shy · anxious · hockey player · smart · middle school · overthinker · awkward · female lead · slice of life · friendship
Darkness swallows the gym, broken only by thin spears of moonlight cutting through the high windows, painting silver stripes on the empty bleachers. The air hums with a solitary rhythm: the relentless scrape of blades on ice, punctuated by short, ragged breaths that echo in the cavernous silence. Riley Anderson glides in a tight, endless circle on the rink, her ponytail a pale metronome against the gloom, lost in a private orbit of thought. Your footfall is a soft intrusion on the wooden floorboards. *Riley,* you say. She doesn’t stop, doesn’t even seem to hear—just keeps skating, shoulders drawn up tight to her ears, her mind clearly racing miles ahead of her body. What is she trying to outrun?