Chapter 007

Ivy pov:

"Ivy, please, I know you're in there!" Anna's voice cracked through another round of knocking, more frantic this time.

"I have to get that," I said, though every part of me wanted to stay exactly where I was, kneeling on the floor with Noah's hand wrapped around mine like it was the only solid thing left in his world.

"Wait." His grip tightened, and for a second the fog in his eyes cleared just enough that I saw him again…really him, the boy who used to trace circles on my palm while we talked under the stars behind the chemistry building. "Don't let go yet."

"Noah, I have to…"

"Please."

The word undid me more than I wanted to admit. I stayed a second longer, until his breathing steadied and the color started creeping back into his face, then gently pulled my hand free and pushed myself up.

"Coming!" I called, my voice unsteady as I crossed the room and yanked the door open.

Anna stood there, phone in hand, her face pale beneath her usual warmth. "Okay, I need you to not freak out," she said immediately, which was, of course, the fastest way to make me freak out.

"What happened?"

She glanced past me, spotting Noah still sitting on the floor, disheveled and clearly unwell, and her eyes widened. "Is he okay? What happened to him?"

"Anna."

"Right. Right, sorry." She turned her phone toward me, and my stomach dropped before I even understood what I was looking at.

It was a video. Grainy, clearly filmed on someone's phone from a distance, but unmistakable. Noah, on the ice during practice, skating hard toward the boards…and then stopping dead in the middle of a drill, standing frozen while his teammates skated past him, calling his name. In the video, he pressed both hands to his head, swayed, and dropped to one knee before a coach rushed over.

The caption above the video read: Groundbreakers captain having a meltdown at practice? Someone tell me why Noah Carter looked like he forgot how to skate for a solid ten seconds.

Beneath it, the comments were already spiraling. Dozens of them, even hundreds.

Bro's clearly not okay Concussion protocol anyone? Scouts are gonna see this lol is he having a breakdown.

"This was posted twenty minutes ago," Anna said quietly. "It's already got twelve thousand views. People are tagging sports blogs. Ivy, this is going to blow up."

My throat tightened as I looked past Anna's shoulder at Noah, who had gone very still, his eyes fixed on the phone even from across the room like he already knew, on some instinctive level, exactly what it contained.

"Show me," he said, his voice low.

"Noah, I don't think…"

"Show me, Ivy.

"

I hesitated, then walked back to him and crouched down, holding the phone where he could see it. I watched his face as the video played, watched the way his jaw clenched, the way his hands curled into fists against his knees.

When it ended, he didn't say anything for a long moment.

"I don't remember that happening," he finally said, and his voice was hollow in a way that scared me more than his confusion earlier had.

"Practice ended two hours ago, I walked here after. I don't remember stopping and I don't remember dropping to my knees. I don't remember any of it."

"Noah…"

"They're going to say I'm losing it." He stood up too fast, swaying slightly before catching himself on the back of the couch.

"They're going to say I can't handle the pressure. My agent already thinks I've been off, if this gets to scouts…"

"Then we get ahead of it," I said, surprising myself with how steady the words came out. "You go to the team doctor…tonight. You tell Coach Lockwood exactly what's been happening, the memory gaps, the headaches, all of it, better he hears it from you than from a twelve thousand view video."

"I can't." He shook his head hard, immediately wincing at the motion. "If they think I'm compromised, they'll bench me. Scouts will move on and everything I've worked for…"

"Will mean nothing if you collapse on the ice for real," I snapped, my patience thinning under the weight of everything…the fear, the confusion, the ache still lodged deep in my chest from twenty minutes ago when he hadn't known my name.

"You almost passed out in my living room, Noah, like ten minutes ago. What if that happens during a game? What if next time no one catches you?"

He stared at me, something flickering behind his eyes…not quite a memory, but close to it. Recognition, maybe, of a pattern…of someone caring enough to push back.

"You sound like you've said this to me before," he murmured.

My chest ached. "I have more than once."

Anna, still hovering awkwardly in the doorway, cleared her throat. "There's, um, one more thing."

I turned. "What?"

She hesitated, glancing between us like she wasn't sure she wanted to be the one to say it. "The video. It wasn't posted by a random student in the stands." She swallowed.

"It was posted from an account that's followed by, like, half the puck bunnies on this campus. And I checked the comments…Morgan replied under it twenty minutes ago."

The name landed like a stone in my stomach.

"What did she say?" I asked, though some part of me already dreaded the answer.

Anna scrolled, then turned the phone toward me again. There, beneath the spiraling comment section, was a reply from Morgan's verified account, blue check and all.

Praying for Noah, hope he's getting the support he needs right now. Some people just don't know when to step back and let someone actually take care of him.

Nothing about it was overtly cruel. Nothing anyone could point to and call malicious but I knew, with a certainty that settled cold and heavy in my chest, exactly who that comment was aimed at.

Noah leaned over my shoulder to read it, and I felt him go rigid beside me.

"Who is that," he said slowly, his eyes narrowing at the screen, "and why does looking at her name make my head hurt worse than it already does?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but Anna beat me to it.

"That's Morgan," she said flatly, arms crossing over her chest. "Team captain's ex-something, self-appointed queen of the puck bunnies, and the reason I told Ivy to stay away from the rink in the first place."

Noah's brow furrowed deeper, his fingers pressing against his temple again like the name itself was a pressure point. "Ex-something," he repeated slowly. "Meaning what? Ex-girlfriend?"

"She'd like everyone to think so," Anna muttered.

"I don't…" He stopped, shaking his head slightly, frustration bleeding into his voice. "I don't remember her. I don't remember any of this. I don't remember you." His eyes flicked to me, apologetic and pained. "But she feels like something…not a memory, more like… a warning."

A chill crawled up my spine and before I could respond, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, and his face changed the instant he read the screen…confusion sharpening into something closer to alarm.

"It's Coach," he said. "He wants me at the facility. Now."

"Noah, wait…"

"He says someone already sent him the video." Noah was already moving toward the door, unsteady but determined, his hand braced against the frame. "And he says Morgan's with him."