I was supposed to Hate Declan Mercer

I have a list of things I swore I would never do at Harlow University.

Number one: live in the athletic dorm. Done that, first week, because the regular dorm assignment system apparently doesn't account for people who need a five AM alarm and zero social consequences for it.

Number two: take a sports media elective to fill a credit gap. Done that too, starting this Thursday, because apparently "Introduction to Broadcast Journalism" was the only thing left that didn't conflict with practice.

Number three and this one I held onto the longest, this one felt sacred never, under any circumstances, get assigned a profile piece on a hockey player.

The universe, as it turns out, has a fantastic sense of humor and zero respect for my list.

"Zara." Professor Hendricks held up a folder across the seminar table like she was presenting evidence. "You've got the men's hockey program. Specifically, you're profiling their starting center."

Twenty-two students looked at me. I smiled the smile I'd been perfecting since I was twelve, the one that said totally fine, completely on board, the one that had gotten me through regional championships and a stress fracture and one very bad Thanksgiving. "Great," I said. "Love hockey."

I do not love hockey.

I love figure skating, which I have done since I was four years old, which is how I ended up at Harlow on an athletic scholarship, which is also and this is the part nobody tells you at recruitment visits why I have complicated feelings about hockey players specifically. Hockey players share our ice. Hockey players have, on three documented occasions this semester alone, left ruts in the resurface pattern that my coach describes using language I won't repeat. Hockey players operate on the assumption that the rink is primarily theirs with figure skating as a polite inconvenience scheduled around them.

I am not biased. I am informed.

The profile subject's name was in the folder: Declan Mercer, 20, Sophomore, #11.

I Googled him in the elevator on the way out. His university athletics photo showed someone with brown hair that was doing whatever it wanted and the general bone structure of a person who had never once struggled to get a table at a restaurant. He was grinning at the camera like the camera had said something funny.

I closed the tab.

His first practice I could observe was at six in the morning, which, given that I was already up at five for my own ice time, felt less like a scheduling conflict and more like a personal attack from the universe, which had clearly decided this semester was content.

The rink at six AM smells like cold and ambition and someone's forgotten equipment bag. I know this rink the way I know my own apartment every board, every light, the specific place near the penalty box where the Zamboni always leaves a slightly rough patch. I was standing at the glass with my notebook when the team came out, and I was looking for number eleven, and I found him almost immediately because he was the one doing something baffling.

He was skating backward.

Not in a drill. Not with any apparent purpose. Just backward, slowly, in a wide circle near the blue line, looking up at the ceiling of the rink like he was reading something written there. His teammates were warming up around him and he was drifting, serene, in the wrong direction, like a boat that had very peacefully lost its captain.

I wrote: subject appears unaware of surroundings.

Then the puck came out of nowhere a teammate's stray shot, fast and low and without looking, without breaking the backward drift, Declan Mercer redirected it with one casual flick of his stick toward the net, where it hit the back corner so cleanly that the goalie didn't even flinch in time.

The team responded with the specific noise of people who have seen this before and are annoyed they're still impressed by it.

He hadn't looked down once.

I crossed out appears unaware of surroundings.

I wrote: is aware of everything, apparently.

He found me at the glass twenty minutes later, during a water break. Skated over with the easy, swaying gait of someone for whom blades are just feet, and stopped with a precision that sent a small spray of ice toward the board. He was taller up close, which was genuinely inconvenient.

"You're the journalism student," he said.

"And you're the hockey player," I said.

"Zara, right?" He didn't wait for confirmation. "Hendricks sent me an email." He pulled his helmet off and his hair did the exact same thing as the photo: whatever it wanted. "Said you're profiling me for the semester project."

"That's correct."

"Cool." He took a drink from his water bottle. "You skate?"

I looked at him. "I'm on the figure skating team."

Something shifted in his expression a quick recalibration. "Huh," he said.

"'Huh' meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning I've probably seen you skate and didn't know it was you." He tilted his head. "We share the rink on Tuesdays."

"I'm aware," I said, in a tone that communicated a great deal without technically saying anything.

He looked at me for a second with an expression I couldn't immediately categorize not defensive, not apologetic, something more like interested, which was somehow worse. "The rut thing," he said. "Near the east wall."

I said nothing.

"That was Kowalski," he said. "For what it's worth."

"It's worth very little," I said. "It's still your program's rut."

He almost smiled. Not quite. "Fair." He put his helmet back on. "Interview Monday? I've got a free block after two."

"Monday works."

"Try not to hate us too much before then." He skated backward away from the glass the same easy backward drift, like gravity worked differently for him and rejoined the drill without looking where he was going.

He didn't bump into a single person.

I stood at the glass with my notebook and wrote: insufferably competent.

Then I underlined it.

Twice.