22 slammed Ty into the sideboards, 22 being a player on the other team. Well, that's not his name, 22, it's something CARTER, but that's all I knew from his jersey.

I cringed as Ty got hit, mouth going dry as I inhaled the ozone-tinged air. Ohmysweetgoodness, please be okay, gosh I can't look, no no no.

Muscles twitchy, an empty feeling swirled in the pit of my stomach. I covered my eyes with my hands. "I can't watch. Tell me what happens."

Blades sliced across the ice and scraped to a stop. A hockey stick slapped the ice, and a puck thumped into a goalie's glove. Layla laughed and nudged me with her shoulder. "It's all good Nat, Sawyer's fine."

I peeked out from behind my fingers. Ty was fine. Not injured. Well, probably injured but not too bad.

Layla jumped up from her seat. I startled, gripping my notebook to my chest. My pen clattered to the ground, and I bent over to retrieve it, fingertips brushing the rough concrete floor under our seats.

"Yes, he made the save!" Layla pumped her fist. I sat up, gaze ping-ponging between her and the rink. The goalie stopped the puck, noted. On Layla's other side, Emily munched on nachos she'd gotten after the last quarter. No, not quarter. Period?

My phone buzzed. I meant to check the one message I'd gotten from another planner account on Instagram, but of course, I swiped into my message requests and checked a few. I replied to one asking me what grip I used for my apple pencil, a couple others and deleted a spammy, kinda weird one.

"What a goal!" Layla called out, distracting me. Still standing, Layla bounced on her toes. I put my phone away and focussed back on the game.

After the goal, a red light went off, and the goal horn sounded. Beckett scored, woohoo.

Layla pulled Emily up and squeezed her in a hug. I couldn't help but grin when Layla whooped loudly, not caring at all what anyone thought. Emily smiled at Layla, cheeks flushed.

The scent of hot dogs cooking at the concession stand wafted over. I lowkey wanted one, but not enough to get up and buy one. The game was almost over anyways– I'd get something after. At some point, Layla and Emily sat back down.

The Summit coach shouted something at players, and so did the other coach, but I didn't know much more than the fact that those blades were moving fast across the rink.

"What are you doing? Goddamn it, pass the puck and shoot to the left!" Layla swatted the air as she ranted. "Ugh, and now it's offside! And how is that a penalty?! You dumb ass ref, I–"

"Layla?" I blinked at her.

She sat back, arms folded against her chest. "Yeah?"

"Just checking that you were still Layla." I squinted at her, fighting laughter. Jeez, she really got into hockey games.

Now she blinked at me, looking down at the notepad in my lap then back up to me. "Are you taking notes?"

I nodded, shifting in the hard plastic seat. "I'm trying to learn the lingo."

"Lemme see that," she said, snatching the notepad before I could stop her. I sucked in a sharp breath. She flipped back to the first page, brows raised.

Face heating, my knee bounced. I had to speak up and explain, I couldn't just sit there. I pointed at the page on the right.

"Celly– "celebration" isn't cool enough, so they shorten it to celly, and it's when they score a goal. Ty, fist bump. Normal enough. Will, bangs on the glass. Kind of aggressive, but okay. Beckett did this whole riding his stick thing." I scraped a hand through my hair. "Don't know what to think about that."

I flipped the page, and Layla's eyes followed my writing. She pressed a fist against her lips.

Strumming my fingers against my thigh, I continued on. "Chirping– trash-talking, but chirp reminds me of birds, and birds remind me of Twitter, and Twitter sucks, it's definitely not my app of choice." How'd I go down that side tangent?

Layla offered a bemused smile, and Emily just shook her head.

I flipped the page again. "Flow– nice hair. I think I like shorter hair more but to each their own. Could also be lettuce or salad. And lip lettuce is a mustache. I don't know about the obsession with leafy greens, but alrighty."

"Sounds like you've got a handle of the game." Layla confined a laugh to a snort.

"Right now, all I know is that there are two goals in hockey–" I held up a finger. "Score goals aka get the puck in the other team's net, and," I held up another finger. "Stop the other team from getting pucks in your net."

"I mean, you're not wrong," Emily piped up.

"Oh, and they have to sit over there if they do something they're not supposed to," I added, pointing to where 22 sat for doing something I didn't see.

"The penalty box?" Layla clarified as she passed back my notebook.

"Yup, that." I nodded and sat back, happy with my observations.

Soon, the game ended, and Summit won. Yay, go, Ty. And the rest of the team. Go Summit, #FreezingMyAssOffToShowSchoolSpirit!

I stood and stretched, pressing the heel of my palms to my eyes. "Okay, I havta go to the washroom, but I'll meet you down by the locker room."

Layla nodded as she gathered up her things.

Navigating through the crowd, I bumped into a couple of people and mumbled apologies. Finally, dancing on my feet, I made it to the bathroom. Where there was a line, of course. Now really dancing from foot to foot, I waited in line. When I made it first in line, I looked heavenward and thanked the washroom gods (and I thanked them for not landing me with the stall missing a lock hole, spouting wads of white toilet paper).

Peed, flushed, washed hands. I scrubbed my hands under the stream of water. Why did all the washrooms always have that pink soap? Where'd they get this pink soap? Was it–

"Nat?" a halting voice said, plucking me out of my thoughts.

My eyes flicked up to the mirror, the reflection showing a familiar strawberry blonde. She fidgeted with her purse.

I shivered from a slight chill and forced my limbs to relax. "Oh, hey Micah."

Not meeting her gaze, I turned off the tap.

Fingers cold and dripping water, I chewed the inside of my cheek. "Look–" I started. "I–" Micah said simultaneously.

"You go first." Micah grabbed a paper towel, the tear and crinkle loud as she pulled it from the wall dispenser. She passed it to me before gripping her purse again, knuckles white.

My chest tightened as I dried my hands, the paper towel scratchy. Water dripped from faucets that wouldn't fully shut off. Fudge berries, this was so frickin awkward.

"Erm, Ty told me everything that happened." The words slipped from my mouth before I could think it through.

Micah nodded slowly, staring down at the tiled floor. I pulled down my sleeves that I'd shoved up to keep from getting wet while washing my hands.

"You know, we were together for three years?" She let out a rough bark of self-deprecating laughter. "Three years. Three years together, and no matter what I did, I never felt like I was good enough, good enough to have something real with Sawyer."

I twisted the damp paper towel, belly knotted, eyes on the fold-down diaper changing station attached to the wall behind Micah. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah. And I messed things up, I know that." She pulled her jacket tighter and held her elbows. "I shouldn't have slept with Ellis. But he was there. He cared. Sawyer kinda checked out after a while, and Ellis was there."

An uncomfortable lump lodged itself in my throat. I wanted to help, to say something deep and meaningful, but honestly, I had no clue what to say. Was it bad that all I could think was that I was happy that I never had a boyfriend back in high school? I focussed on Daisy & Paper Co and never had to deal with any of this.

In one of the stalls, a mom ordered her probably small child not to touch anything.

Clearing my throat, I threw out the wadded paper towel ball. "So–"

Micah held up a hand to stop me. "I'm sure it's easy to judge me, call me a whore, whatever." She twisted the silver watch on her wrist, a tightness in her eyes. "But Sawyer never let me in. He never let me call him Ty."

I shook my head and held my hands up, palms towards Micah. "I'm not judging you."

Micah rubbed her hands along her crossed arms and continued on like she hadn't even heard me. "And Ellis, he's the only one that knew the real me. He cared. I never meant to hurt Sawyer, it just happened. And Ellis didn't mean to hurt him. We didn't mean to, I swear. And then Ellis broke it off with me, and I was angry." Her eyes appeared wet, darting and not settling as her teeth bit down on her bottom lip. "God, I was so angry."

Damn, this was a lot. I needed to press pause on this conversation, maybe rewind and replay a bit of it, and go somewhere quiet and think. You know what I could use right now? A pro/con list. I don't know what pros and cons I'd be weighing, but it'd help somehow.

Micah visibly swallowed before ducking her chin. "The one person who cared about me, who respected me, couldn't be with me. And I blamed Sawyer. I hated him. So I slept with Will, I tricked you. I didn't want him to be happy, and in my stupid revenge thought process, I hurt you too. And I'm sorry about that." Her voice broke, and she took a deep breath. "I hurt you, I hurt Will, I hurt Ellis, I hurt Sawyer. I don't blame you if you hate me. Shit, I hate me."

I got an icky, sinking feeling in my gut. She wasn't lying right now, she wasn't faking this. Micah made mistakes. I made mistakes too. The nice Nat side of me wanted to forgive her, but the not-so-nice Nat side of me couldn't. My lips pressed together in a slight grimace.

"Micah, I– I had no idea." I struggled to find the right words, and I knew those weren't the right ones, but life was messy, and the right words never appeared at the right time.

"I thought you deserved to know. But now you've got the perfect life, right?" She let out a harsh, toneless laugh.

I scoffed. "Nobody has a perfect life." A perfect life, perfect words, perfect actions– it was all a fantasy. No amount of overthinking or planning could create a perfect life, and I learned that the hard way. I shouldn't try and put up a perfect facade either.

"Sure you don't, Nat." Micah rubbed at her eyes and backed away.

I stepped forward. "Micah, wait–"

"I gotta go, Nat." She pulled open the door. "See you around."

Toilets gurgled as they refilled. Stall doors slammed shut. Locks clicked into place.

I stared dumbly at the vacant space Micah left behind. Ty's gotta know. Will has to tell Ty today, I have to talk to him. It's not fair to anyone to keep these secrets.

The next thing I knew, my feet had taken me out and to the locker rooms. Outside the tall doors, Will stood across from Ty.

"I told him, Nat." Will scrubbed a hand over his face.

Ty's posture stiffened, shoulders tight. He turned to me, eyebrows drawn together. "You knew?"

His voice was rough and thick.

Oh, puck.

Reading those last couple lines like... oh no

Escalating to... oh no, no, no

Escalating to... oH, pUcK.

Anywho, I'm excited to write and find out what happens in the next chapter :)

What did you think about Nat, Layla & Emily watching the game? Then Micah in the washroom? Lots always happens in washrooms, I feel like that's just the Nat trademark™️ now

Vote if you like the double gif in this author's notes andddd

Shoutout to @Vee_Amazeballz and @StuckInAFantasy for the name Carter in the first line of this chapter. I honestly couldn't come up with a random hockey player's last name, so I asked you guys on my convo tab and got some great suggestions, so thank you!! If you wanna name characters or places, things like that, make sure you're following me here on WP so you get the announcements when I ask. Or not. Whatever floats your boat.

With that, I bid you adieu, have a fabulous time till I see you next week or if you're reading this in the future (whoa, hi future person, how's the future?) see you in 2 seconds✌️