“How do you know that?” I asked, looking around instinctively, like Priya might somehow have been standing right behind me the whole time.
“Because I saw Calloway walking out of the library.” Her voice came through clearly despite the distance, a little breathless, like she’d been hurrying.
“I’m outside.
I was about to call you anyway—I had something to tell you.”
I looked toward the entrance and spotted her through the glass doors, standing just outside under the overhead light.
Her phone was still pressed to her ear, waving at me with her free hand and a wide, knowing grin already spreading across her face.
A few students walked past her on their way in, giving her a wide berth the way people tended to whenever Priya got animated about something.
She ended the call before I could respond and pushed through the doors, crossing the lobby in quick, purposeful strides, her boots squeaking faintly against the polished floor until she was standing right in front of me.
“What did she tell you?” Priya asked immediately, with no preamble at all.
“Nothing.”
“Hey.
Don’t try that with me.”
“Where’s Jordan?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
I sighed, setting down the book still in my hand.
The fight was already draining out of me.
“Fine.
She just said I should wait for her.”
“That’s it?” Priya’s eyes went wide, clearly expecting something with more weight to it.
“Mm-hm.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing else.” I crossed my arms, leaning back against the returns cart.
“And what did you want to tell me?”
“Oh—right.” Priya’s expression shifted, remembering her actual reason for showing up, the teasing edge dropping away into something more focused.
“Calloway’s got a game on Wednesday.
Against Wrenfield.”
The name landed with more weight than I’d expected, even though I’d never actually heard it before.
Priya said it the way people said things that didn’t need explaining to anyone who’d been on campus for more than a semester.
Like the rivalry was just an accepted fact of life here, the way the dining hall’s terrible coffee was, or the way everyone complained about the same three professors.
“Wrenfield,” I repeated.
“That’s the team everyone always talks about like they personally ruined someone’s childhood.”
“They’re the rival.
They’ve been rivals for years, apparently, some whole history between the schools that predates both of us.
Every year it’s a whole thing.
Bigger crowds, alumni flying in, the local news covering it.”
Priya leaned against the cart beside me, lowering her voice slightly even though the library was nearly empty.
“I figured you’d want to know.
In case that’s actually what she wanted to talk to you about back at the rink. Get faster updates on g.com.
Not—you know.
The other thing.”
I turned the idea over, something in my chest loosening slightly at the possibility, however small, that the urgency in Calloway’s texts hadn’t only been about Novera at all.
“You think that’s it?
The game, not—”
“I don’t know,” Priya admitted.
“Honestly, probably both.
But it’s not nothing, Emery.
Wrenfield week is a whole production around here.
If her head isn’t in the right place going into Wednesday, that’s a real problem, on top of whatever happened at the rink.”
I thought about Richard Marchetti’s careful, clipped voice at dinner.
*I want to know it’s sustainable.*
And I wondered, with a small, uncomfortable twist in my stomach, whether he already knew about the game, whether he was already planning to fly back in for it, whether Calloway was carrying that particular weight silently on top of everything else that had gone sideways today.
I thought about the way she’d looked in the library, her hair still damp, her gear half on, like she’d sprinted straight from practice without pausing to think it through.
Not the behavior of someone with a clear head going into the biggest game of her season.
“Does she usually get like this before big games?” I asked.
“Distracted, I mean.”
“Not that I’ve ever seen.
She’s usually the calmest person on the ice, if anything.
It’s half of what makes her so good.
But I don’t know what she’s usually like the week she also blows up her actual relationship, so…”
Priya winced immediately after saying it, reaching out to squeeze my arm.
“Sorry.
Too soon.”
“It’s fine.”
It wasn’t, not really, but saying so felt easier than unpacking exactly how not fine it was standing in the middle of my own workplace.
Priya stared at me for a moment, something softer replacing the earlier teasing.
“For what it’s worth, whatever happened at that rink…
I don’t think it’s as simple as it looked.
I’ve heard you talk about her for weeks now, Emery.
I don’t think she’s someone who would just throw all of it away for no reason.”
“You didn’t see her hands stay at her sides while someone else kissed her.”
“No.
I didn’t.” Priya held my gaze steadily.
“But I also didn’t see whatever happened five seconds before that, or what she said the second you walked in, or any of the actual context.
That’s not nothing, but it’s also not the whole story, and you know that better than anyone because you’re the one who’s spent three weeks telling me not to jump to conclusions about people.”
I didn’t have a good response to that, mostly because she wasn’t wrong, and mostly because some stubborn, hurting part of me didn’t want to hear it yet, didn’t want to let go of the clean, simple anger that had been carrying me through my entire shift.
“I’m not saying forgive her tonight,” Priya added, gentler now.
“I’m saying don’t decide anything permanent until you’ve actually heard her out.
That’s all.”
The front desk phone rang somewhere behind me, and I glanced at the clock.
Closing time.
Finally.
The last few students filed out toward the exits with their bags slung over their shoulders.
“I need to close up,” I said, grateful for the excuse to end the conversation before it went somewhere I wasn’t ready for yet.
“Okay.” Priya pushed off the cart, gathering her jacket around herself against the cold waiting outside.
“Want me to walk you home?”
“I’ve got it.
Thank you, though.
For coming to tell me about the game.”
“Anytime.” She hesitated at the door, glancing back at me with something serious beneath her usual easy grin.
“Just…
think about it, okay?
Whatever you decide.
Just actually think about it first.”
I nodded and watched her disappear into the cold evening, the automatic doors sliding shut behind her with a soft, mechanical hiss.
I finished closing the library alone, flipping the last light switches and locking the front doors behind me.
My mind circled back again and again to the same handful of details—Wrenfield, the game, Richard Marchetti’s careful eyes, a rink door, and a nickname I still couldn’t shake.
The walk to the bus stop felt colder than it had that morning, the sky fully dark now, streetlights flickering on one by one along the empty path.
I pulled my hoodie sleeves down over my hands and thought about what Priya had said.
*You’re the one who’s spent three weeks telling me not to jump to conclusions about people.*
And I hated, a little, how accurate it was, how easily I’d have said the exact same thing to her if the situation had been reversed.
Wednesday was two days away.
Whatever Calloway had actually wanted to tell me at the rink, I had the distinct, uneasy feeling I wasn’t going to get the full answer until I stopped running from the conversation entirely.
My phone buzzed with a message notification, and my screen lit up.
I glanced down at it.
*Calloway: Where are you, Emery?*
That’s right.
Calloway had told me to wait for her.
And I had left anyway.
Another message came through almost immediately.
*Calloway: Can you please come over to my house?*
Her house?