Jake's POV
My phone hit the wall and cracked.
I stared at the broken screen on my bedroom floor, my chest heaving. The video was still playing in my head—Maya's face when I laughed at her, the way her voice broke when she apologized, how small she looked running away.
And the comments. God, the comments.
"Jake's a legend for this"
"Savage but necessary"
"Someone had to tell her the truth"
But also: "This is cruel" and "He didn't have to humiliate her"* and "I lost all respect for Jake Morrison."
I grabbed my hockey stick and squeezed it until my knuckles turned white. I shouldn't feel bad. I was just honest with her. She needed to hear the truth, right?
So why did I feel like I'd kicked a puppy?
"Jake?" My dad's voice came from downstairs. "You okay up there?"
"Fine!" I yelled back, but my voice cracked.
I wasn't fine. Nothing was fine.
The tournament was in five days. Five days until the biggest game of my life, the game that college scouts would be watching. Five days to prove I was good enough for a scholarship, good enough to make something of myself.
And instead of practicing, instead of focusing, I was thinking about some quiet girl whose card I'd crumpled up like trash.
My phone buzzed—or what was left of it. I picked it up carefully, squinting at the shattered screen. A text from my teammate Marcus: Dude, Brittany's pissed. She saw the video.
Great. Just great.
I called Brittany, and she answered on the first ring.
"What the hell, Jake?" Her voice was sharp. "You made that girl cry on camera and you didn't even tell me about it?"
"It just happened," I said. "She showed up at practice with this weird card, and I—"
"You humiliated her in front of everyone!" Brittany cut me off. "Do you know how that makes me look? Like I'm dating a bully!"
"I'm not a bully!" The words exploded out of me. "She was stalking me for three years! I had every right to—"
"To laugh at her? To let your friends record it and post it online?" Brittany's voice got quieter, which somehow made it scarier. "I didn't sign up to date someone who treats people like that."
My stomach twisted. "Are you breaking up with me?"
Silence.
Then: "I'm thinking about it. Figure out who you want to be, Jake. The guy I fell for, or the guy in that video."
She hung up.
I threw my broken phone across the room again, not caring when it shattered into more pieces. This was supposed to be my year. My time to shine. Everything was supposed to be perfect.
But it wasn't.
---
I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Maya's face. The hope in her eyes when she handed me the card. The way that hope died when I started laughing.
At 2 AM, I gave up and went downstairs. My dad was in the kitchen, which was weird because he was usually asleep by ten.
"Can't sleep either?" he asked, pouring coffee.
"Tournament nerves," I lied.
Dad studied me with those eyes that always saw too much. "Want to talk about it?"
"About what?"
"About the video that half the school has seen." He slid his phone across the table. The video was paused on Maya's face, frozen in the moment before she ran away. "Your mother showed it to me."
My face burned. "I was just being honest with her."
"Were you?" Dad sat down across from me. "Or were you performing for your friends?"
"That's not fair."
"Life's not fair, son. But that doesn't mean we get to be cruel." Dad took a sip of coffee. "You know, when I was your age, I was a lot like you. Star athlete, popular, had a pretty girlfriend. And there was this girl, Sarah, who had a crush on me."
"Dad, I don't need a lecture—"
"Sarah wrote me a letter," he continued, ignoring me. "Told me she liked me. And I laughed at her in front of my whole team, just like you did today."
I looked up, surprised. My dad never talked about stuff like this.
"What happened?" I asked.
"She transferred schools. Couldn't handle the embarrassment." Dad's face was sad. "Two years later, I found out she'd tried to hurt herself. Almost succeeded."
Ice filled my veins. "Maya wouldn't—"
"How do you know?" Dad's voice was gentle but firm. "How do you know what she's thinking right now? What she's feeling? You don't know anything about her except that she liked you and you destroyed her for it."
"I didn't mean to destroy her," I whispered. "I just... everyone was watching, and my friends were there, and I didn't want to look weak or—"
"So you made her look weak instead." Dad stood up. "Think about that before the tournament. Think about what kind of man you want to be. Because skill on the ice means nothing if you're a jerk off it."
He left me sitting alone in the kitchen, his words echoing in my head.
---
The next morning at practice, I couldn't focus. Coach yelled at me three times for missing easy shots.
"Morrison! What's wrong with you?" Coach blew his whistle. "You're playing like a beginner!"
"Sorry, Coach." I skated harder, trying to clear my head.
But then Marcus skated up beside me during a break. "Dude, have you seen the news?"
"What news?"
He showed me his phone. The headline made my blood run cold:
"Local Student Missing After Viral Rejection Video"
Below it was Maya's school photo.
"She never came home last night," Marcus said. "Her roommate reported her missing. Police are investigating."
The rink spun around me. "Missing?"
"Yeah. Someone said they saw her get into a black car yesterday afternoon. Right after... you know. The video."
My hockey stick fell from my hands. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.
"Morrison!" Coach skated over. "You okay? You look like you're gonna be sick."
"I need to go," I said. "I need to—"
"You need to stay here and practice," Coach said firmly. "The tournament is in five days. We can't afford—"
"I don't care about the tournament!" The words burst out of me, shocking everyone into silence. "Don't you get it? A girl is missing, and it's my fault!"
"It's not your fault," Marcus said, but he didn't sound convinced.
"Yes, it is." My voice broke. "I laughed at her. I let you guys record it. I made her feel so bad that she got into a stranger's car because disappearing seemed better than facing everyone."
Coach's expression softened. "Jake, you can't blame yourself for someone else's choices."
"Can't I?" I picked up my stick with shaking hands. "Because right now, that's all I can do."
I skated off the ice, ignoring Coach's protests. In the locker room, I pulled out my destroyed phone and tried to turn it on. It flickered to life for just a second, long enough to show one new message from an unknown number:
She's with me now. And unlike you, I appreciate her talents. If you want to see Maya Chen again, come to the abandoned warehouse on Harbor Street at midnight. Come alone. Tell anyone, and she disappears forever.
The phone died completely, the message disappearing with it.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking. This was bigger than a mean rejection. Bigger than a viral video. Maya wasn't just missing—she'd been taken.
And whoever had her was playing games with me.
I had two choices: go to the police and risk never seeing Maya again, or go to that warehouse alone and probably walk into a trap.
The tournament didn't matter anymore. My scholarship didn't matter. Nothing mattered except fixing the horrible thing I'd done.
But as I sat there in the empty locker room, one terrifying thought kept circling through my mind:
What if I was already too late?