The worst kind of betrayal is the one that happens while the whole world is cheering.
The arena roared so loudly the glass seemed to tremble. Cold air rolled over the stands, carrying the sharp scent of ice, sweat, and hockey gear. Somewhere below, the Blue Bulls were still celebrating second place like it meant something. I barely noticed.
All I could see was Mitchell.
My Mitchell.
He stood under the bright arena lights in his jersey, blond hair damp at the temples, brown eyes shining as he lifted the microphone. My pulse hit hard against my ribs. For one wild second, I forgot where I was. Forgot the crowd. Forgot the cameras. Forgot everything except the way he looked at me when he thought no one was watching.
Then he smiled.
"I have a very important question to ask the love of my life," he said.
The crowd erupted.
A shriek went up from somewhere behind me. Someone near the rink started yelling, "No way!" and then the whole arena seemed to catch fire with excitement.
My breath caught. Catherine, sitting beside me, grabbed my arm so hard her nails pressed into my skin.
"Oh my God," she whispered, her dark eyes wide with delight. "It's happening."
I turned toward her, already smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. "He's doing it," I said, barely able to get the words out.
"Finally," she breathed, as if she had been waiting for this as long as I had.
My twin sister, Jessica, sat on my other side, perfectly composed in a cream coat and glossy black hair falling over one shoulder. She looked beautiful in that effortless way that always made people stare the moment she entered a room. Jessica and I shared a face in the broadest sense of the word, but that was where it ended. She had our mother's delicate features, her height, her confidence. I had our father's deep skin, my own curves, and the kind of blue eyes people always commented on like they had a right to.
People always noticed Jessica first.
I had gotten used to that.
What I had never gotten used to was the feeling that I always had to make myself smaller beside her.
Mitchell took a step toward the stands.
My heart pounded with each one of his. He moved with the confidence of someone who belonged under every spotlight in the room. Reporters scrambled after him. Cameras flashed from every direction.
Then he stopped.
Right in front of us.
I stood up so quickly my knees bumped the seat in front of me. My fingers flew to my mouth as I laughed in disbelief.
He looked at me.
My whole body went still.
For one suspended second, I knew it. I knew he was looking at me because this was ours. Because he was about to say my name. Because all the nights I spent supporting him, all the games, all the skipped dinners, all the moments I told myself love was worth waiting for—they were leading to this.
"Mitchell?" I said, my voice small against the noise. "I'm right here."
He didn't answer.
He walked past me.
At first, I thought I had misread him. Maybe he was heading to the front row. Maybe he needed space. Maybe this was all some elaborate setup and I was too stunned to understand it.
But then he kept walking.
Past me.
Past Catherine.
Past the seat I had half risen from.
My stomach dropped so suddenly it felt like the floor gave way beneath me.
He stopped in front of Jessica.
The crowd exploded.
I heard a sharp breath leave my mouth, but it sounded distant, as if it came from someone else. Jessica's hand flew to her lips. Her expression was unreadable for one brief second, and then it shifted into something too smooth to be surprise.
Mitchell sank to one knee.
The red velvet ring box opened in his hand.
My vision blurred.
No. No, this was wrong. This had to be wrong.
I pushed forward, my hands shaking. "Mitchell," I said again, louder this time. "What are you doing?"
No one turned to look at me.
Not him. Not Jessica. Not Catherine.
A reporter jostled my shoulder as she leaned in with her camera, trying to get a better angle. I stumbled, caught myself, and pushed forward again.
"This is not funny," I said, and my voice cracked on the last word. "What are you doing?"
Mitchell looked up at Jessica with a smile that made my chest go cold.
"Jessica Simpson," he said, his voice carrying through the speakers, steady and sure. "You've been my backbone since the beginning. You believed in me when no one else did. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
The crowd went feral.
"SAY YES!" people screamed.
I stood there frozen, my brain refusing to accept what my eyes were seeing. Jessica's fingers trembled just enough to look convincing, but there was no real shock in her face. None. Only a kind of quiet satisfaction that made my skin crawl.
My mouth went dry.
Something in me cracked open.
"Jess?" I whispered.
Still nothing.
Then Catherine threw both hands in the air and shouted, "Finally!"
The sound hit harder than the betrayal itself.
I stared at her. "Catherine?"
She didn't even look at me.
My knees threatened to give out. I gripped the back of a seat to steady myself as the rest of the crowd pressed closer, everyone trying to witness the moment. Cameras captured everything. Every angle. Every smile. Every lie.
Jessica lowered her hand and gave Mitchell a tearful laugh that sounded rehearsed. "Yes," she said loudly, just enough for the crowd to hear.
The arena nearly shook apart.
"Yes, Mitchell. A hundred times yes."
The ring slid onto her finger.
I felt the sound leave my body before I realized I was screaming.
"No."
It wasn't loud enough to matter.
Mitchell stood and pulled Jessica into his arms. The kiss that followed was quick, public, and deliberate. The kind of kiss meant to be seen. Jessica's hands rested on his shoulders like she had been waiting for that exact moment.
I could not move.
I could not breathe.
It felt like my body had turned to ice, and yet my face burned with shame hot enough to choke me. People around me were laughing, crying, cheering. The noise blurred into one ugly, continuous roar.
I looked at every face I knew.
No one met my eyes.
That was the worst part.
Not the proposal. Not the kiss. Not even the ring.
It was the fact that I was standing only a few feet away from people who had known exactly what this would do to me and had done it anyway.
My throat tightened. I stumbled backward, hitting the edge of a seat. A sob threatened to break free, but I swallowed it down so hard it hurt.
Then I turned.
I ran.
I shoved through the narrow aisle, ignoring the people complaining as I passed. The arena lights blurred. My steps came too fast, then too uneven, my vision swimming with tears I refused to let fall until I reached the hallway beyond the stands.
By the time I made it to the locker room corridor, my lungs were burning.
I pressed my back to the wall and slid down it until I was sitting on the cold floor, my hands covering my face. The noise from the arena still thundered faintly through the walls, but it felt far away now, like a life I no longer belonged to.
Three years.
Three years of being there for Mitchell.
Three years of standing in the cold at games, cheering until my voice was gone.
Three years of answering his calls, of talking him through bad practices, of showing up when no one else did.
Three years of believing that meant something.
And Jessica had known.
A painful memory surfaced: Jessica lying on the couch, sick and pale, while I ran out in the rain to get her medication because she asked me to. Another one: our birthday, Mom bringing home a nut-flavored cake because it was Jessica's favorite, and Jessica being the one to remind her I was allergic. She had always known how to reach me, how to pull me in close enough to trust her.
I gave her my loyalty without question.
I thought she gave me hers.
A sound from the hallway snapped me back.
Laughter.
I froze.
Voices approached, bouncing off the tiled walls. I looked around wildly before spotting an open locker half-hidden in the corner. I wiped at my face with shaking hands and climbed inside, pulling the door nearly shut. My breathing turned shallow. The metal smelled faintly of old fabric and cleaning solution.
The voices stopped right outside.
"Congratulations, Jessica and Mitchell," someone said brightly. Max. "That was incredible."
"Thanks, darling," Jessica replied, her voice soft and pleased. "You all made it perfect."
There was a low chuckle. A familiar one.
All thanks to you.
Mitchell.
My stomach turned.
"Stop," Catherine laughed. "You two are impossible."
I pressed a hand over my mouth.
A chair scraped near the locker door. One of them had sat down.
"Did you see her face?" Harris asked, laughing like this was the funniest thing in the world.
I closed my eyes.
"It was better than I expected," Catherine said. "She really thought she was the one."
My fingernails dug into my palm. I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.
Max snorted. "You are all terrible."
"She has a habit of making things about herself," Jessica said lightly. "I just wanted to teach her a lesson."
My eyes snapped open.
Teach me a lesson?
My pulse pounded so hard it made my ears ring.
"What lesson?" Harris asked.
Jessica gave a tiny sigh, the kind that sounded almost bored. "That not everything revolves around her. She's been hanging on to Mitchell like she owned him."
My chest tightened.
Mitchell's voice came next, low and amused. "It was just a game. She made it easy."
The room went quiet for a beat, and then someone laughed again.
I stared into the narrow gap of the locker door, barely seeing the blurred edge of a bench and the shadow of someone's shoes.
A game.
My entire life had become a joke to them.
My shoulders started shaking before I could stop them. I bent forward, trying to hold in the sound, trying not to fall apart in the middle of a room full of people who had just destroyed me.
Then Jessica said something that made my blood run colder than the ice outside.
"She was always so desperate to be chosen," she said. "I figured she'd believe anything."
The silence after that felt endless.
I could not move.
Not when the voices laughed.
Not when the footsteps started to fade.
Not when the door finally clicked shut and I was left alone with my own breathing.
I slid down the inside of the locker until I was crouched on the floor, crying in a way that made my whole body ache.
I hated them.
I hated Jessica for smiling while she did it.
I hated Catherine for helping.
I hated Mitchell for looking at me like I had never mattered at all.
And worst of all, I hated myself for believing any of them.
"I'm such a fool," I whispered into my knees. "How could I be this stupid?"
The words broke in my throat, but they were true.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breathe through the pain, though it felt too large for my body. Too sharp. Too deep.
That was when I heard footsteps again.
This time they were slower.
Closer.
I stiffened.
The locker door opened just enough to let in a sliver of light, and I looked up through tears I couldn't seem to stop.
A man stood in front of me.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried himself with the calm confidence of someone who never needed to raise his voice to command a room. A gold medal hung around his neck. In one hand, he held a massive trophy. In the other, a floral handkerchief, offered quietly, almost gently.
His black hair was neatly cut. His blue eyes were sharp enough to be intimidating, but there was no cruelty in them.
Only attention.
I took the handkerchief with trembling fingers and wiped my face before I could think too hard about how ridiculous I must look. He watched me with a stillness that somehow made me feel less exposed.
Then he held out his hand.
I stared at it for a second before taking it.
He pulled me up carefully, like he understood that I might come apart if he moved too fast.
"You are not a mistake," he said.
His voice was low, calm, steady.
I blinked at him, too stunned to respond.
"You did nothing wrong," he added. "And you should not speak to yourself like that."
Another sob hit me, smaller this time, but still impossible to hold back.
He hesitated for just a moment, then placed a hand lightly between my shoulder blades, a brief grounding touch that asked for nothing.
"Breathe," he said.
I did.
A little.
He looked at me properly then, as if memorizing the damage and refusing to look away from it. There was something disarming about his expression, something that kept him from feeling like a stranger even though he absolutely was.
"Coach Jeremiah," I whispered.
He gave the smallest hint of a smile. "So you know who I am."
"The entire city knows who you are."
His mouth curved a little more, but the expression didn't quite reach his eyes. "That is unfortunate."
Despite everything, a startled laugh escaped me.
He noticed it. I could tell.
"My boyfriend is—" I stopped myself before the lie could leave my mouth, then corrected quickly, my throat tightening again. "My ex-boyfriend is a huge fan of yours."
Jeremiah's gaze sharpened at that, not unkindly, just observant. "Ex?"
I looked down at the handkerchief in my hands. "Yes."
He was silent for a moment. Not awkwardly. Thoughtfully.
Then he tipped his head toward the corridor behind him, where the muffled echo of the arena still lived.
"Come on," he said. "You should not be alone right now."
I looked up at him, confused and wary and too hurt to pretend otherwise. "Why are you even here?"
His eyes moved to the medal at his neck, then to the trophy in his hand, and back to me.
His expression shifted by the smallest degree, like he was deciding how much truth to give.
"That," he said quietly, "is supposed to be my cue."