind.

⋆˙⟡˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Practice left her sore and half-limping.

Her thigh was bruised from an accidental stick check and she’d caught a ball to the ribs because one of the new girls panicked under pressure. Vi didn’t yell—just grunted, spat blood, and kept playing. That’s what captains did, apparently.

Coach Torres gave her a thumbs up as she limped off the field.

“Good leadership today,” he said.

Vi rolled her eyes. “You just like watching me get beat up.”

“You bounce back,” he said. “You always do.”

The worst part was: he wasn’t wrong.

By the time she trudged home, the sun was starting to dip, and the city had that sour-gold glow she associated with cheap apartment lights and gas station dinners. Her cleats thumped against her thigh, tied together and slung over her shoulder. Her hoodie was damp. Her whole body itched with the dry, cracked sensation of a hard day’s sweat and no hot water to fix it.

When she opened the door, she was hit with the scent of scorched noodles and powdered cheese.

Powder sat cross-legged on the floor, a bowl of mac and cheese in one hand, a soldering iron in the other. She was building something again—wires, circuits, tiny blinking lights scattered across the rug like confetti.

“Careful with that, genius,” Vi said, toeing off her cleats. “You electrocute yourself and I’m not giving CPR.”

“You’d cry.”

“Only because I wouldn’t get my security deposit back.”

Powder grinned, and Vi’s chest softened.

They didn’t hug much anymore. Too grown up for that. But the closeness was there in the banter, the way Powder shoved a second bowl across the floor toward her without asking. The way Vi flopped down beside her with a groan and grabbed it, wolfing down the mac and cheese even though it was crunchy at the edges and tasted vaguely like regret.

“You good?” Powder asked around a mouthful. “You’re limping.”

“Newbie wing attack’s got a hell of an aim. Might’ve cracked my ribs.”

“Nice. Proud of her.”

“Traitor.”

Powder smirked and bumped her shoulder. Vi leaned into it without thinking.

They sat like that for a while, the TV playing some shitty cartoon in the background, both of them half-watching, half-dozing. Eventually, Powder got up and disappeared into the bedroom, leaving Vi alone with her aching muscles and the whirring machine parts still scattered on the rug.

She let her head fall back against the couch and closed her eyes.

For a second, she imagined what it would feel like to just be normal.

To not have to carry everything. To not have to keep pretending she wasn’t scared shitless of scouts and scholarships and losing everything if she let her guard down for one second.

To be able to tell someone about the girl on the ice.

To admit that sometimes, when things got too loud, she thought about those five minutes when she was a kid—when a stranger had laughed at her falling, not to mock her, but like she was part of something good. Something soft.

She didn’t even know the girl’s name.

But something about that memory still clung to her like a bruise she didn’t want to heal.

Vi opened her eyes, stared up at the ceiling, and let the thought settle in her chest like smoke.

Then she got up, grabbed her hoodie, and stepped out onto the fire escape.

The city hummed below her. She lit another joint and breathed deep.

Her world didn’t allow softness. But she remembered what it felt like.

And that small flicker of hope was enough to keep her going.