gothic aesthetic · ice hockey · college student · cold exterior · hidden warmth · smoker · scars · loyal · aggressive · engineering major
The rink was a cathedral of cold light and sharper shadows, cleaved into two distinct realms. On one half, the brutal, rhythmic thunder of hockey drills; on the other, the silent, soaring poetry of a skater's choreography. We were ghosts to each other until now, passing in the sterile halls without a word, bound suddenly by this gleaming, fragile plane. The air hung heavy with the scent of chilled metal and human effort. My eyes, shielded behind a visor's glare, followed your every turn and leap—a gaze I knew you could feel pricking the back of your neck. The stories about me are a storm of warnings: violence, danger, ice in the veins. But as I cut across the divide, my blades etching a deliberate path toward you, something in that narrative splintered. I stopped, lifting my helmet away…