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Warnings: past family trauma, depictions of anger/loss of control, trauma response, mentions abuse, this fic is pretty intense ngl
Summary: Garrett Graham notices everything about you - including the things you never meant for him to see. When the pressure of the semester finally breaks him open, one moment is enough to change everything, and neither of you knows how to come back from it.
Author's Note: Writing fics where they mention John Logan is lowkey weird because I just keep referring to him as Logan and not John and that is just how it's gonna go. Anyways, new angsty hockey boy in the houseeeee. This one is highkey intense. Hope you angst craving weenies (like myself) enjoy!
The thing about Garrett Graham is that he pays attention.
People assume he doesn't, assume that the cocky grin and the easy confidence mean there's nothing running underneath, that he moves through rooms the way he moves through a crowd: loud, certain, taking up space. His teammates assume it. His professors definitely assume it. Even Hannah assumed it, once, before she knew him better.
But you figure it out early.
You figure it out the first time he shows up at your apartment door in October with coffee. Yours, specifically, the order you'd said out loud exactly once during a group hangout where there were six other people talking over you, and just sets it on the counter while he unpacks his calc notes like it's nothing.
"How did you even—"
"You said it last week," he says, not looking up. "At the Sig house thing."
Hannah is watching from the kitchen doorway with an expression you can only describe as I told you so, and you think: okay. Okay. So that's how it is.
It's how it is.
You've been dating since early September. Three weeks after Hannah dragged you to her tutoring session because her car was in the shop and she didn't want to go alone, and Garrett showed up ten minutes late with his hair still damp from practice and made fun of her notes and somehow that turned into all three of you getting food after, and then somehow that turned into him texting you at midnight about a meme he saw that reminded him of something you said, and then somehow that turned into this.
Two months in. Still new enough that sometimes you catch him looking at you like he's surprised you're real. New enough that you still get a little breathless when he reaches for your hand in public, casual, like it's nothing, like you haven't spent most of your life around people who treat softness like a liability.
But new enough that there are still questions neither of you has asked yet.
The first time he notices, really notices, is at a home game in mid-October.
You're in the student section with Hannah and Allie, squeezed in close because the rink is packed and everyone is loud and happy and drunk on the particular electricity of a team. You've got Garrett's number on your back - a fact that made him smile so wide it looked like it hurt when he saw you in the tunnel before warm-ups - and you're holding your plastic cup of terrible beer and watching the ice.
Logan scores in the second period and the section erupts.
You flinch.
It's barely anything. It's the kind of flinch most people wouldn't even register. A quick tightening of the shoulders, a slight lean away from the noise.
Garrett is on the bench when it happens, but he looks up into the crowd the way he always does, scanning for you without meaning to, and he sees it. He sees the way your body moves before you catch yourself.
He doesn't say anything.
He files it away.
It happens again at the post-game party.
Dean cranks the music up without warning and someone behind you lets out a whoop right next to your ear and your whole body jerks. Just for a second, just a small intake of breath and a slight step sideways, away from the sound. You recover instantly. You smile at whatever Hannah is saying and nobody else even blinks.
But Garrett is watching you from across the room with a red cup halfway to his mouth and something tight forming behind his eyes.
He doesn't bring it up.
He thinks about it all night.
He thinks about it lying next to you afterward when the party has thinned out and you've ended up back at his place, half-asleep in his bed, your breathing slow and even against his shoulder.
He decides not to push. He decides to wait until you're ready.
He also decides that from now on, he's going to notice. Really notice. Keep cataloguing the small things the way he catalogues play patterns on the ice: quietly, carefully, building a picture.
The way you scrunch your nose after a shot.
The way you twist a strand of hair around your finger when you're anxious.
The way you go a little still when someone raises their voice, even in laughter.
He notices everything. He keeps all of it.
---
It's a Wednesday night in late October when you finally say it.
You're both in his bed, the lamp on the nightstand casting everything amber. You're on your stomach, his shirt barely covering you, scrolling through your phone with the kind of boneless satisfaction that follows a very good hour. Garrett is on his back, one arm behind his head, the other resting warm across the small of your back.
"Okay but Dean," you say, without looking up.
Garrett laughs - the real one, low and easy. "I know."
"He threw the cup."
"He didn't throw it, it slipped—"
"He launched it, Garrett. There was arc. There was follow-through."
"He was drunk and it was plastic and it went like four feet—"
"The point is the energy," you say. "The point is that he was losing at a drinking game and decided the appropriate response was to throw something."
Garrett is still laughing. "He was fine. He wasn't even actually mad."
"He was a little mad."
"He was a little drunk."
"Both," you say. "Both can be true."
He concedes that with a hum. His thumb moves, absently, back and forth across the small of your back.
You look at your phone. Scroll without reading anything.
"My dad used to throw shit when he got mad," you say.
You say it casually. The way you might say I had a weird dream or I think we're out of coffee. Like it's a small fact, a footnote, something that doesn't require a particular response.
Garrett goes very still.
"Throw shit," he says, slowly.
"Like. Plates sometimes. His keys. Whatever was near him." You don't look up from your phone. Your voice is even. "He had this temper. Not - it wasn't like he was scary all the time. Just when he got really wound up."
Silence.
"At you?" Garrett asks.
There is a pause.
It lasts about three seconds longer than it should.
You don't answer.
Garrett feels something cold settle in his chest. He looks at the side of your face - the way you're looking at your phone but not really looking at it, the slight tension in your jaw, the careful way you're holding yourself.
"Y/N."
"I'm fine," you say. "It was a long time ago."
He doesn't push. He is very, very good at knowing when not to push.
But he moves his hand on your back. Slowly, deliberately, just pressing warm and steady there, and you exhale.
"I know," he says quietly.
He doesn't say: that's fucked up. He doesn't say: I'm sorry. He doesn't perform anything. He just keeps his hand on your back and stays.
Later, after you've fallen asleep, he lies awake for a long time.
He thinks about the flinching.
He thinks about the way your body knows things before your brain admits them.
He thinks about you, small and too young, in a room with someone who threw things.
He doesn't sleep well.
---
November comes in cold and relentless.
The thing about the back half of the semester is that it doesn't ask nicely, it just arrives. The midterms and the papers and the looming weight of finals building on the horizon, plus practice ramping up because playoffs aren't that far off and Coach is running them into the ground trying to get the power play where it needs to be. Plus Garrett's dad has been calling more, which always means something, and that something is never good.
Garrett doesn't talk about his dad. Not really. Not to most people.
He talks to John Logan sometimes. Late nights, half a beer in, when the walls come down a little. But to you, he hasn't gone there yet. There's a part of him that doesn't want to. That wants to be the version of himself he is with you: the guy who brings you coffee because he remembered your order, the guy who makes you laugh, the guy who holds you steady.
He's not sure he can be that and also this. This thing that gets wound tight and snaps at Logan and stares at his phone for ten minutes after his dad's number lights up without answering.
He compartmentalizes. He's always been good at it.
But you notice.
You've been noticing for three weeks.
The way he's quieter after practice. The way the easy grin doesn't come as fast. The way he laughed at your joke last Tuesday but the laugh didn't reach his eyes.
You don't say anything at first. You give him room. You show up and make yourself comfortable in his space the way you always do, and you don't ask, because you know what it feels like to not want to be asked.
But it gets worse.
By the second week of November, it's bad enough that Logan is making faces at you behind Garrett's back, the universal sign for I don't know what's going on either but something is.
And then there's the Thursday night.
You're at the hockey house when he comes back from practice. You've been there for an hour doing readings at his kitchen table and patiently waiting for him to come home.
He comes in at nine-thirty, and you know from the sound of the door that it's bad.
"Hey," you say, not looking up immediately. Testing the temperature.
"Hey." Flat.
You look up then. He's dropping his bag, his jaw set, not looking at you. There's a bruise forming along his cheekbone from whatever happened on the ice. He moves to the fridge, grabs a water, drinks half of it standing over the sink.
"Rough practice?"
"I'm fine."
You go back to your reading.
Thirty seconds pass.
"You don't have to stay," he says. Still not looking at you.
You put your pen down.
"I know I don't have to."
"I just- I'm not good company right now."
"That's okay. I'm not here for company. I'm here because I want to be here."
He doesn't respond to that. He refills his water and moves to the couch and picks up his phone, and you can see from across the room that he's not actually looking at anything on it. He's just holding it. Staring at the screen.
You give it ten minutes. You try to read. You get through one paragraph three times without absorbing any of it.
"Garrett."
"I'm fine."
"You keep saying that."
"Because I am."
"You're not. You've been somewhere else for three weeks and I've been trying to give you space but-"
"Y/N." His voice has an edge to it. "I said I'm fine."
Something sharpens in you. Not anger, exactly, more like a refusal. A refusal to be managed.
"You're shutting me out," you say, and your voice comes out steadier than you feel. "I'm your girlfriend. I'm sitting right here. You can talk to me."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"That's not-" You close your textbook. "That's not true and we both know it. Your dad's been calling. Playoffs are coming. You're running on no sleep and you're carrying all of it alone and I'm right here and you just keep-"
"I don't need you to fix it."
"I'm not trying to fix it! I'm trying to be here-"
"You being here doesn't actually help." He says it fast, like he didn't mean to say it, but it's out now.
The room goes quiet.
You stare at him.
He's sitting on the couch with his phone in his hand and his jaw tight and there's something in his expression that's half anger and half guilt, and for a moment neither of you moves.
"Okay," you say, quietly. "That was a shitty thing to say."
"Y/N-"
"No, I know you didn't mean it like that, but it came out like that and it landed like that and I'm telling you, that was-"
"I know." His voice is rough. "I know. I'm sorry."
"I don't want an apology, I want you to talk to me-"
"I can't." It comes out frustrated, strangled. "I can't right now, I don't - I can't do the whole talking thing right now, I just need-"
"What? What do you need? Because I keep trying to figure that out and you won't let me close enough to-"
"I need you to stop pushing!" His voice rises sharply. "Jesus Christ, Y/N, I said I'm fine, I said I need a minute, why can't you just-"
"Because you're not fine and someone has to say it—"
"WOULD YOU JUST-"
The sound is very loud in the small room.
There is the crack of something hard against something hard, his phone, face-down onto the coffee table. Not thrown, just slammed. One sharp motion.
The room goes silent so fast it feels like a held breath.
Garrett breathes.
The room breathes.
He turns back to you.
And sees it.
The flinch.
Not dramatic. Not a cowering, not a cry. Just your body doing what your body learned to do, sometime between the first time a door slammed and the first time something broke near your feet on a kitchen floor. Your shoulders up. Your chin down. Your weight shifted back, one small step, heel finding the floor behind you.
Your face.
He will never, for the rest of his life, forget your face in that moment.
It is not scared of him, exactly. It is something worse. It is a face that has already run the calculation. Already moved through the sequence. Already folded itself into something smaller, something unthreatening, something that does not make the moment worse.
It is the face of someone who has done this before.
It is automatic. It is not about him. And somehow that makes it worse.
Because it doesn't matter that it's not about him. It doesn't matter that you already know, intellectually, in the three seconds it takes you to recover, already straightening, already blinking, already pulling yourself back up to full height, that he is not your father. That he is not that.
It doesn't matter.
Because he still did it.
And your body still knew what to do.
The silence that follows is the loudest thing Garrett has ever heard.
He doesn't move.
He is standing with his hands at his sides now, not touching anything, not doing anything, and he is staring at you with an expression that is very pale and very still and completely hollow.
You are looking back at him. You have straightened. Your arms are at your sides. You are breathing.
Neither of you speaks.
Garrett's eyes drop to the phone on the table. Then back to you.
"I—" he starts.
His voice breaks.
He steps back. Away from you, putting space between you and him like that's the thing that matters right now.
His throat moves.
"I'm sorry," he says. It is very quiet.
You open your mouth.
"Y/N, I am so-" He stops. Swallows. "I am so sorry. I shouldn't have - I didn't - I'm not going to-" He runs a hand over his face, pressing hard. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Garrett-"
"You should go." He says it without looking at you. "Please."
"I don't think that-"
"Please." His voice cracks on the word. "Please."
You look at him for a long moment.
He is looking at the floor. His hands are at his sides. He looks like something is eating him from the inside, quietly, with his permission.
You pick up your bag, your jacket, and let yourself out.
The door closes behind you.
The house is very still.
Garrett stands in the middle of it for a long time.
---
Logan finds him at eleven-thirty.
He comes back from a late night repair job to the house being dark except for the kitchen light, and Garrett is sitting on the couch with an open beer bottle, not drinking, just holding it. Staring at the middle distance.
He stops in the doorway.
"Hey," he says carefully.
Garrett doesn't respond.
Logan takes off his jacket. Gets a glass of water. Sits on the other end of the couch, leaving space.
Five minutes pass.
"She looked scared of me," Garrett says.
His voice is flat. Empty. Like he's reported something from very far away.
Logan is quiet for a second. "What happened?"
"I lost it." Garrett sets the bottle down on the coffee table, right next to the phone he'd slammed there earlier. "I was frustrated and she kept pushing and I just- I slammed my phone down. And I yelled. And she-" He breathes. "She flinched."
Logan says nothing.
"You yelled," he says, after a moment. "You were pissed. You slammed something down. That's - look, that's not great, but it's not-"
"That's not the fucking point." Garrett's jaw tightens. "That's not - Logan, her dad-" He stops himself. That's not his to say. He shakes his head. "She has a thing. About loud-"
"You didn't know you were going to do it."
"That doesn't matter."
"Garrett-"
"It doesn't matter." He finally looks at his friend, and his eyes are red-rimmed. "I don't get to say I didn't mean to and have that fix it. I did it. It happened. She was standing in my house and she flinched because of me and there's no-" He exhales roughly. "There's no walking that back."
Logan sits with that.
"You're not him," he says, eventually.
Garrett looks away.
"I did the same thing."
"You didn't hurt her."
"I scared her." He says it quietly. "That's enough..."
He was so tired. Tired of himself right now.
"I love her," Garrett says.
"I know," Logan says.
"I don't know what to do with that right now."
Logan doesn't answer, because sometimes there isn't an answer, and Logan is smart enough to know which moments those are.
---
You, meanwhile, are not wallowing.
You are sitting on the edge of Hannah's bed at midnight, and you are furious.
Not at Garrett. Or, not only at Garrett.
That's the complicated part. That's the part that would take a therapist and probably a lot of time to fully untangle, and right now you don't have either, so instead you have your knees pulled up to your chest and Hannah sitting across from you cross-legged and patient besides Allie, because they both know you well enough to wait.
"He scared me," you say.
"I know."
"For like two seconds. I knew it wasn't - I knew it was different, I knew he wasn't going to-" You make a frustrated gesture. "But my body didn't get the memo. And then I looked at his face and I felt guilty-"
"You don't get to feel guilty for-"
"I know that, Allie, I know that, I'm not saying it's rational." You press your fingers against your eyes. "I'm saying that's what happened. I looked at his face and he already looked gutted and I thought oh god, now I've done that to him and that is so fucked up."
"It's not fucked up."
"It is a little bit."
"It's complicated."
You all sit with that for a moment.
"He's going to spiral," you say.
"You don't know that."
"Hannah. You know him. He's going to spiral."
She doesn't argue.
"And then what?" you continue. "He gets to have the breakdown and I get to feel like the reason for it and none of this is-" You stop. Breathe. "I wasn't made of glass before tonight. I'm not made of glass now. I hate the idea that this is the thing that defines the whole-"
You stop again.
You think about the coffee order. The way he remembered.
You think about the nights he made you feel like the most noticed person in the world.
You think about the flinch, and the look on his face afterward.
You're angry. You're scared. You're exhausted. You're grieving something that isn't quite gone yet but that you can feel shifting.
You don't know.
And not knowing is the part that is actually, genuinely unbearable.
---
Two days pass.
They are the worst kind of days. You go to class. You do your readings. You text Hannah and Allie too much and your phone is quiet otherwise and you don't let yourself check it more than twice an hour, which still feels like too much.
Garrett texts once, on day two.
I'm sorry. I know that doesn't fix it. I'm sorry.
You read it six times and don't respond, not because you don't want to, but because you don't know what to say.
On day three, Allie appears in your doorway and says, "We're going to Malone's," with a tone that doesn't accept alternatives.
You go because the walls of your room have started to feel like they're listening.
Malone's on a Friday is comfortable and loud in the way of a place that has hosted a thousand Friday nights, worn into its own shape by it. You slide into a corner booth with Hannah and Allie and order a beer you're not sure you want and try to be present, which mostly works. Hannah doesn't mention Garrett. Allie mentions him once and gets a look from Hannah and drops it. You talk about Allie's audition nightmare and Hannah's research paper and the fact that the dining hall has been inexplicably serving breakfast food at dinner three times this week, and it's almost normal.
Almost.
You see him when he comes in.
Garrett, with Dean and Tucker, half-past nine. He doesn't see you immediately. He's saying something to Dean, nodding toward the bar, and you have about six seconds to decide what to do with your face.
You decide: nothing. Neutral. You're not going to perform anything.
Hannah has seen him too. Her hand finds your knee under the table. Brief. You okay?
You nod.
He spots you on the way to the bar.
The moment is small and enormous. He goes still for just a second, a slight check-step, and then he keeps moving, but his eyes stay on you for a beat longer than is casual. You hold his gaze. You don't look away.
He looks like he hasn't slept.
He looks like he's been carrying something very heavy for three days, which tracks, because you know him well enough now to know that he carries things heavily.
Dean notices the exchange. He steers Garrett toward the bar and away from your line of sight.
You turn back to Allie's story.
An hour passes.
It's Garrett who ends up outside first. You see him slip toward the door, shoulders tight, probably needing air or a moment or both. You give it three minutes and then you look at Hannah.
"I'm going to go talk to him."
Hannah holds your eyes. "You don't have to."
"I know."
"You're allowed to be angry."
"I know that too."
You slide out of the booth.
He's standing at the side of the building, away from the small cluster of smokers near the door. His hands are in his jacket pockets and he's looking at the street, and you watch him for a second before he hears your footsteps and turns.
His face does the thing - the opening, the complicated hope - and then goes careful. Reining something in.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey."
You stop a few feet away. Not the distance of strangers, not the distance of people who have slept tangled together for two months. Somewhere in the middle.
"How are you?" he asks.
"I've been better." You look at him. "You?"
He lets out a breath that might, in another version of this conversation, have been a laugh. "Yeah."
Silence. The street hums. Someone comes out of Malone's and moves past you and the door swings shut again.
"I'm angry," you say, because you decided on the way out here that you weren't going to start anywhere else.
"Okay." He says it carefully.
"Not- it's not a simple anger. It's not just at you." You watch his face. "I'm angry because you scared me. I'm angry because my body did that stupid thing and I hate it. I'm angry because-" You stop. Breathe. "Because you get to spiral about this and I'm the one managing my trauma response and worrying about you at the same time and that's a lot to be in charge of."
His jaw moves. "I know. You shouldn't have to-"
"I know I shouldn't. I'm telling you how it felt, not asking you to fix it."
He nods. He's looking at you very carefully, like he's translating, making sure he hears the right thing.
"I've been thinking," he says, after a moment.
"Tell me."
He looks away. Down the street, at nothing. His jaw works.
"I've been thinking that - I saw your face." His voice is rough. "That night. After I... You stepped back and I saw your face and I can't-" He stops. Swallows. "I know why. I know what that look means and what you learned to do with that look and the fact that I made you do it, that I was the reason-"
"Garrett-"
"Let me say it." He looks at you. "Please."
You go quiet.
"If I can do it once," he says, "I can do it again."
The words land like stones in water.
You watch him.
"That's not-" you start.
"It is." His voice is very flat. Not performative. Just... certain. Like he's made up his mind about something and he's telling you the result. "That's just- that's what it means, Y/N. I have his temper. I've always known I have his temper. I thought I had it controlled but I didn't, and if I couldn't keep it then, when things got bad-" He breathes. "What happens when things get worse? What happens in two years, five years, when there are more things to be bad? What happens the first time something really falls apart and you're standing in front of me and I-"
"Stop."
"-I can't make that promise. I can't look you in the eye and say that won't happen again-"
"Stop." Your voice is harder now. "Stop narrating my future for me."
He goes quiet.
"I'm not a child," you say. "I get to decide what I can and can't handle."
"That's not-"
"You doing this, deciding for me what's too much, deciding I'm too breakable, deciding that you get to make the call about what I walk away from, that's not protection. That's just a different way of taking away my choice."
He looks stricken.
"I know what my dad was," you say, very quietly. "I know what it looks like when it's bad. I've been in a room where bad was the whole atmosphere. That's not-" You gesture, frustrated. "What happened was not that."
"It could be-"
"Stop." You step closer, close enough that you can see the exhaustion in his face, the way he's held himself apart for three days and it's cost him. "You scared me for two seconds. I've been scared before. I survived." You hold his gaze. "And then I looked at your face and saw what it did to you and that was..." Your voice wavers slightly, just once. "That was different than what I grew up with. You understand? That look on your face was different."
Garrett's eyes are wet.
"That's not enough," he says.
"That's not your call."
"Y/N..."
"It's not." You are shaking slightly, not from cold. "You don't get to love me and then decide you're protecting me by leaving. That's not-" You laugh, short and humorless. "That's not how any of this works."
He is quiet for a long time.
The street keeps going. Car lights sweep past the mouth of the alley. Music from inside Malone's bumps through the wall, muffled and warm.
"So what now?" you ask.
Garrett doesn't answer.
He opens his mouth. Closes it. He looks at you with the kind of look that holds an entire argument inside it, every angle, every possibility, all the ways this could go. He looks at you like you're everything and like you're the most dangerous thing in the room.
If he forgives himself, there's a part of him that believes he's telling himself it's okay. That it's acceptable, that the first time is a free pass, that he can do it again with a story ready.
If he doesn't, if he holds this and holds himself responsible and carries it permanently...
He loses you.
He already knows he loses you.
And standing here, in the cold, looking at you in the light spilling out from Malone's, with your arms crossed and your eyes tired and something in your face that is sad and angry and still so impossibly here - he thinks he might deserve to lose you.
He thinks: I am my father's son.
And that thought is so old and so ugly that it's almost a relief to finally be looking at it directly.
"I don't know," he says.
His voice is barely above a whisper.
"You don't know," you repeat.
"I don't know," he says again. "I don't know if I can..." He stops. "I don't know how to do this right. I don't know if there is a right."
You look at him for a long time.
Then you say: "You're not your father."
"You don't know that," he says.
"I know you remember my coffee order," you say. "I know you moved slow every time you saw me flinch at loud sounds. I know you've had three days to be angry at me for pushing you and instead you've been punishing yourself." You hold his gaze. "Your father didn't do any of those things."
Garrett closes his eyes.
"That's not..."
"It's not nothing," you say. "I'm not saying it fixes anything. I'm not saying you're perfect. I'm saying those are two different things and you're flattening them into one because it's easier to decide you're a monster than to actually do the work."
He opens his eyes.
He looks wrecked. Genuinely, quietly, terribly wrecked.
"I scared you," he says.
"Yes." You don't flinch from it. "You did."
"I'm sorry."
"I know you are."
"I can't promise..."
"Then promise something smaller," you say. "Promise therapy. Promise that when you're wound that tight you tell me instead of letting me walk into the middle of it. Promise that you stop making decisions about my life without consulting me." Your voice is very steady, and you are very tired, and you are also, despite all of it, still here. Still standing in front of him. "Promise the next thing. Not the whole future. Just the next thing."
He is looking at you like you've said something in a language he's still learning.
"Why?" he asks.
"Because you remembered my coffee order," you say quietly. "Because you went slow. Because the second it happened you looked sick with yourself before I even had time to react." You swallow. "Because I'm angry and I don't want to leave."
The street is quiet.
Garrett breathes.
He reaches out, very slowly, and the question is obvious - is this okay? - and you step forward instead of back.
He pulls you in.
He holds on like you might disappear if he isn't careful, like you're the most breakable thing in the world and also the most solid, and he presses his mouth against the top of your head and says your name.
Not I love you. Not I'm sorry again. Just your name.
Y/N.
Like it means you are real.
You are here.
I will try to deserve it.
You stand there until the cold gets to be too much.
Until Hannah appears in the doorway looking for you and takes in the scene and disappears back inside without a word.
Until Garrett's breathing evens out against your hair and you feel the tension start to leave his shoulders, slowly, by degrees.
The work isn't done. You both know that. But his arms are around you and you haven't pulled away, and for tonight, that's the only answer either of you has.
summary: in which allie, y/n, sabrina and grace chase a sunset from the hockey house roof, only to end up stranded while the boys swing wildly between panic, frustration, and overwhelming relief trying to get them down safely.
notes: hi!! thank you so much for your request, this was such a fun idea to write! i love incorporating moments where the girls are completely unfazed and oblivious while the boys are losing their minds trying to keep them safe. i hope you all enjoy!! 💌
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ꪆৎ
the sunset idea had sounded significantly smarter forty minutes ago.
back when the four of you were tipsy on cheap wine, sprawled across the living room floor while grace insisted the sky looked too pretty to waste from ground level.
“we should go on the roof,” allie had declared immediately from where she was sat on the couch. which, looking back now, should’ve concerned everyone a little more.
instead, grace had gasped dramatically.
“oh my god, yes!”
you had already started grabbing blankets from around the hockey house before anyone could question the plan, and suddenly all four of you were climbing out through the upstairs bedroom window.
the roof was perfect for sunset.
warm summer air brushed softly against your skin as the sunset stretched pink and orange across campus, the sky painted in streaks of gold that reflected against the windows of the dorm buildings nearby.
grace's speaker played quietly beside you, music low enough that your laughter still carried loud across the roof.
grace lay flat on her back with one arm thrown across her eyes, her half-empty wine glass balancing dangerously against her stomach.
sabrina sat cross-legged beside her trying to tell a story that kept getting interrupted because she physically could not stop laughing at her own retelling.
allie lay beside you, curled beneath a blanket while animatedly talking about how some girl in her tutorial thought dean was 'intimidating'. you smiled softly to yourself, knees tucked beneath your chin while the skyline glowed around you.
there was something so peaceful about being with your people. the kind of closeness that only existed when friendships had crossed so far beyond casual that they’d become something permanent.
your cheeks hurt from laughing, your body pleasantly heavy from alcohol and summer heat, the sunset so pretty it almost didn’t look real.
it felt warm.
safe.
which was probably why none of you noticed the window sliding shut behind you. not until nearly twenty minutes later.
sabrina was the first one to realise.
she’d leaned backwards toward the window to refill her drink from the wine bottle that had been sitting just inside the bedroom, before stopping abruptly.
“…guys?”
allie looked up immediately, “yeah?”
sabrina frowned slightly, pushing at the window once, then harder. to her dismay, it didn't budge and a strange silence settled over you all.
grace slowly sat upright, “why are you making that face?”
“the window’s locked.”
another pause.
“what do you mean locked?” grace asked slowly.
sabrina laughed uncomfortably, her eyes widening in realisation.
“i mean it's shut...it doesn't want to open”
allie crawled over immediately, “let me have a go.” she grabbed the handle, pulling on it, but nothing happened.
the window didn't budge.
her expression shifted almost instantly.
“…oh shit.”
you stared at her, your eyes widening in realisation. “allie, what exactly do you mean by ‘oh shit’?"
she looked back at the four of you and despite the situation, started laughing.
“i think we’re stuck up here.”
you weren’t sure if it was the alcohol coursing through your body or the way the moment felt too warm to properly hold onto, but before you could say anything, laughter spilled from your lips.
because of course this had happened, of course you had somehow found yourselves locked out from the house and stuck on the roof.
the boys were going to kill you.
“okay,” you managed eventually. “it's okay we'll just call one of them”
silence.
grace checked her pockets first.
“…i left my phone downstairs.”
“mine too,” sabrina admitted weakly.
allie slowly grimaced, she had too.
you reached into the pocket of your hoodie before stopping.
“…no.”
grace immediately collapsed backward onto the blankets again.
“oh guys.”
-
the boys knew something was wrong almost immediately, mostly because the house was quiet.
far too quiet.
logan walked through the front door first carrying takeout bags in one hand before immediately narrowing his eyes. “why does it feel haunted in here?”
“y/n?” garrett called out behind him.
nothing.
dean dropped his bag beside the stairs with a frown, noticing allie’s purse abandoned on the kitchen table.
tucker glanced slowly around.
“…why can i hear faint screaming?”
everyone stilled.
logan paused.
“wait.”
there it was again.
distant yelling somewhere above them.
then-
“we're stuck!"
all four boys whipped their heads upward simultaneously.
“…what the fuck?” dean muttered.
they moved immediately.
garrett took the stairs two at a time while logan nearly dropped the takeout trying to keep up. it wasn’t until they rushed into the upstairs bedroom that garrett spotted movement outside the window.
his entire face drained instantly because there you were, sitting on the roof wrapped in a blanket, a small smile gracing your features.
“what the-" logan starts, before garrett quickly cuts him off.
"why are you all on the fucking roof?”
“before you get mad-” you started carefully.
“we got locked out!” allie yells from behind you.
dean physically freezes at the window, his eyes wide in shock. “how does that even happen?”
grace points vaguely towards all of you. “group decision.”
“that does not make it better!"
tucker’s stomach drops the second he notices how close sabrina is to the edge.
“okay no, seriously” he said immediately. “move back, sweetheart.”
“tucker, relax-"
“absolutely not.”
sabrina blinked at him.
“you guys are being dramatic" allie states, a glint of humour evident in her eyes, clearly amused by the situation.
four male voices answer instantly.
“no we are not!”
tucker already has both hands gripping the sides of his head. “you’re all drunk on a roof.”
dean narrows his eyes, focusing on the piece of blue fabric near the gutter.
“…why is there a blanket hanging off the gutter?”
everyone slowly looks down before grace visibly hesitates. “that might’ve been my attempt at making a rope.”
there was a moment of complete silence before dean covers his face with both hands.
“jesus christ-"
“i’m actually getting grey hairs.”
logan looks horrified as realisation crosses his features, “you guys were going to climb down?!”
“well we weren’t planning on living up here permanently,” sabrina points out.
“sabrina.”
“i’m kidding!”
“you’re not funny right now.”
which only makes her burst into laughter.
garrett’s attention snaps back towards you the second you shift closer to the window.
“baby,” he says carefully, in the kind of controlled voice that meant he was significantly more stressed than he wanted to sound.
"i need you to stop moving around up there.”
you blinked at him innocently in response. “i’m literally sitting.”
“exactly. stay sitting.”
“you sound stressed.”
“because my girlfriend is trapped on our roof”
a slight grin tugs at your lips. “trapped feels a bit dramatic, don't you think graham?"
“you guys made a blanket rope, y/n”
you pressed your lips together hard to stop yourself from laughing.
eventually, after twenty minutes of yelling over each other while dean attempted to figure out how the window had managed to lock in the first place and tucker actively debated whether breaking it would somehow make the situation worse, they finally managed to force it open from the inside.
dean was first to help allie climb back through the window while actively lecturing her at the same time.
“you climbed onto the roof drunk.”
“tipsy,” allie corrected immediately, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
“that is not the part of the sentence i’m concerned about.”
once safe, logan had both hands on grace’s face like he genuinely couldn’t decide whether to kiss or yell at her.
“you could’ve fallen.”
“i didn’t though.”
“grace.”
“logan.”
tucker looked genuinely stressed beside sabrina, hands rubbing over his face. “you guys seriously didn’t bring your phones?”
that somehow made all four boys visibly more upset.
“oh my god,” dean muttered. “you are all impossible.”
you were climbing carefully back through the window when garrett’s hand settled instinctively against your waist to steady you. the contact felt firmer than usual, protective in a way that immediately made your chest ache slightly.
because he still looked rattled.
his jaw was tight, eyes scanning over you again like he still wasn’t fully convinced you were okay.
“hey,” you said softly once the two of you were standing properly inside again.
garrett looked down at you immediately and something in his expression shifted the second your voice softened.
less frustration.
more relief.
you reached carefully for his wrist, “we’re okay, we were being safe.”
his hand moved instinctively higher against your waist then, pulling you closer without even seeming to realise he was doing it. he exhaled sharply against the top of your head like he’d been holding his breath ever since he saw you up there.
“how long were you guys stuck out there for?”
the question comes out sharper than he intends it to, his hands settling against your arms like he needed physical confirmation that you were fine.
“not that long,” you said carefully.
“define not that long.”
“…maybe forty minutes.”
he exhales, pressing a delicate kiss to your forehead.
“you scared the shit out of me, you know that?” his voice is quieter than before, the honesty in it hitting significantly harder than you expected.
he sounded genuinely shaken.
you tilted your head back slightly to look up at him.
“but did we die?”
all of the boys groaned simultaneously in response before dean points accusingly at all four of you.
pairing – garrett graham x reader
summary – garrett's girlfriend is drunk, freezing, and extremely loyal. so loyal, in fact, that she refuses his water, his jacket, and his flirting because she’s waiting for… garrett graham.
warnings – fluff, drunk antics, alcohol, post-game party, protective boyfriend garrett, reader doesn't recognise him for most of the fic
notes from me – part of my 1k celebrations!! & based on this request!! thank u anon, such a cute idea 🥹
word count – 4.4k
navigation – masterlist | taglist
There was two versions of Garrett Graham. The version people got in the rink, all sharp focus and captain voice and that very specific game-day intensity that made even strangers in the stands start sitting a little straighter when he skated past.
Then there was the version people got after he’d won, showered, changed, and been handed exactly two beers at a party by Logan, who had called it recovery hydration with the confidence of a man who had never once been trusted by medical professionals.
That Garrett was looser. Warmer. Still tired in the shoulders, still carrying the ache of a hard check somewhere along his ribs, but smiling more easily now, head tipped back while Tucker said something dry beside him and Dean yelled over the music from the kitchen like volume could make a story better.
His hair was still damp at the edges from his post-game shower, curling slightly where he’d shoved his hand through it too many times, and the dark blue Briar letterman jacket had stayed on for maybe twelve minutes before the house got too hot and he dumped it over the back of a chair.
He was, by every reasonable standard, doing great. His girlfriend was not. His girlfriend had arrived at the party with Allie and a plan that had included one drink, maybe two, and absolutely no consideration for the fact that girls pouring vodka cranberries in hockey houses tended to treat measurements as a loose concept.
Garrett had been across the living room when she’d taken the first one. He’d been in the kitchen with Tucker when she’d finished the second. By the time he saw her again, she was standing near the bottom of the stairs with one hand wrapped around a red cup, smiling at something Allie said with the bright, floaty concentration of a girl whose whole body had started operating on a two-second delay.
He could notice a winger drifting out of formation from half a rink away with two guys trying to take his head off. He could absolutely notice his girlfriend blinking too slowly under the hallway light, her cheeks warm from alcohol and the heat of too many bodies packed into the house, her mouth glossy and parted slightly like she kept forgetting whether she was meant to be talking or laughing.
She looked happy, which helped. Loose and giggly and pleased. But she also kept shifting her weight like the floor had become more wobbly than usual, and Garrett had not fought for his life against Harvard’s second line that afternoon just to let his girlfriend get taken out by hardwood.
So he left Logan mid-sentence. Logan didn’t even pretend to be offended. He just followed Garrett’s line of sight, saw her trying to drink from the cup and missing her mouth by half an inch, and winced. “Oh, buddy.”
Garrett pointed at him without looking back. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was gonna say she looks graceful.”
“Die.”
Garrett crossed the room with the easy confidence of someone everyone automatically moved for, red cup of water in hand because Tucker, thank God, had seen the situation unfolding and passed it over like a medic on a battlefield.
She didn’t see Garrett coming. She was too busy nodding very seriously at Allie, who was holding both her hands and saying something that involved the words no, babe, I’m so serious and eyebrow blindness.
Garrett stepped into her space, close enough that his knee brushed hers. “Hey, baby.”
She turned toward him. For one beautiful second, her face went blank. Then her entire expression rearranged itself into scandalised horror.
“Excuse you,” she said, pulling herself up to her full height, which was less effective than usual because she swayed slightly at the top and had to catch Allie’s wrist. “I have a boyfriend.”
Garrett blinked.
Allie made a noise like she’d swallowed a firework. Garrett looked at his girlfriend. His girlfriend looked back at him with genuine, drunken offence, like he’d approached her in a bar wearing a leather bracelet and too much confidence.
“Uh huh,” he said slowly, because there were moments in life that required leadership and moments that required not laughing directly in the face of the girl you loved while she was doing her best. “That’s great.”
“It is great,” she said, lifting her chin. “He’s very tall.”
Garrett’s mouth twitched. “Good for him.”
“And he plays hockey.”
“No shit?”
“And he’s, like, really good at it.”
Allie had turned away now, one hand clamped over her mouth, shoulders shaking. Garrett refused to look at her because if he did, he was going to lose it, and that felt like the sort of thing his girlfriend would interpret as disrespect from a strange man at a party, which apparently he was now.
He held out the cup. “Can you drink some water for me?”
Her eyes narrowed. Suspicious. Wobbly. Deeply loyal to the absent boyfriend currently standing less than a foot in front of her. “Why?”
“Because you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“Baby.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Don’t call me baby.”
“Right. Sorry.” He pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek, nodding with a level of solemnity he absolutely did not feel. “My bad.”
“My boyfriend calls me baby.”
“Does he?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds annoying.”
“He’s not annoying.” She frowned at him with such force that it seemed to briefly take all her balance with it. Garrett’s free hand shot out to her waist before she could tip sideways into Allie. She looked down at it, then back up at him, appalled. “Don’t touch my waist.”
Garrett removed his hand at once, palms lifting. “Alright.”
Allie, still dying, leaned in and said, “Babe, maybe just drink the water.”
She looked betrayed. “You’re taking his side?”
“I’m taking hydration’s side.”
Garrett offered the cup again. “Just a couple sips.”
She stared at him for another second, clearly weighing the moral implications of accepting water from a man who looked suspiciously like her boyfriend but who she had, for reasons unclear to everyone except the vodka, decided was not.
Finally, she took the cup with great caution, like he might use the transfer to propose something criminal, and drank.
Garrett watched her swallow three obedient little sips, then nodded. “Good girl.”
The look she gave him could have killed a weaker man. “Nope.”
“Right. Yep. Forgot.”
“My boyfriend says that.”
“Bet he does,” Garrett muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She handed the cup back, pleased with herself and still indignant, and then immediately turned toward Allie like the conversation had been handled.
Garrett stood there for half a second, holding the water, staring at the side of her face.
Dean appeared beside him like he had been summoned by humiliation itself. “Hey, man.”
Garrett didn’t look over. “Do not.”
Dean’s grin was audible. “She knows you’re her boyfriend, right?”
“She’s drunk.”
“She just told you she has a boyfriend.”
“Yeah, Dean, I was here.”
Dean leaned around him to look at her, delighted. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Garrett finally turned his head and gave him a flat look. “That’s sad.”
“No, what’s sad is getting rejected by your own girlfriend.” Dean clapped him once on the shoulder and immediately stepped out of reach. “Tough shift, captain.”
Garrett pointed at him. “I will put you through a wall.”
“Wow.” Dean called over his shoulder, already retreating. “Her boyfriend would never.”
Garrett took a slow breath through his nose and looked back at her. She was laughing at something Allie said now, one hand pressed to her own chest, head tipping forward so her hair fell around her face.
She looked ridiculous. Beautiful and unsteady and way too warm in the cheeks, standing under the hallway light like the world had gone pleasantly fuzzy and she trusted it not to hurt her because she hadn’t yet noticed Garrett had been replaced by some guy bothering her with cups.
His annoyance softened before it could become anything real. Fine. He could work with this.
For the next twenty minutes, Garrett kept orbiting. That was the only word for it. He didn’t hover, because hovering would get him accused of being controlling by Dean, and probably by her if she remembered how to form an argument.
He orbited. Close enough to keep an eye on her, far enough that she didn’t look up and accuse him of trying to steal girlfriend privileges from Garrett Graham, who was both beloved and missing.
She danced with Allie in the living room, mostly from the waist up because her coordination had started giving its two weeks’ notice.
She complimented Tucker’s shirt with extreme sincerity even though Tucker was wearing the same plain black t-shirt he wore to every party.
She told Logan he looked so tall tonight, which made Logan look down at himself like height might have happened recently and without his permission.
Garrett found her again near the back door, rubbing both hands over her bare arms.
The house was hot, but the door kept swinging open whenever someone stepped out to smoke or yell into the yard, letting in cold spring air that slipped over her skin and made her shoulders inch up toward her ears.
Garrett saw the little shiver move through her before she did. He grabbed his letterman jacket off the chair and came up behind her, careful this time, no hands first. Just the jacket, warm from the room and heavy with him, settled over her shoulders.
“There,” he said, low near her ear. “You’re cold.”
She froze.
Garrett closed his eyes for one second. “Please don’t.”
She shrugged the jacket off so fast it nearly hit the floor. Garrett caught it by the collar.
“Nope,” she said.
“Baby.”
Her head snapped around. “I said no.”
Garrett looked at the ceiling. The ceiling offered no help. “You’re shivering.”
“I only wear my boyfriend’s jacket.”
“This is your boyfriend’s jacket.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It literally has my name on it.”
She squinted at the embroidered Graham on the chest like letters were a personal challenge. “Lots of people are named Graham.”
“Not on this team.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually. I’m the captain.”
Her face twisted with immediate doubt, like that was exactly the sort of lie a jacket predator would tell at a party. “You’re the captain?”
Garrett stared at her. “Oh my God.”
From the couch, Logan made a strangled sound into his beer.
She pointed at Garrett’s chest, very serious now. “My boyfriend is the captain.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard great things.”
“He’s very hot.”
“Is he?”
“So hot,” she said, and then sighed, soft and dramatic and so genuinely fond that Garrett’s irritation had nowhere to land. “Like, stupid hot. It’s actually kind of annoying.”
Garrett’s face moved before he could stop it, warmth pulling at his mouth. “Yeah?”
She nodded. “And he has really nice hands.”
Logan choked.
Garrett didn’t look away from her. “Good hands are important.”
“They are,” she agreed solemnly. “And he’s not some random guy trying to give girls jackets.”
“Right.” He held up the jacket between them, helpless now. “Can I just–”
“No thank you.”
“You’re gonna freeze.”
“I’ll wait for Garrett.”
“You do that,” he said, because love was standing in a hockey house holding your own jacket while your drunk girlfriend faithfully rejected you on your own behalf. “Sounds like a plan.”
She smiled at him then, bright and polite. “Thank you for understanding.”
Garrett looked at her for a long moment, then at the jacket, then back at her. “Anytime.”
He walked away to the sound of Logan losing the fight against laughter so badly he had to bend over his own knees.
“You’re not helping,” Garrett said.
Logan wiped under one eye. “I’m sorry, man, but she’s loyal as hell.”
“She thinks I’m a stranger.”
“She thinks you’re a stranger with bad intentions. There’s a difference.”
“Great. That makes it better.”
Tucker came up beside them, looking far too amused for somebody usually committed to being the reasonable one. “You know, technically, this is a very good sign for your relationship.”
Garrett gave him a look. “Don’t start.”
“She’s hammered and still refusing men for you.”
“She refused me.”
“Exactly. Nobody is safe.”
Dean reappeared then, because joy, unfortunately, had a way of finding him. “I just heard she wouldn’t wear your jacket.”
Garrett’s jaw tightened. “You heard wrong.”
Dean grinned. “Did I?”
“I’m gonna kill you before playoffs.”
“No, you’re not. You’re too busy getting friend-zoned by your girlfriend.”
Garrett shoved him in the chest. Dean laughed all the way into the kitchen.
By the time Garrett found her again, she had somehow migrated to the old armchair near the stairs, sitting sideways with her knees tucked up and Dean perched on the arm like some kind of terrible emotional support animal.
Her bare arms were folded tight over her chest now, because she was still cold and still deeply committed to jacket monogamy. Her face had changed too. Gone softer around the edges, bottom lip pushed out, all the earlier moral outrage curdled into something wounded and grumpy.
Garrett stopped a few feet away. Dean saw him first and his grin turned wicked. “Oh, thank God.”
She frowned up at Dean. “What?”
“Nothing.” Dean patted the top of the chair. “Your night’s about to improve.”
She slumped deeper into the cushion, still looking at Dean. “I haven’t seen Garrett all night.”
Garrett blinked.
Dean pressed his lips together so hard his whole face went strange.
She kept going, mournful now, eyes glossy from alcohol and the kind of drama that only really existed after midnight in a crowded house. “He’s, like, disappeared.”
Garrett slowly looked at Dean.
“He had a game,” she said, to no one in particular, or maybe to Dean’s knee. “And I wanted to tell him he played really good.”
“He knows,” Dean said, voice suspiciously tight.
“No, but I wanted to tell him.” She rubbed at one eye with the heel of her hand, then stopped halfway as if remembering makeup existed. “And there’s this guy who keeps talking to me.”
Garrett’s eyebrows went up.
Dean made direct eye contact with him and looked like he might actually pass away.
“He keeps calling me baby,” she muttered. “And trying to make me drink water.”
Garrett bit the inside of his cheek.
“Sounds awful,” Dean managed.
“So annoying,” she said. “Like, okay, hydration police. I have a boyfriend.”
Garrett stepped closer then, because there were only so many times a man could be called the hydration police by the love of his life before he had to intervene. “Hey, baby.”
Her head lifted. The transformation was immediate and almost violent. Her whole face opened, bright and relieved and suddenly so happy to see him that it genuinely knocked the joke sideways in his chest. “Garrett!”
He froze. “Hi?”
“Baby!” She reached both arms out toward him from the chair, nearly tipping herself forward in the process. Garrett crossed the last step fast and caught her by the hands before she could slide off the cushion. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said again, slower this time, looking down at her. “You recognise me now?”
She frowned like he’d said something deeply strange. “What are you talking about?”
Dean made a sound that might have been a cough if he had not immediately turned away with his shoulders shaking.
Garrett stared at her. “Nothing.”
She squeezed his face, delighted and fully unaware of the damage she’d caused him tonight. “I missed you.”
His mouth softened despite himself. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” She tugged at him, needy and uncoordinated, until he stepped properly between her legs where she’d moved to sit properly in the chair. Her knees bracketed his thighs, her fingers curling in the front of his shirt like now that she had found him, she intended to physically prevent further abandonment. “You were gone for so long.”
Garrett looked at her for one second, then over her head at Dean, who was wiping tears out of the corner of his eye. “I was around.”
She shook her head, very firm. “No.”
“No?”
“No. There was just this guy.”
Garrett nodded, face serious. “Right. The water guy.”
She gasped softly, looking up at him with genuine alarm. “You saw him?”
Dean slid off the arm of the chair. “I need to go tell Logan something immediately.”
Garrett didn’t even try to stop him. His hands had settled at her waist now, thumbs pressing lightly over the fabric of her top because she was still swaying in tiny increments even while sitting down. “Yeah, baby, I saw him.”
“You should talk to him.”
“Oh, I should?”
“Yes.” Her voice dropped into a whisper that wasn’t remotely quiet. “He was flirting with me.”
Garrett’s eyes flicked over her face. “Was he?”
“He kept calling me baby.”
“That’s crazy.”
“And he tried to give me his jacket.”
“What a dick.”
She nodded, relieved that he understood the severity. “I know.”
Garrett’s grin finally broke free, slow and helpless. He stepped closer until her forehead could tip against his stomach, and when it did, she sighed like the entire night had been restored to its proper axis by the smell of his shirt.
He looked down at the crown of her head, at the way her hands had found the hem of his t-shirt and held on loosely, and brushed his fingers once over the back of her hair.
She had rejected him all night. She had accused him of being a stranger, declined his water on principle, refused his jacket with the ferocity of a woman defending a sacred oath, and still somehow the inside of him went soft at the way she leaned into him now, trusting and warm and gone enough to be ridiculous but not gone enough to forget where she wanted to end up.
“Baby,” he murmured.
“Mhm?”
“You wanna get outta here?”
Her head lifted at once. “Yes, please.”
“Yeah?” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, watching the way her eyes followed his face now with no suspicion at all. “You done?”
“So done.” She nodded, then winced faintly at the motion like her brain had moved one direction and her skull another. “Can we go home?”
“Yeah, we can go home.”
“And maybe get McDonald’s?”
Garrett laughed under his breath, and the sound made her smile like she’d won something. “Sure, baby.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. But you gotta stand up first.”
She looked down at her own legs with sudden doubt. “Okay.”
“Confident.”
“I can do it.”
“I know you can.” He took both her hands and backed up half a step, giving her room. “Come on. Up we go.”
She stood with the intense focus of someone attempting a field sobriety test on a ship. Garrett’s hands went to her waist at once, steadying her as her knees straightened and her body tipped forward into his.
He didn’t make a show of it. Didn’t laugh when she grabbed his forearms and blinked hard at the room. He only held her until she found the floor again, fingers spread warm and firm at her sides.
“There we go,” he said softly. “You good?”
She nodded, then thought about it. “Mostly.”
“Mostly works.” He leaned around her just enough to grab his letterman jacket from the back of the chair “Can I put this on you now, or are we still being loyal to your boyfriend?”
She looked at the jacket. Then up at him. Then back at the jacket.
“That’s yours,” she said, like he was the one struggling to keep up.
Garrett pressed his lips together. “Yeah.”
She smiled, sweet and pleased. “Okay.”
He slid it over her shoulders. This time she pushed her arms into the sleeves with immediate enthusiasm, even though they swallowed her hands completely.
Garrett zipped it halfway because she was too busy smelling the collar with a happy little hum that did absolutely nothing for his ability to remain normal.
“You smell good,” she told him.
“Thanks.”
“Like Garrett.”
“Crazy coincidence.”
She nodded, accepting that, and slipped her hand into his when he offered it. Her fingers were warm and clumsy between his, squeezing twice like she was checking he was real. He squeezed back once and started guiding her through the house.
The party kept moving around them. Someone called his name from the kitchen and Garrett lifted his free hand without stopping. Logan appeared near the doorway, took one look at them, and grinned.
“She found you,” he said.
Garrett pointed at him. “Not a word.”
She turned toward Logan, solemn and slightly off-balance. “There was a guy bothering me all night.”
Logan’s mouth opened. Closed. He looked at Garrett, then back at her. “No way.”
She nodded. “Way.”
Garrett kept walking. “Let’s go.”
Behind them, Logan said, “Hope your boyfriend handles that.”
She turned around while still moving, which forced Garrett to catch her by the waist and redirect her like a shopping cart with a bad wheel. “He will!”
“I’m sure he will,” Logan called, voice cracking around laughter.
Outside, the cold hit her properly. She shrank into the jacket at once, shoulders rising, Garrett’s hand still wrapped around hers while they moved down the front steps and along the path toward his car.
The night was damp and dark around the edges, grass glittering faintly under the porch light, the music dulling behind the shut door until it became a pulse more than a song. She walked close to him, not quite straight, occasionally bumping into his side and then apologising to his arm.
“Baby,” she said halfway down the walk.
“Yeah?”
“That guy was so annoying.”
Garrett glanced down at her. “Still thinkin’ about him?”
“He was talking to me all night.”
“Sounds like a loser.”
“He was kind of hot, though.”
Garrett stopped walking.
She stopped too, delayed, then looked back at him with wide innocent eyes. “What?”
He stared at her. “Hot?”
She nodded, very serious. “But not as hot as you.”
“Uh huh.”
“And he had your jacket.”
“My jacket?”
“Yeah.” Her brows pulled together. “Actually, that was weird.”
Garrett looked up at the sky for patience. “So weird.”
“You should talk to him, baby. I’m serious.”
“Oh, I will.”
“Good.” She nodded once, satisfied, and started walking again. “Don’t fight him though. You had a game.”
His mouth twitched. “Right. Wouldn’t wanna overdo it.”
“And you already won.”
“I did.”
“You were really good,” she said, and the words came out softer now, slipping under the joke with no warning at all. Her fingers tightened around his. “I forgot to tell you.”
Garrett’s steps slowed by a fraction. He looked down at her, at her messy hair and flushed cheeks and his too-big jacket hanging off her shoulders, at the careful way she was watching the pavement. “Yeah?”
“Mhm. You did that thing.” She lifted their joined hands vaguely, as if the thing might be available in the air somewhere. “Where you went really fast and then the other guy was stupid.”
Garrett laughed, warm and surprised. “That was my favourite play.”
“It was good. I’m real proud of you.”
“Thanks, baby.”
She leaned into his arm, pleased. “You’re welcome.”
At the car, he opened the passenger door and turned her gently by the hips before she could attempt entry at a dangerous angle. “Alright. Watch your head.”
“I always watch my head.”
“You don’t.”
“I have one.”
“Having one and watching it are different.”
She ducked into the car with exaggerated care, one hand on the roof, one hand still gripping his. Garrett waited until she was seated, then crouched slightly and drew the seatbelt across her.
She looked down at him while he clicked it into place, her expression suddenly soft and sleepy. “Baby.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m so glad I found you.”
His hand paused on the belt for half a second.
She sighed, sinking back into the seat, eyes half-lidded now that the car’s quiet had started wrapping around her. “I missed you tonight.”
Garrett looked at her in the blue dashboard glow, and something in his chest pulled tight and fond and a little ridiculous. “Missed you too.”
“There was this guy–”
“I heard.”
“–and he kept trying to give me water.”
“So rude.”
“Exactly.” Her head tipped against the seat, eyes closing for one beat before opening again. “Can you get me nuggets?”
Garrett smiled and brushed his thumb over her knee before standing. “Yeah, babe. I’ll get you nuggets.”
“And fries.”
“Obviously.”
“And a Sprite.”
“You need water.”
She made a face. “The guy said that too.”
Garrett leaned one arm on the open door and looked down at her, trying very hard not to smile too much because she would see it and accuse him of something. “The guy sounds smart.”
She frowned. “Don’t compliment him.”
“My bad.”
“You’re my boyfriend.”
“I am.”
“And I love you.”
The words came out simple and softened by vodka and sleepiness and the warm cocoon of his jacket around her, but real enough that Garrett felt them land under his ribs.
He bent and kissed her forehead. “I love you too.”
She smiled, eyes closed now. “Good.”
“Good,” he murmured, brushing her hair back from her face before shutting the door.
He walked around the front of the car with a grin he couldn’t quite get rid of, hearing the muffled thump of the party behind him and the faint sound of her shifting around in the passenger seat like she was trying to get comfortable in sleeves three sizes too big.
When he got in, she was already curled toward his side, cheek against the seat, looking at him with heavy eyes and total, trusting recognition.
Garrett started the car. She reached blindly for his hand. He gave it to her.
For a minute they sat there in the dim quiet before he pulled away from the curb, her fingers woven through his, his thumb moving once over her knuckles. Then she inhaled like she had remembered something important.
“Babe?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re gonna talk to that guy, right?”
Garrett smiled at the road, the house falling behind them, McDonald’s glowing somewhere ahead like a drunken little lighthouse.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll give him a stern talking-to.”
“Good,” she mumbled, already drifting. “Tell him I have a boyfriend.”
His grin widened.
“Trust me, baby,” Garrett said, squeezing her hand once as he turned out onto the street. “He knows.”
Summary: Garrett overhears how Y/N feels about him
A/N: This is my first Garrett Graham fanfiction. Please lmk if you liked it!❤️
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼 𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼𓇼 ⋆.˚
The noise of the crowded fraternity house was so loud. When Y/N walked in with Garrett, she could see people clinking plastic cups, and the rising tide of laughter. The scene was literally a blur of lights and energy.
Right now, Y/N was huddled on a velvet corner sofa with her fingers white-knuckling a lukewarm soda. She was trying to look comfortable, but the truth was that she could hear her heart hammering in a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
Garrett was only a few feet away, navigating the throng of people toward the makeshift bar. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms and a crooked grin was plastered on his face as he effortlessly charmed his way through the crowd.
Y/N had spent the last two months tutoring him in Philosophy, teaching him the ethics of Kant and the existential dread of Nietzsche, and it gradually escalated in due time, the dynamic between them. By the second day itself, she realised that she liked watching his brow furrow in concentration and his eyes light up whenever he grasped a complex concept, a bit too much .Somewhere in between, the lines of their intellectual friendship had blurred. The tension had become something both of them were aware of, but didn't talk about. It was kind of like a magnetic pull which made every accidental brush of the fingers feel like an electric shock.
Hannah, Garrett’s best friend and Y/N’s unexpected confidante, slid onto the sofa opposite her, her eyes tracking Garret’s figure across the room with a knowing glint.
"He hasn’t looked at anyone else since we got here, you know," Hannah murmured, wiggling her brows and taking a sip of her drink. "He actually turned down Sarah from the cheer team a few minutes back, in case that's the final nod you need to tell him how you feel about him."
Y/N sighed, the weight of her internal conflict pressing down on her chest. "That’s exactly what scares me, Hannah. I don't know if he's into me like that. He’s the campus legend and heartthrob. He has this reputation of being the playboy who leaves a trail of one-night-only reputations behind him. I just… I’m not built for a cameo in his life."
"Do you actually think that he sees you as just another hookup?" she asked, her voice dropping to a serious tone.
"It's… it's not that, I think he’s terrified of being anything else," Y/N confessed, the words spilling out before she could stop them.
"The thing is, I’m so into him it physically hurts. But what if we cross that line? What if we, i don't know, sleep together, and by the next morning, he’s already bored of me? What if I’m just another chapter he closes before moving on to the next? I just don't want to be a temporary distraction for him. I’d rather keep my sanity and lose the chance than lose myself trying to hold onto him."
Y/N didn’t notice the music shift, or the way the crowd suddenly seemed to thin out near the entrance of the lounge area. She was too focused on the terrifying vulnerability of her own confession that she didn't see the figure frozen right behind her. His hand holding the glass of vodka became perfectly still, and his signature playboy smirk was replaced by devastating realisation. His chest tightened as her words echoed in his ears. Every assumption he had made about his own detachment was dismantled in the span of a few seconds. He had told himself he was just having fun, that he wasn't looking for anything, but standing there, he realised he had been lying to himself just as much as she thought he was lying to her.
He moved with desperate focus, ignoring the rest of the people, his eyes locked entirely on her. When he reached the sofa, he didn't offer the drink. He set it down on the low table and then leaned over it. He placed his hands on the sofa cushions on either side of her head and kneeled down, effectively caging her in. She could not look at him.
Hannah, reading the gravity of the room, vanished into the crowd with a murmur of, “I'll leave you guys to it.”
"Y/N, look at me, please. Is that really what you think? That I’m just waiting for the next thing?” Garrett’s voice was low, devoid of its usual playful cadence and that made her breath hitch.
"Garrett—"
"No, listen to me," he cut in, his gaze burning into hers.
"I spent my entire college career making sure no one got close enough to see the cracks. I perfected the hookups because it was easier and it meant I didn't have any distractions from hockey. It meant I never had to lose anything, because I never gave anything."
He leaned closer, his forehead resting against hers. She could feel his warm breath on her skin. The surrounding party became distant as it felt to them like they were the only two people there.
"Y/N, I didn’t bring you here to show you off or to add another name to a list. Trust me when I tell you that I brought you here because I couldn't stand being in a room without you for one second longer. I'm not a playboy. Well, at least not anymore. Right now, I’m just a guy who realised that the only person he has ever truly wanted to know is you."
His hand moved to her cheek, and his thumb traced her jawline.
"I don't want a night, and I don't want a game. I just want to be the reason you feel safe enough to never have to be scared of me again. Tell me you believe me, please."
The vulnerability in his eyes shattered her defenses. The doubt that had been suffocating her evaporated just like that, and instead, it was replaced by a sudden clarity. She realised then that he wasn't just confessing his love, but was asking for her permission to be the person he wanted to be for her.
"I believe you," she whispered, reaching up to rest her hand over his.
Garrett let out a breath he seemed to have been holding, his shoulders dropping in relief. In the middle of the crowded party, he kissed her like he never wanted to let go.
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼𓇼 ⋆.˚
Thank you so much for reading, lovelies! Feedback is very much appreciated. If you want to be added to the taglist, please lmk!❤️ If you have any requests, feel free to send them in!
Summary: Garrett overhears how Y/N feels about him
A/N: This is my first Garrett Graham fanfiction. Please lmk if you liked it!❤️
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼 𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼𓇼 ⋆.˚
The noise of the crowded fraternity house was so loud. When Y/N walked in with Garrett, she could see people clinking plastic cups, and the rising tide of laughter. The scene was literally a blur of lights and energy.
Right now, Y/N was huddled on a velvet corner sofa with her fingers white-knuckling a lukewarm soda. She was trying to look comfortable, but the truth was that she could hear her heart hammering in a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
Garrett was only a few feet away, navigating the throng of people toward the makeshift bar. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms and a crooked grin was plastered on his face as he effortlessly charmed his way through the crowd.
Y/N had spent the last two months tutoring him in Philosophy, teaching him the ethics of Kant and the existential dread of Nietzsche, and it gradually escalated in due time, the dynamic between them. By the second day itself, she realised that she liked watching his brow furrow in concentration and his eyes light up whenever he grasped a complex concept, a bit too much .Somewhere in between, the lines of their intellectual friendship had blurred. The tension had become something both of them were aware of, but didn't talk about. It was kind of like a magnetic pull which made every accidental brush of the fingers feel like an electric shock.
Hannah, Garrett’s best friend and Y/N’s unexpected confidante, slid onto the sofa opposite her, her eyes tracking Garret’s figure across the room with a knowing glint.
"He hasn’t looked at anyone else since we got here, you know," Hannah murmured, wiggling her brows and taking a sip of her drink. "He actually turned down Sarah from the cheer team a few minutes back, in case that's the final nod you need to tell him how you feel about him."
Y/N sighed, the weight of her internal conflict pressing down on her chest. "That’s exactly what scares me, Hannah. I don't know if he's into me like that. He’s the campus legend and heartthrob. He has this reputation of being the playboy who leaves a trail of one-night-only reputations behind him. I just… I’m not built for a cameo in his life."
"Do you actually think that he sees you as just another hookup?" she asked, her voice dropping to a serious tone.
"It's… it's not that, I think he’s terrified of being anything else," Y/N confessed, the words spilling out before she could stop them.
"The thing is, I’m so into him it physically hurts. But what if we cross that line? What if we, i don't know, sleep together, and by the next morning, he’s already bored of me? What if I’m just another chapter he closes before moving on to the next? I just don't want to be a temporary distraction for him. I’d rather keep my sanity and lose the chance than lose myself trying to hold onto him."
Y/N didn’t notice the music shift, or the way the crowd suddenly seemed to thin out near the entrance of the lounge area. She was too focused on the terrifying vulnerability of her own confession that she didn't see the figure frozen right behind her. His hand holding the glass of vodka became perfectly still, and his signature playboy smirk was replaced by devastating realisation. His chest tightened as her words echoed in his ears. Every assumption he had made about his own detachment was dismantled in the span of a few seconds. He had told himself he was just having fun, that he wasn't looking for anything, but standing there, he realised he had been lying to himself just as much as she thought he was lying to her.
He moved with desperate focus, ignoring the rest of the people, his eyes locked entirely on her. When he reached the sofa, he didn't offer the drink. He set it down on the low table and then leaned over it. He placed his hands on the sofa cushions on either side of her head and kneeled down, effectively caging her in. She could not look at him.
Hannah, reading the gravity of the room, vanished into the crowd with a murmur of, “I'll leave you guys to it.”
"Y/N, look at me, please. Is that really what you think? That I’m just waiting for the next thing?” Garrett’s voice was low, devoid of its usual playful cadence and that made her breath hitch.
"Garrett—"
"No, listen to me," he cut in, his gaze burning into hers.
"I spent my entire college career making sure no one got close enough to see the cracks. I perfected the hookups because it was easier and it meant I didn't have any distractions from hockey. It meant I never had to lose anything, because I never gave anything."
He leaned closer, his forehead resting against hers. She could feel his warm breath on her skin. The surrounding party became distant as it felt to them like they were the only two people there.
"Y/N, I didn’t bring you here to show you off or to add another name to a list. Trust me when I tell you that I brought you here because I couldn't stand being in a room without you for one second longer. I'm not a playboy. Well, at least not anymore. Right now, I’m just a guy who realised that the only person he has ever truly wanted to know is you."
His hand moved to her cheek, and his thumb traced her jawline.
"I don't want a night, and I don't want a game. I just want to be the reason you feel safe enough to never have to be scared of me again. Tell me you believe me, please."
The vulnerability in his eyes shattered her defenses. The doubt that had been suffocating her evaporated just like that, and instead, it was replaced by a sudden clarity. She realised then that he wasn't just confessing his love, but was asking for her permission to be the person he wanted to be for her.
"I believe you," she whispered, reaching up to rest her hand over his.
Garrett let out a breath he seemed to have been holding, his shoulders dropping in relief. In the middle of the crowded party, he kissed her like he never wanted to let go.
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼𓇼 ⋆.˚
Thank you so much for reading, lovelies! Feedback is very much appreciated. If you want to be added to the taglist, please lmk!❤️ If you have any requests, feel free to send them in!
Summary: Garrett is supposed to hate you by association. You’re dating his rival. You’re wearing the wrong colors. But he doesn’t look at you like you’re the enemy, he looks at you like he’s seeing something everyone else has learned to ignore. And when you run out of places to hide, his number is the only one you can think to call
Warnings: 18+ content, domestic violence, sexual assault, and trauma recovery
Read part two here
The locker room smells like victory — sweat, ice, and that particular brand of arrogance that comes from stomping your rivals into the boards. Garrett sits on the bench, unlacing his skates with practiced efficiency, while his teammates celebrate around him like they’ve won the Stanley Cup instead of just another regular season game.
“Did you see Beck’s face when you scored that hat trick?” Dean practically shouts, still riding the high. “Dude looked like he wanted to murder you.”
“Beck always looks like that,” Logan says, toweling off his hair. “Guy’s got permanent asshole face.”
Garrett doesn’t join in the trash talk. He pulls off his skates and flexes his feet, working out the stiffness. Five to one. They demolished BU tonight, and while he should feel satisfied — while he does feel satisfied — something about the win feels hollow. Maybe it’s because Cameron Beck spent most of the third period playing dirty, throwing elbows when the refs weren’t looking, talking shit that had nothing to do with hockey.
“You don’t look good. You look like you’re planning someone’s funeral.”
Garrett manages a half-smile. “Just tired, man. It’s been a long week.”
It has been. Two midterms, practice every day, a game against Northeastern that went into overtime, and now this. He loves hockey — lives for it, really — but sometimes the weight of being captain, of being the guy everyone looks to, of keeping his grades up and his scholarship secure, feels like carrying a truck on his shoulders.
“Alright!” Coach Jensen’s voice cuts through the celebration. “Bus leaves in ten. If you’re not on it, you’re walking back to Briar.”
The team starts moving with renewed urgency, shoving gear into bags, pulling on sweatpants and hoodies. Garrett’s methodical about it, the way he is with everything. Skates in the bag, pads folded properly, stick secured. His mom taught him that — take care of your equipment and it’ll take care of you.
He pushes the thought away before it can dig in too deep.
“You riding shotgun?” Logan asks as they head toward the bus.
“Nah, you take it. I’m gonna crash in the back.”
The cold Boston air hits him like a slap when they step outside. February in New England is brutal, the kind of cold that gets into your bones and doesn’t let go. The team bus idles in the parking lot, exhaust forming clouds in the darkness. Most of the guys are already boarding, still loud, still buzzing.
That’s when Garrett sees them.
At first, it’s just movement in his peripheral vision — two figures near the back entrance of the arena, half-hidden in shadows. He almost doesn’t look. Almost keeps walking toward the bus because it’s cold and he’s tired and it’s none of his business.
But then he hears it. A voice, male, low and vicious.
“I told you not to embarrass me.”
Garrett stops walking. Tucker nearly crashes into him.
“Dude, what-”
“Hold on.”
He moves closer, his body reacting before his brain catches up. The angle shifts and he sees her clearly now — a girl, small, pressed back against the brick wall with her hands up in a gesture that Garrett recognizes instantly. It’s the same way his mom used to stand when his dad came home in one of his moods. Defensive. Placating. Terrified.
The guy is Cameron Beck. Even from fifteen feet away, even in the shitty parking lot lighting, Garrett knows it’s him. And Beck has his hand wrapped around your wrist, squeezing hard enough that Garrett can see you wince.
“Cameron, please-” Your voice is barely audible, thin and desperate. “I didn’t do anything-”
“You were talking to that guy. I saw you.”
“He asked me for directions to the bathroom-”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
Beck yanks you forward and you stumble, catching yourself against his chest. He grabs your other wrist and Garrett sees them clearly now — the bruises. Dark purple and yellow, finger-shaped marks that circle both your wrists like ugly bracelets.
Something white-hot ignites in Garrett’s chest.
“Hey!” His voice comes out harder than he intends, sharp enough to make Beck’s head snap up. “Get your hands off her.”
Beck doesn’t let go. If anything, his grip tightens. “Mind your own business, Graham.”
“I said, get your fucking hands off her.”
Garrett’s already moving, closing the distance. He’s vaguely aware of his teammates behind him — Tucker’s saying something, maybe Logan too — but all he can focus on is your face. You’re looking at him now, and your eyes are the most heartbreaking thing he’s ever seen. Wide and dark and absolutely terrified, but not of Beck. Of him. Of the situation. Of what’s going to happen next.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Beck says, but there’s an edge to his voice now. He drops your wrists and steps slightly in front of you, like he’s shielding you from view. Like he’s protecting you instead of hurting you.
You don’t move. Don’t run. Just stand there with your arms wrapped around yourself, and Garrett can see you shaking even from here.
“You always put your hands on people smaller than you?” Garrett asks, his voice deadly calm now. “Or just women who can’t fight back?”
“Watch your mouth-”
“Graham!” Coach Jensen’s voice cuts across the parking lot. “What the hell are you doing? Get on the bus!”
Garrett doesn’t move. He keeps his eyes locked on Beck, watching for any sign that he’s going to grab you again. Behind Beck, you’re barely breathing. You’re wearing a BU sweatshirt that’s too big for you and jeans that look painted on, and even though it’s freezing, you’re not wearing a coat. Your hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and there’s a bruise on your cheekbone that makeup can’t quite hide.
“Is he hurting you?” Garrett directs the question to you, but you don’t answer. Just stare at him with those haunted eyes.
“She’s fine,” Beck snaps. “She’s my girlfriend and this is between us, so why don’t you take your hero complex and shove it-”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
“Graham! Now!” Coach Jensen sounds pissed.
Tucker’s hand lands on Garrett’s shoulder. “Come on, man. We gotta go.”
“Not until-”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Tucker says quietly, meant only for Garrett’s ears. “Not here. Not now.”
Garrett knows he’s right. Knows that if he throws a punch at Beck right now, he’s the one who’ll get suspended. Knows that confronting Beck isn’t going to help you, might even make things worse once you’re alone again. But walking away feels impossible. It feels like the biggest betrayal in the world.
He looks at you one more time. Tries to communicate something with his eyes. I see you. I know what’s happening. This isn’t okay.
“I’m watching you, Beck,” he says finally. “You fuck up, and I’ll know about it.”
“Yeah, I’m real scared,” Beck sneers, but he doesn’t sound as confident as before.
Tucker practically drags Garrett back to the bus. The guys have all gone quiet now, watching. Logan looks grim. Dean looks confused. Some of the younger guys look uncomfortable, like they’re not sure what just happened.
“What the hell was that?” Coach demands as Garrett climbs the steps.
“Beck was hurting his girlfriend.”
“And you thought starting a fight in their parking lot was the solution?”
“I didn’t start anything. I told him to back off.”
“Sit down. We’re talking about this later.”
Garrett moves to the back of the bus and drops into a seat, his heart still jackhammering against his ribs. Through the window, he can see you — Beck has his arm around your shoulders now, steering you toward the parking garage. To anyone else, it probably looks almost normal. Protective, even. But Garrett sees the way you’re holding herself. Sees the careful distance you’re trying to maintain even while being pulled close.
The bus engine rumbles to life. They start moving, pulling out of the parking lot, and Garrett watches until he can’t see you anymore.
He punches the seat in front of him. Hard enough that his knuckles split, hard enough that pain shoots up his arm.
“Whoa!” Dean twists around. “Dude, what the hell?”
“Leave him alone,” Logan says quietly.
Garrett stares out the window at the Boston lights sliding past. His hand throbs. His chest feels tight. And all he can see is your face — the terror in your eyes, the bruises on your wrists, the way you didn’t say a word in your own defense.
He doesn’t even know your name.
***
You’re shaking so hard your teeth chatter.
“Get in the car,” Cameron says. His voice is controlled now, almost gentle. It’s worse than the yelling. So much worse.
“Cameron-”
“Get. In. The car.”
You slide into the passenger seat of his BMW and buckle your seatbelt with trembling fingers. The bruises on your wrists ache where he grabbed them. They’ve barely healed from last time, and now they’re going to be even worse tomorrow. You’ll have to wear long sleeves again. Find excuses not to go to the gym, where someone might see you change.
Cameron gets in the driver’s side and sits there for a moment, both hands on the steering wheel. You don’t look at him. You learned months ago that making eye contact during these moments is dangerous.
“That guy asked you for directions,” Cameron says finally.
“Yes.”
“To the bathroom.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think it was weird that some random dude was asking you instead of literally anyone else?”
Your throat feels like it’s closing. “I was just trying to be helpful.”
“Helpful.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “You want to be helpful? Stop making me look like an idiot. We were in public, Y/N. People could see you flirting-”
“I wasn’t flirting-”
The slap comes so fast you don’t see it. One second you’re trying to defend yourself, the next your cheek is on fire and your eyes are watering. It wasn’t hard — Cameron knows better than to leave marks where people can see them easily — but it’s enough to shut you up.
“Don’t interrupt me.” His voice is still calm. Still controlled. “I’ve had a shit night. We lost five to one. Five to fucking one. And then I have to watch my girlfriend chatting up random guys like she’s single.”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper.
“What?”
“I’m sorry.” Louder this time.
“That’s better.” He starts the car. “We’re going back to my place. You’re staying the night.”
It’s not a question. It’s never a question anymore.
You stare out the window as he drives, watching Boston blur past. You used to love this city. Used to walk around campus with your camera, taking pictures for the journalism assignments that actually excited you. Used to have friends, plans, dreams. You were going to work for ESPN. You were going to be the next Erin Andrews, traveling with teams, doing sideline reporting, making a name for yourself.
That was before Cameron. Before he slowly, methodically, isolated you from everyone who cared about you. Before he convinced you that you were lucky to have him, that no one else would ever want you, that you were too sensitive, too dramatic, too much work.
Before you started believing him.
Your phone buzzes in your pocket. You don’t reach for it. Cameron has rules about phones when you’re with him. You learned that lesson too.
“Who is it?” He asks.
“I don’t know. I didn’t look.”
“Check.”
You pull out your phone with shaking hands. It’s your roommate, Julie. Where are you? You ok?
“Julie,” you say. “Asking where I am.”
“Tell her you’re with me. Tell her you’ll be back tomorrow.”
You type out the message exactly as instructed. Julie responds immediately. Call me when you can. Please.
She knows. Of course she knows. She’s seen the bruises, heard the excuses, watched you disappear into yourself over the past year. She’s tried to talk to you about it, tried to convince you to leave, but you’ve gotten good at deflecting. Good at lying. Good at pretending everything’s fine.
“Done?” Cameron asks.
“Done.”
“Good girl.”
The words make your stomach turn. He used to say them differently — warm, affectionate, after you’d aced an exam or nailed an interview. Now they’re just another way to control you. Another reminder that your worth is tied to your obedience.
You think about the guy from the parking lot. The hockey player who intervened. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair and eyes that looked almost black in the shitty lighting. But it was the way he looked at you that’s stuck in your head. Like he actually saw you. Like he recognized something in your terror that other people miss or choose to ignore.
I’m watching you, Beck.
Cameron’s hands tighten on the steering wheel like he’s remembering it too.
“That Graham kid is going to be a problem,” he mutters.
You don’t respond. You’ve learned that sometimes the safest thing to do is stay silent, make yourself small, wait for the storm to pass. You’ve gotten so good at it that sometimes you forget how to be anything else.
Sometimes you can’t remember what your real voice even sounds like anymore.
Cameron’s apartment is in one of the nicer buildings near campus — his parents pay for it, along with his car and his credit cards and pretty much everything else. He’s never had to work for anything in his life, which maybe explains why he thinks people are possessions. Things to own and control.
You follow him inside, toeing off your shoes by the door. The apartment is immaculate because Cameron has a cleaning service. There are hockey trophies on the shelves and a massive TV mounted on the wall. It looks like something out of a magazine. It looks nothing like the prison it’s become.
“I’m going to shower,” Cameron says, already pulling his shirt over his head. “You should be in bed when I get out.”
It’s not a suggestion.
You nod and he disappears into the bathroom. The second the door closes, you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Your hands are still shaking. Your cheek still stings. Your wrists throb with every heartbeat.
You sit on the edge of his bed and stare at the wall.
This is your life now. This is what you’ve become. A girl who flinches at loud noises, who measures every word before speaking, who has nightmares about making her boyfriend angry. A girl who used to be bright and funny and ambitious but now can barely recognize herself in the mirror.
Your phone buzzes again. Julie. I’m worried about you. Please talk to me.
You want to. God, you want to. But what would you even say? That you’re too scared to leave? That you’ve tried twice and both times Cameron found you, convinced you to come back, promised he’d change? That you’re terrified of what he’ll do if you try again?
That part of you has started to believe you deserve this?
You delete the message without responding and put your phone on silent.
In the bathroom, the shower turns off. You have maybe three minutes before Cameron comes out, before you have to paste on a smile and pretend everything’s okay, before you have to be the version of yourself that keeps him happy.
You change into the clothes you keep here — sleep shorts and one of Cameron’s old t-shirts — and climb into bed. Pull the covers up. Make yourself small.
And you think about the hockey player one more time. About the way he looked at Beck like he wanted to break him in half. About the way he looked at you like you mattered.
Then you close your eyes and wait for Cameron to decide what happens next.
Because that’s all you do anymore.
Wait.
***
The dream always starts the same way.
Garrett is seven years old, small for his age, standing in the hallway of their old apartment in Manhattan. The wallpaper is peeling near the ceiling and there’s a water stain that looks like a dragon if you squint. He used to stare at that dragon for hours, imagining it coming to life and burning everything down.
His father is in the living room. Garrett can hear him before he sees him — that particular tone of voice that means his mom did something wrong. Or didn’t do something right. Or just existed in a way that pissed him off.
“I told you I needed my dress shirt ironed,” his dad says. Phil Graham, star defenseman for the New York Rangers, six-foot-three and two hundred pounds of controlled violence. “I have a fucking press conference in an hour, Lauren.”
“I know, I’m sorry-” His mom’s voice is small, apologetic. “I forgot, I was picking up Garrett from school and then I had to-”
“I don’t care what you had to do. When I tell you something needs to get done, it needs to get done.”
Seven-year-old Garrett peers around the corner. His mom is standing by the ironing board, one hand pressed to her chest like she’s trying to hold herself together. His dad is looming over her, still in his Rangers sweatpants, hair wet from the shower.
“Don’t fucking cry,” his dad snaps when his mom’s eyes start to water. “Jesus Christ, you’re so dramatic. All I asked was for you to iron a goddamn shirt-”
“I’ll do it now, it’ll only take a minute-”
His dad grabs the iron. For a second, Garrett thinks he’s just going to do it himself, but then his mom flinches and Garrett knows — knows with the certainty that children who grow up in war zones develop — that something bad is about to happen.
“You think this is hot?” His dad asks, holding the iron close to his mom’s face. Not touching, not yet, but close enough that Garrett can see her leaning back, trying to create distance. “You think this is as hot as I’m going to be standing in front of those cameras looking like an idiot because my wife can’t do the one fucking thing I asked her to do?”
“Phil, please-”
The iron moves closer. His mom’s breath comes in short, panicked gasps.
“Stop!” Garrett shouts, but his voice is tiny, insignificant. He runs into the room, grabs his dad’s arm with both hands, tries to pull him away. “Leave her alone! Leave her alone!”
His dad shoves him backwards. Not hard — never hard enough to leave marks where people can see — but enough to send seven-year-old Garrett stumbling into the coffee table. Pain explodes in his hip.
“Go to your room, Garrett.”
“No! Stop hurting Mom!”
“I said go to your fucking room!”
But Garrett can’t move. Can’t do anything but watch as his dad turns back to his mom, as she raises her hands in that defensive gesture Garrett will see repeated a thousand times over the next ten years, as his dad-
The dream shifts.
Now Garrett isn’t seven anymore. He’s twenty-one, standing in a parking lot in Boston, and it’s not his mom against the wall. It’s you. The girl from the parking lot. You’re looking at him with those terrified eyes and Cameron Beck has his hands around your wrists and Garrett can see the bruises blooming under Beck’s fingers like ugly flowers.
“Help me,” you whisper.
Garrett tries to move but his feet are cement. He’s frozen, useless, watching it happen all over again.
“I’m watching you, Beck,” he hears himself say, but it sounds hollow. Meaningless.
Beck laughs. “Yeah? What are you going to do about it?”
You’re crying now. “Please. Please help me.”
“I can’t,” Garrett says, and the words feel like they’re being ripped from his chest. “I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t-”
Beck’s hands tighten. You scream. And Garrett just stands there, seven years old again, helpless, watching someone he should protect get hurt and doing nothing, nothing, nothing-
He wakes up in a cold sweat, gasping like he’s been drowning.
His dorm room is dark except for the numbers on his alarm clock: 4:19 AM. Garrett’s sheets are tangled around his legs and his heart is trying to punch through his ribcage.
He sits up, runs both hands through his hair, tries to breathe.
It’s been years since he had the dreams this bad. Years since he woke up feeling like this — angry and helpless and so fucking furious at the world that he wants to break something. After his mom died, after he finally got away from his dad and came to Briar on a full ride, he thought he’d left this behind. Thought he could bury it under hockey and classes and being the kind of captain his team needs.
But one look at that girl’s face and it all came roaring back.
He grabs his phone from the nightstand, squints at the brightness. No new messages. Nothing from anyone who would be awake at this hour.
He opens Instagram.
He’s not even sure what he’s looking for. Closure, maybe. Confirmation that what he saw was real and not some manifestation of his own trauma. Proof that you exist, that you’re okay, that he didn’t just imagine the terror in your eyes.
But he doesn’t know your name. Doesn’t know anything about you except that you’re dating Cameron Beck and you’re in trouble.
Garrett’s never been one for social media stalking — he barely posts on his own accounts — but he navigates to Beck’s profile with the grim determination of someone going to war. The guy’s profile is exactly what Garrett expected: carefully curated photos of hockey wins, parties, expensive shit his parents bought him. Every caption is some variation of “living my best life” or “grind never stops” or other meaningless bullshit.
Garrett scrolls back through months of posts, his jaw getting tighter with each one, until finally … there.
A photo from last summer. Beck at some beach, tanned and shirtless, arm slung around a girl in a yellow bikini. You’re smiling at the camera but it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. The caption reads Summer vibes with my girl.
You’re tagged. @yourusername
Garrett clicks through so fast he almost drops his phone.
Your profile loads and he feels something in his chest twist. Your bio is simple: BU | Journalism | Boston Born & Raised. Your profile picture is you in a Bruins jersey, grinning at whoever’s taking the photo, eyes bright with genuine happiness.
He starts scrolling.
The most recent post is from four months ago. You at some coffee shop, mug raised in a half-hearted toast, smile that looks more like a grimace. The caption is just a coffee emoji. Before that, five months ago: you and another girl at what looks like a BU football game. You’re wearing sunglasses but Garrett can see the tension in your shoulders, the way you’re leaning slightly away from the camera.
He keeps scrolling back and the transformation is devastating.
Eight months ago: you holding up an acceptance letter, caption reading INTERNSHIP AT WEEI SPORTS RADIO! Dreams coming true! Your smile is radiant. Real.
Ten months ago: a whole series of posts from what looks like spring break. You and a group of friends at various beaches, bars, tourist traps. You’re laughing in most of them, mid-sentence, caught in moments of unselfconscious joy.
A year ago: you with a camera around your neck, press pass visible, standing on the sidelines of what looks like a hockey game. First day covering BU hockey for the Daily Free Press! Living the dream!
Garrett stops on that one. Studies your face. You look so young, so excited, so full of potential. This was before Beck, he realizes. Or maybe early in the relationship, before it turned bad. Before you learned to make yourself small.
He keeps scrolling, going further back. You playing intramural soccer. You at journalism club meetings. You with your family at what looks like a Thanksgiving dinner, squeezed between an older couple who must be your parents. You’re wearing a sweater and you’re laughing at something off-camera.
The last post from freshman year shows you standing in front of a BU dorm building, suitcases at your feet, arms spread wide. The caption reads Let’s do this, Boston! 📚🎓
You looked so hopeful.
Garrett closes Instagram and stares at his ceiling. Outside, he can hear the first birds starting their morning songs. The world is waking up and he hasn’t slept at all, and all he can think about is the difference between the girl in those old photos and the girl he saw in the parking lot.
You used to be so alive.
What the fuck did Beck do to you?
***
You’re running through a hallway that never ends.
Behind you, Cameron is gaining ground. You can hear his footsteps, heavy and relentless, can hear him calling your name in that tone that makes your blood freeze.
“Y/N! Get back here!”
You’re trying to scream but nothing comes out. Your legs feel like they’re moving through water. There are doors on either side of the hallway but when you try the handles, they’re all locked. Every single one.
“You can’t run from me,” Cameron says, and suddenly he’s right behind you, his hand closing around your arm, spinning you to face him. “You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.”
He’s not angry. That’s the worst part. He’s smiling, calm, like this is all perfectly reasonable.
“Please,” you manage to whisper. “Please let me go.”
“I can’t do that. You know I can’t do that.” His grip tightens until you can feel your bones grinding together. “Who else is going to love you? Who else is going to put up with you?”
“Someone,” you sob. “Anyone.”
“No one wants damaged goods, baby.”
The scene shifts. Now you’re in his apartment, in his bed, and he’s on top of you and you’re trying to say no, trying to push him away, but your arms won’t work. Your voice won’t work. Nothing works except the part of your brain that’s screaming this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong-
And then you’re in the parking lot again, pressed against the cold brick wall, and Cameron’s hands are around your throat and you can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t-
The hockey player appears. The one from last night. He’s reaching for you, mouth moving, saying something you can’t hear over the roaring in your ears.
Help me, you try to say, but Cameron’s grip gets tighter.
The hockey player turns away.
Everyone always turns away.
You wake up to pain.
At first, you can’t process what’s happening. Your body registers it before your brain does — the invasion, the wrongness, the way your body is being used without your consent. Again.
Cameron is inside you.
You’re lying on your side, facing away from him, and he’s behind you, one hand gripping your hip hard enough to bruise, moving with steady, selfish rhythm. You’re not ready. He didn’t prepare you, didn’t wake you, didn’t ask. Just took what he wanted because in his mind, you’re his to take.
You stare at the wall and let it happen.
Fighting makes it worse. You learned that months ago. Crying makes it worse. Asking him to stop makes it worse. So you just lie there and wait for it to be over, counting the seconds in your head, disassociating so hard you might as well be floating on the ceiling.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.
Cameron’s breath is hot on your neck. His grip tightens.
“So good for me,” he murmurs, like this is romantic. Like this is consensual. “My perfect girl.”
A single tear slides down your cheek and disappears into the pillow.
Forty-eight Mississippi. Forty-nine Mississippi.
He finishes with a grunt, pulling out and rolling away from you like you’re a tissue he’s done with. You feel the wetness between your legs, feel the ache that’s going to linger all day.
“Morning, babe,” Cameron says, already reaching for his phone. “I’m thinking pancakes for breakfast. You want pancakes?”
You don’t answer. Can’t answer. Your voice is buried somewhere so deep you’re not sure you’ll ever find it again.
“Y/N? Pancakes?”
“Sure,” you whisper.
“Cool. There’s that place on Comm Ave we like. Get dressed.” He’s already out of bed, completely unbothered, heading for the bathroom. “Wear that blue dress I got you. The one that shows off your legs.”
The bathroom door closes. The shower turns on.
You lie there for another minute, staring at nothing, feeling nothing. Then you get up because that’s what you do. You get up and you put yourself back together and you pretend everything is fine.
In the bathroom mirror, you look like a ghost. There are dark circles under your eyes that makeup won’t fully hide. Your hair is a mess. The bruises on your wrists have darkened overnight, deep purple now, unmistakable.
You brush your teeth. Wash your face. Try to find some version of yourself in the reflection that you recognize.
She’s not there.
You get dressed like Cameron asked — the blue dress that you used to like before it became a costume, before it became something you wear to keep him happy. It’s February and freezing but you add tights and a cardigan and hope that’s enough to satisfy him.
When Cameron comes out of the bathroom, he’s in a good mood. That’s almost worse than when he’s angry. When he’s angry, at least you know where you stand. When he’s happy, you’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“You look beautiful,” he says, kissing your forehead like he didn’t just violate you twenty minutes ago. “Ready?”
You nod.
Breakfast is performative. Cameron orders the biggest thing on the menu — some ridiculous stack of pancakes with whipped cream and berries — and expects you to do the same. You order oatmeal because your stomach is churning and you know you won’t be able to eat much anyway.
“That’s all you’re getting?” Cameron frowns. “Come on, babe. Live a little.”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“You’re never hungry anymore.” He reaches across the table, takes your hand. To anyone watching, it looks sweet. Loving. They can’t see the way his thumb digs into your bruised wrist. “You’re getting too thin. It’s not attractive.”
“Sorry,” you say automatically.
“It’s fine. We’ll work on it.” He releases your hand and pulls out his phone. “Shit, I have a meeting with my advisor at ten. Can you be ready to leave in twenty?”
“Yeah.”
You pick at your oatmeal while Cameron scrolls through his phone, occasionally showing you memes that aren’t funny, highlights from last night’s game that you don’t care about. He’s talking about the playoffs, about how BU is definitely going to make it even though they lost to Briar, about how that Graham kid got lucky.
“Cocky bastard,” Cameron mutters. “Someone needs to put him in his place.”
You think about the way Garrett Graham looked at Cameron last night. The absolute fury in his eyes. The way he stepped between you like he actually gave a shit about a stranger.
“Did you hear me?” Cameron asks.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said you can’t come to the next game. After the way you embarrassed me last night, I think you need a break from being around the team.”
Relief floods through you so fast you feel dizzy. “Okay.”
“Don’t sound so happy about it.”
“I’m not—I didn’t mean-”
“Relax. I’m kidding.” He’s smiling but his eyes are cold. “Jesus, you’re so tense all the time. Maybe you should see someone about that.”
By someone, he means a therapist. He’s suggested it before, usually right after he’s the reason you need one. The implication is always clear: you’re the problem. You’re too sensitive, too anxious, too broken. Never mind that he’s the one who broke you.
You make it through breakfast. Through the ride back to campus. Through Cameron walking you to your dorm like he’s some kind of gentleman.
“I’ll text you later,” he says, kissing you goodbye on the steps. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” you say, because that’s the script.
***
Garrett can’t focus on anything Professor Harris is saying about Kant’s categorical imperative. He’s sitting in the back row of his Philosophy 301 lecture, laptop open to a notes document that’s completely blank except for the date, phone hidden behind his screen.
He’s still on your Instagram.
He’s gone through every post now, read every caption, studied every photo. He’s built a timeline in his head: You started dating Beck around March of last year. The first photo of you two together was from spring break. You looked happy then. Cautious, maybe, but happy.
By summer, something had changed. You started posting less. Your smiles looked forced. The photos with Beck became more frequent but you looked less comfortable in each one.
By fall, you barely posted at all. And the few photos that are there — you look hollow. Like someone reached inside and scooped out everything that made you you.
The last post, from four months ago. You haven’t shared anything since.
Garrett wonders if Beck made you stop. If he isolated you so completely that you don’t even have the autonomy to post on social media anymore.
His hand tightens around his phone.
“Mr. Graham.”
Garrett’s head snaps up. Professor Harris is looking at him expectantly, along with the rest of the class.
“Sorry, what?”
“I asked if you could explain the practical imperative.”
Garrett has no idea. He was a good student once — still is, technically, maintaining the 3.5 GPA his scholarship requires — but right now his brain is full of you and Beck and the sound of his mom’s voice saying please in his nightmares.
“I … uh …”
“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means,” Logan says from two rows ahead, saving his ass.
Professor Harris nods, apparently satisfied, and turns back to his lecture.
Garrett shoots Logan a grateful look. Logan just raises his eyebrows in a what the hell is wrong with you expression.
Garrett goes back to his phone. He knows he should stop. Knows this is bordering on obsessive. But he can’t shake the feeling that if he can just find you, if he can just talk to you, he can help. He can do what he couldn’t do for his mom.
He opens Beck’s Instagram again, goes back through the tagged photos, looks for clues. Where do you go? What do you do? How the fuck is he supposed to find one girl in a city of seven hundred thousand people?
Class ends at 11:30. Garrett packs up his stuff mechanically, mind still churning.
“Dude.” Logan falls into step beside him as they file out of the lecture hall. “You good? You’ve been weird since last night.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
They walk across campus in silence. It’s brutally cold, the kind of February day that makes you question why anyone lives in New England. Students hurry past with their heads down, buried in their coats.
“That girl last night,” Garrett says finally. “Beck’s girlfriend. I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Yeah, that was fucked up.”
“I should’ve done more.”
“G, you did what you could. What were you supposed to do, kidnap her?”
“Maybe.”
Logan stops walking. “Are you serious right now?”
“No. I don’t know.” Garrett scrubs a hand over his face. “I just … I’ve seen this before. I know how it ends.”
Logan’s expression softens. He knows about Garrett’s mom. They’ve been friends since freshman year, and you can’t live with someone for that long without learning their ghosts.
“You can’t save everyone,” Logan says gently.
“I couldn’t save her either.”
“You were a kid.”
“I’m not a kid anymore.”
They resume walking. Practice is at 2:00, which gives Garrett a couple hours to grab lunch and pretend to study. But he knows he won’t be able to concentrate. Won’t be able to think about anything except you and those bruises and the terrified look in your eyes.
“What are you going to do?” Logan asks.
“I don’t know yet.”
But he’s lying. He knows exactly what he’s going to do.
***
Practice is brutal. Coach Jensen runs them into the ground — suicides, bag skating, drills until Garrett’s legs are shaking and his lungs are burning. It’s punishment for last night, for the altercation in the parking lot, for drawing attention to the team in a way that doesn’t involve winning games.
Garrett welcomes the pain. Uses it to clear his head.
By the time they’re done, it’s almost 5:00 PM and the sun is setting. The team staggers to the locker room, everyone too exhausted to do more than grunt at each other.
Garrett sits on the bench, peeling off his gear, when he remembers.
Colin Monroe.
Monroe transferred from BU to Briar at the start of the season — some issue with playing time, Garrett never got the full story. He’s a sophomore defenseman, solid player, keeps mostly to himself. But he spent a year and a half at BU before transferring.
He would know where BU students hang out.
Garrett waits until most of the team has cleared out, until it’s just him and Monroe and a couple other guys. He approaches casually, like the thought just occurred to him.
“Hey, Monroe.”
Colin looks up from tying his shoes. “Yeah?”
“You were at BU before you transferred, right?”
“For a year and a half, yeah. Why?”
Garrett tries to sound casual. “Just curious where you guys hung out. Like, where do BU students go? Coffee shops, bars, whatever.”
Monroe gives him a weird look. “Why do you want to know?”
“Just thinking about checking out some new spots. You know, off-campus stuff.”
“You’re asking me for Boston recommendations? Dude, you’ve been here longer than I have.”
Fair point. Garrett pivots.
“Okay, fine. I’m looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“A girl from BU. I need to talk to her.”
Monroe’s expression shifts from confused to amused. “Oh shit, did you hook up with someone from the rival team? That’s bold.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
Garrett debates how much to say. Monroe is a good guy, not a gossip, but this feels too personal to share. Too raw.
“I just need to find her,” Garrett says finally. “It’s important.”
Monroe studies him for a long moment, then shrugs. “Alright, man. BU kids are all over Comm Ave and Kenmore. There’s this coffee shop called Pavement that’s always packed with journalism and comm students — it’s right on Commonwealth, you can’t miss it. There’s also The Castle, this pub on Brighton Ave that does trivia on Wednesday nights. And if she’s into the athletic crowd, they’re usually at The Dugout on game days.”
“Yeah, it’s like, the spot. Everyone’s always in there working on articles or whatever.”
Something clicks in Garrett’s brain. Your Instagram bio. Journalism.
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
“Sure. Good luck with your mysterious BU girl.” Monroe grins. “Let me know if you need a wingman.”
“I will.”
Garrett grabs his bag and heads out before anyone else can ask questions. His car is parked in the lot behind the arena, and he sits in the driver’s seat for a minute, engine running, heat blasting.
He pulls up Pavement Coffee on Google Maps. It’s a twenty-minute drive from Briar. He could go now. Could drive over there and camp out and wait to see if you show up.
But then what? Walk up to you? Say what, exactly? Hey, I saw your boyfriend abusing you last night and I’ve been stalking your Instagram all day, want to grab a coffee and talk about your trauma?
Garrett drops his head against the steering wheel.
This is insane. He knows it’s insane. You’re a stranger. You probably don’t want his help. You probably think he’s some white knight psycho who needs to mind his own business.
But he can’t stop seeing your face. Can’t stop thinking about the way you looked at him like he was your last hope and then watched him walk away.
His phone buzzes. Text from Tucker: Be back for dinner? I promised to make wings.
Garrett texts back: Can’t tonight. Have something to do.
Tucker: Everything ok?
Garrett: Yeah. Just need to take care of something.
He puts the car in drive and heads toward Boston, toward Pavement Coffee, toward you.
He doesn’t let himself think about what he’s going to do when he finds you.
He just knows he has to try.
***
Pavement Coffee is exactly what Monroe described — packed with students hunched over laptops, the air thick with the smell of espresso and stress. Garrett stands in the doorway for a moment, scanning the crowd, heart hammering against his ribs.
He almost doesn’t see you.
You’re tucked into a corner table near the window, laptop open, surrounded by papers and highlighters and what looks like a half-empty cup of something that’s probably gone cold. Your hair is down today, falling like a curtain around your face, and you’re wearing an oversized BU sweatshirt that swallows your frame. From this distance, you look like any other college student cramming for an exam or working on an assignment.
But Garrett knows better now.
He weaves through the crowded café, dodging backpacks and chairs, his palms suddenly sweating. He hasn’t thought this through. Hasn’t planned what to say. All the speeches he rehearsed in his car on the drive over evaporate the moment he’s standing in front of your table.
You don’t notice him at first. You’re too focused on whatever you’re reading, highlighter poised mid-air, bottom lip caught between your teeth in concentration.
Garrett clears his throat.
Nothing.
He pulls out the chair across from you and sits down.
That gets your attention.
You look up, and for a split second, there’s confusion in your eyes — like you’re trying to place where you know him from. Then recognition hits, and Garrett watches your entire body go rigid. The highlighter slips from your fingers. Your eyes go wide, that same terror from the parking lot flooding back into them.
“Please don’t-” Your voice comes out in a whisper, barely audible over the ambient noise of the café. “Please, you can’t—he’ll-”
“Hey, hey.” Garrett raises both hands, palms out, like he’s approaching a spooked horse. “It’s okay. I’m not here to cause trouble. I just want to talk.”
“You need to leave.” Your eyes dart toward the door, then back to him, then to the other customers like you’re checking to see if anyone’s watching. “If Cameron finds out-”
“He’s not here.”
“That doesn’t matter.” You’re gathering your stuff now, shoving papers into your bag with shaking hands. “He has friends everywhere. Someone could see us. Someone could tell him-”
“Then let them.” Garrett leans forward, keeping his voice low and calm. “What’s the worst he can do?”
The look you give him is so devastated it makes his chest ache.
“You don’t understand,” you say quietly.
“Then help me understand.”
You freeze, hands still on your laptop. For a moment, Garrett thinks you might actually open up. Might tell him everything. But then you shake your head and go back to packing.
“I need to go.”
“Wait. Please.” Garrett reaches across the table like he’s going to touch your hand, then thinks better of it. “Just five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Why?” You look up at him, and there are tears gathering in your eyes now. “Why do you even care? You don’t know me.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” Garrett runs a hand through his hair, trying to find the right words. “But I know what I saw in that parking lot. And I know that if I just let you walk away right now, if I don’t at least try to help, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life.”
You’re staring at him like he’s speaking a foreign language.
“I’ve seen this before,” Garrett continues, his voice rough. “I’ve watched someone I love get hurt over and over by someone who was supposed to protect them. And I couldn’t stop it. I was too young, too small, too powerless. But I’m not powerless anymore, and neither are you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” But you’ve stopped packing. Your hands are still on the table, fingers twisted together.
“Don’t I?” Garrett nods toward your neck, where he can see the edge of something dark peeking out from under your sweatshirt collar. “What’s that?”
Instinctively, your hand flies to your neck, pulling the collar up. But it’s too late. Garrett’s already seen it — hand-shaped bruises, finger marks pressed into your skin, covered with what looks like concealer that’s been rubbed away throughout the day.
The rage that floods through him is white-hot and immediate. His hands curl into fists under the table. He wants to find Beck right now, wants to make him feel every ounce of pain he’s inflicted on you, wants to-
“Breathe,” you whisper, and Garrett realizes he’s stopped breathing entirely.
He forces air into his lungs. Forces his hands to unclench. Forces himself to stay seated when every instinct is screaming at him to go find Beck and end this.
“I’m okay,” you say, which is such an obvious lie it would be funny if it weren’t heartbreaking.
“You’re not okay.” Garrett’s voice comes out harder than he intends. “And we both know it.”
You flinch, and immediately he wants to take it back. Wants to rewind and try again with more gentleness, more care.
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—fuck. I’m really bad at this.”
“At what?”
“At …” He gestures vaguely between you. “This. Helping. I don’t know how to do this without being an asshole about it.”
You almost smile. It’s barely there, just a tiny quirk of your lips, but it’s something.
“You’re not an asshole,” you say quietly.
“Beck would probably disagree.”
“Cameron thinks anyone who doesn’t worship him is an asshole.”
It’s the first time you’ve said anything even remotely critical of Beck, and Garrett latches onto it like a lifeline.
“He hurt you.” It’s not a question.
You don’t answer. Just look down at your hands, at the bruises on your wrists that match the ones on your neck.
“How long?” Garrett asks.
“That’s not—I can’t-”
“How long has he been hurting you?”
Your jaw tightens. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s really not.”
“You don’t understand-”
“Then explain it to me.” Garrett leans forward, desperate now. “Because from where I’m sitting, this looks pretty simple. He’s hurting you. You’re letting him. And if you don’t stop this, if you don’t get out, it’s going to kill you.”
“I can’t just leave.” Your voice breaks on the last word.
“Why not?”
“Because-” You stop, swallow hard. “Because he loves me.”
Garrett feels like he’s been punched. “That’s not love.”
“You don’t know him like I do.”
“I know that love doesn’t leave bruises.” Garrett points to your neck, your wrists. “I know that love doesn’t make you look over your shoulder every five seconds. I know that love doesn’t turn someone as bright and alive as you clearly used to be into-” He stops himself, but it’s too late.
“Into what?” Your voice is cold now. “Into what, Garrett?”
He’s surprised you know his name. Surprised and oddly touched.
“Into someone who’s afraid to exist,” he finishes quietly.
You look away, but not before he sees the tears spill over. You wipe them away quickly, angrily, like you’re mad at yourself for showing weakness.
“You looked at my Instagram,” you say.
“Yeah.”
“That’s creepy.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you wanted to work in sports media. I know you had an internship at WEEI. I know you used to smile like you meant it.” Garrett’s voice softens. “I know that girl in those photos wouldn’t recognize the person sitting in front of me right now.”
You’re quiet for a long moment. The café noise fills the silence — the hiss of the espresso machine, the murmur of conversations, the click of laptop keys.
“She’s gone,” you finally whisper.
“She’s not. She’s just hiding.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like.” You look up at him, and the devastation in your eyes is unbearable. “He didn’t start out this way. He was sweet. He was charming. He made me feel special, like I was the only person in the world who mattered. And then gradually, so slowly I didn’t even notice at first, things changed. He started criticizing little things. The way I dressed. The way I talked to other guys. My friends. My ambitions. He said it was because he cared. Because he wanted me to be the best version of myself.”
Garrett’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“And I believed him,” you continue, your voice getting smaller. “I thought if I just tried harder, if I just did what he wanted, things would go back to how they were. But they never did. They just got worse. And by the time I realized what was happening, I was so isolated, so cut off from everyone who might have helped me, that I didn’t know how to get out.”
“You get out by leaving.”
“I tried.” The words come out in a rush. “Twice. Both times he found me. Both times he convinced me to come back. He cried, Garrett. He got down on his knees and cried and promised he’d change and I believed him because I wanted to believe him.”
“And did he change?”
You laugh, but it’s a broken sound. “What do you think?”
Garrett wants to flip the table. Wants to scream. Wants to grab you by the shoulders and shake you until you understand that you deserve better than this, deserve better than him.
But he knows that won’t help. Knows from watching his mom that you can’t force someone to leave. They have to choose it themselves.
“If you go back to him,” Garrett says carefully, “you’re going to die. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually. Either he’ll kill you, or he’ll kill everything that makes you you until you’re just this empty shell going through the motions. Is that what you want?”
“Of course that’s not what I want.” Your voice cracks.
“Then leave.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“You don’t understand-”
“My mom said the same thing.” The words are out before Garrett can stop them.
You go still.
“She said she couldn’t leave my dad,” Garrett continues, staring at a spot on the table between them. “Said it was complicated. Said he didn’t mean it. Said things would get better. She said that right up until the day she died.”
“Garrett-”
“Cancer,” he says. “Lung cancer. And you want to know the fucked up thing? When she was in the hospital, when she was dying, he still found ways to hurt her. Still found ways to make her feel small and worthless. And she let him. Right up until the end, she let him.”
He looks up, meets your eyes.
“I was eleven when she died,” he says. “And I spent the next ten years hating myself for not being able to save her. For not being strong enough or brave enough or smart enough to make her leave. But the truth is, I couldn’t have saved her. She had to save herself. And she never did.”
You’re crying openly now, tears streaming down your face.
“Don’t be her,” Garrett says, his voice urgent. “Don’t be the person who gives up everything for someone who doesn’t deserve it. Don’t let him win.”
“I’m scared,” you whisper.
“I know.”
“He’ll come after me.”
“Let him.” Garrett’s voice hardens. “And when he does, you call the cops. You get a restraining order. You press charges for assault. You do whatever it takes.”
“It’s not that simple-”
“It is that simple. You just don’t want it to be.”
The words hang between you like an accusation. Garrett knows he’s pushed too hard, knows he’s being too aggressive, knows he should back off and try a gentler approach.
But he’s so fucking tired of watching people destroy themselves for love that isn’t love at all.
You shake your head. It’s the tiniest movement, barely perceptible, but Garrett sees it. Sees the resignation in your eyes, the defeat.
You’re not going to leave.
Not today. Maybe not ever.
The realization settles over him like a weight.
“Okay,” he says finally, sitting back in his chair. He wipes a hand down his face, exhausted suddenly. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper.
“Don’t apologize to me. I’m not the one you’re hurting.”
You flinch like he’s slapped you.
Garrett reaches across the table, grabs one of your pens before you can stop him. He pulls a napkin from the dispenser and scribbles something on it, then slides it across to you.
“That’s my number,” he says. “When — not if, when — things get bad enough that you’re ready to leave, you call me. Day or night, I don’t care. You call me and I will help you. I will come get you, I will find you a safe place to stay, I will stand between you and him if I have to. But you have to make the choice. You have to be the one to decide you’ve had enough.”
You stare at the napkin like it’s a bomb.
“Take it,” Garrett says.
Slowly, hesitantly, you reach out and pull the napkin toward you. Your fingers brush his for just a second and Garrett feels something electric pass between you. Recognition, maybe. Or possibility.
“Thank you,” you say quietly.
“Don’t thank me yet.” Garrett stands, shouldering his backpack. “Thank me when you use it.”
He starts to walk away, then stops. Turns back.
“You said he didn’t start out this way,” Garrett says. “That he was sweet and charming and made you feel special.”
You nod.
“That’s what they all do,” Garrett says. “That’s how they get you to stay. They show you the person they could be, and you spend the rest of the relationship trying to get back to that version. But that person was never real. It was just bait.”
He can see from your expression that the words land. That some part of you knows he’s right.
“I hope you figure that out before it’s too late,” Garrett says.
Then he walks to the counter, cutting through the line with an apologetic nod to the students waiting. The barista looks annoyed until Garrett starts talking.
“See that girl in the corner?” Garrett nods toward you. “Blue sweatshirt, by the window?”
The barista glances over. “Yeah?”
“I want to buy her a drink. Whatever your best latte is. And …” Garrett scans the pastry case. “That cranberry scone.”
“You want me to bring it to her?”
“Yeah. Don’t tell her who it’s from.”
The barista looks skeptical. “Dude, if this is some creepy stalker thing-”
“It’s not. I promise. She’s …” Garrett struggles for the right words. “She’s having a hard time. I just want to do something nice for her.”
Something in his expression must convince the barista because he shrugs and rings up the order. Garrett pays, leaves a generous tip, and steps away from the counter.
He looks back one more time.
You’re still sitting at the table, the napkin with his number clutched in your hand. You’re staring at it like it’s the answer to a question you haven’t figured out how to ask yet.
Your coffee has gone cold. Your laptop is closed. Your papers are still scattered across the table, but you’re not working anymore. You’re just … sitting there. Existing in whatever complicated hell Beck has created for you.
Garrett wants to go back. Wants to sit down and try again, find better words, make you understand.
But he knows that won’t help. Knows he’s already said everything he can say. The rest is up to you.
So he turns and walks out into the February cold.
***
You sit at the table long after Garrett leaves, his words echoing in your head.
Don’t be her. Don’t be the person who gives up everything for someone who doesn’t deserve it.
Your hands are shaking. The napkin with his number is crumpled from how hard you’re gripping it. Your chest feels tight, like there’s not enough air in the room, and you can’t stop crying even though you’re in public, even though people are starting to stare.
You know he’s right. God, you know he’s right.
But knowing something and being able to do something about it are two different things.
“Excuse me?”
You look up. The barista is standing there with a latte and a scone on a small plate.
“I didn’t order this,” you say, your voice hoarse.
“Someone bought it for you.” He sets it down on your table.
“Who?”
The barista just shrugs and walks away.
But you know. Of course you know.
You look toward the door, but Garrett’s already gone. Just the ghost of him, the weight of his words, the impossible choice he’s asked you to make.
The latte is still hot. The scone looks fresh. It’s such a small gesture, such a simple kindness, and somehow it breaks something open inside you.
You pull out your phone with trembling fingers.
You should delete his number. Should throw the napkin away. Should pretend this conversation never happened and go back to Cameron and the safe, familiar horror of your life.
But instead, you carefully input the numbers into your contacts.
You save it under a name Cameron won’t recognize if he looks. Boston Pizza.
Then you put your phone away, pick up the latte, and take a sip.
It’s perfect.
And that almost makes it worse.
Because now you know there’s someone out there who sees you. Really sees you. Who looked past the makeup and the excuses and the carefully constructed lies and saw the truth.
Someone who cares enough to try to save you.
Even if you’re not ready to save yourself.
You sit there until the latte goes cold again, turning Garrett’s words over and over in your mind.
When things get bad enough that you’re ready to leave, you call me.
Not if. When.
Like he has faith in you that you don’t have in yourself.
You pick up the scone and take a bite.
It tastes like possibility.
And that’s the most terrifying thing of all.
***
You make it back to your dorm around 8:00 PM, the latte from Pavement long gone but the napkin still in your tote bag. You tucked it into the side pocket, hidden beneath a pack of gum and your lip balm, somewhere Cameron would never think to look.
Except Cameron always thinks to look.
He’s waiting for you when you open the door to your room, sitting on your bed like he owns the place. Your roommate Julie is nowhere to be seen, which means she either left or he made her leave. Your money’s on the latter.
“Hey, babe.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Where’ve you been?”
Your heart starts hammering. “Library. Studying.”
“Really? Because I texted you like three hours ago and you didn’t respond.”
You pull out your phone, check your messages. Sure enough, there’s a text from Cameron from 5:32 PM. Where are you? You were at Pavement then, talking to Garrett, too distracted to check your phone.
“I had my phone on silent,” you say, which is true. “I didn’t see it. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry.” Cameron stands up, and the temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees. “You’re sorry that you ignored me for three hours?”
“I wasn’t ignoring you, I was studying-”
“Bullshit.” He’s across the room in three strides, grabbing your tote bag before you can stop him. “Let me see your phone.”
“Cameron, come on-”
“Let. Me. See. Your. Phone.”
You hand it over with shaking hands because refusing will only make this worse. He scrolls through your messages, your calls, your social media.
“Library, huh?” Cameron looks up from your phone. “Then why do you have a text from Julie asking if you’re still at that coffee shop?”
Fuck. You forgot about that text.
“I stopped for coffee on my way to the library,” you say quickly. “I was only there for like twenty minutes-”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
He throws your phone onto the bed and starts rifling through your tote bag. Books, pens, highlighters, notebooks — everything gets dumped onto the floor. You watch in horror as his hand closes around the side pocket.
“Cameron, please-”
He pulls out the napkin.
For a moment, he just stares at it. At the ten digits written in Garrett’s messy handwriting. Then he looks at you, and the rage in his eyes makes your blood run cold.
“What the fuck is this?”
“It’s nothing-”
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?”
You flinch, stumbling backward until you hit the wall. “I can explain-”
“You’re cheating on me.” His voice is eerily calm now, which is somehow worse than the yelling. “You’re fucking cheating on me.”
“I’m not, I swear-”
“Then whose number is this?”
“Nobody’s-”
“WHOSE FUCKING NUMBER IS IT?”
“A guy from the coffee shop!” The lie spills out in a rush. “He was hitting on me and I took his number to be nice but I was going to throw it away, I swear-”
“You expect me to believe that?” Cameron crumples the napkin in his fist. “You expect me to believe that you just happened to run into some random guy at a coffee shop and he gave you his number and you kept it?”
“I didn’t keep it, I forgot about it-”
“Stop lying!”
He’s on you before you can react, hand closing around your throat, slamming you back against the wall. Your vision goes spotty immediately, your lungs screaming for air.
“Cameron—can’t—breathe-”
“You made me do this,” he hisses, his face inches from yours. “You made me into the bad guy. All I’ve ever done is love you, and this is how you repay me? By whoring around behind my back?”
“Not—cheating-” you manage to gasp out.
His grip loosens slightly, just enough for you to suck in a desperate breath. Then his other hand comes up and slaps you across the face so hard your ears ring.
“Don’t lie to me!” Another slap. “Don’t you fucking lie to me!”
You’re crying now, trying to twist away, but he’s got you pinned. His hand goes back to your throat, squeezing harder this time, and the edges of your vision start to go dark.
This is it, some distant part of your brain thinks. This is how you die.
Cameron’s face swims in and out of focus above you. He’s saying something but you can’t hear it over the roaring in your ears. Your lungs are burning. Your fingers claw uselessly at his hands.
And then, like a gift from whatever god might still be listening, his grip shifts. Loosens just enough that you can move.
You bring your knee up as hard as you can.
It connects perfectly.
Cameron makes a sound like all the air has been punched out of his lungs and stumbles backward, hands going to his crotch. You don’t wait. Don’t think. Just grab your phone from the bed and run.
“You bitch-” Cameron’s voice follows you into the hallway. “Get back here!”
But you’re already running, flying down the stairs because the elevator is too slow, too risky. You can hear him behind you, cursing, his footsteps heavy and angry.
You burst out of the dorm building into the February night. It’s freezing — you’re not wearing a coat, just your sweatshirt and jeans — but you don’t stop. Can’t stop. If he catches you, he’ll kill you. You know that now with absolute certainty.
You run down Commonwealth Avenue, dodging other students, nearly getting hit by a car. Behind you, you can still hear Cameron shouting your name.
Your phone is clutched in your hand. You fumble with it as you run, trying to unlock it with shaking fingers. The cold is making everything harder. Your hands won’t work right.
Finally, the screen unlocks.
You pull up your contacts, scroll frantically until you find it. Boston Pizza.
You hit call.
It rings once. Twice. Three times.
Pick up, you think desperately. Please pick up please pick up please-
“Hello?”
Garrett’s voice, rough with sleep, is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard.
You try to speak but all that comes out is a sob.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“Garrett-” Your voice cracks. “It’s—it’s me-”
There’s a pause. “Y/N?”
“Please-” You’re running down a side street now, looking for somewhere to hide. “Please, I need-”
“What’s wrong?” His voice changes completely, all traces of sleep gone. “Where are you?”
“I don’t know—I’m running—he found the napkin and he-” Another sob cuts you off.
“Slow down. Take a breath. Are you hurt?”
“I think—I think he was going to kill me-”
“Fuck. Okay. Okay, listen to me.” Garrett’s voice is steady, authoritative. “I need you to find somewhere safe. A store, a dorm building, anywhere with people. Can you do that?”
“I’m trying-” You’re on Brighton Ave now, you think. Everything looks unfamiliar in the dark. “All the buildings are locked-”
“Keep trying. Share your location with me. Do you know how to do that?”
“Yes—hold on-”
You pull the phone away from your ear, fumbling through the menus with numb fingers. Finally, you find the option and send him your location.
“Got it,” Garrett says. “I’m leaving right now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, maybe less. Stay on the phone with me, okay? Don’t hang up.”
“Okay.” You’re in front of an apartment building now. You try the door. Locked. “Fuck!”
“What?”
“The building’s locked. They all need codes-”
“Try another one. Just keep moving.”
You run to the next building. Also locked. The next one. Locked.
Behind you, somewhere in the darkness, you hear Cameron calling your name.
Panic surges through you. “He’s coming—I can hear him-”
“Stay calm. Keep trying the doors.”
The fourth building — a newer apartment complex with a fancy glass entrance — you try the handle and nearly cry with relief when it opens.
“I’m in—I found one-”
“Good. Where are you exactly?”
“The lobby. There’s nobody here-”
“Hide. Find a corner or a hallway or something. Stay out of sight.”
You look around frantically. The lobby is all glass and exposed, but there’s a hallway to the left that leads to what looks like a mail room. You duck around the corner, pressing yourself against the wall.
“I’m hidden,” you whisper.
“Good. Good girl. I’m in my car. I’m coming as fast as I can.”
You can hear the engine revving through the phone. The sound is oddly comforting.
“I’m sorry,” you say, your voice small. “I’m so sorry-”
“Don’t apologize. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I should have listened to you. I should have left-”
“We’ll talk about that later. Right now I just need you to stay safe, okay? Stay on the phone with me. I’m about fifteen minutes away.”
You slide down the wall until you’re sitting on the floor, knees pulled to your chest. Your whole body is shaking — from cold, from fear, from adrenaline crash. Your throat hurts where Cameron choked you. Your face throbs where he hit you.
“Talk to me,” Garrett says. “I need to know you’re okay.”
“I’m here. I’m-” Your voice breaks. “I’m so scared.”
“I know. I know you are. But you’re safe right now. He doesn’t know where you are.”
“What if he finds me?”
“He won’t. And even if he does, you’re in a building with other people. You can scream. You can call 911.”
“He’ll talk his way out of it. He always does-”
“Not this time.” Garrett’s voice is hard. “Not fucking this time.”
You can hear traffic sounds through the phone, the occasional horn. You try to focus on that instead of the fear clawing at your chest.
“Garrett?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For answering. For coming.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I didn’t know who else to call.”
“I’m glad you called me.” There’s something in his voice — relief, maybe. Or vindication. “I meant what I said. Day or night. You call me.”
You close your eyes, let his voice wash over you. Somewhere above you, you can hear footsteps. Someone’s TV playing too loud. Normal apartment sounds. It helps ground you.
“I’m about twenty minutes away,” Garrett says. “Maybe less. Traffic’s not bad.”
“Are you speeding?”
“Definitely.”
Despite everything, you almost smile. “You’re going to get a ticket.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
The minutes stretch out. You keep listening to Garrett’s breathing on the other end of the line, the sound of his car. It’s the only thing keeping you from completely falling apart.
“Okay, I’m about two minutes out,” Garrett says. “What’s the address of the building you’re in?”
You peek out from behind the corner, looking for a sign or a number. “Um … 6209 Brighton Avenue, I think?”
“Got it. I see it. Stay where you are, I’m pulling up now.”
Thirty seconds later, you hear a car screech to a stop outside. A door slams.
“I’m coming in,” Garrett says.
The front door opens and then he’s there — Garrett Graham in sweatpants and a Briar Hockey hoodie, no coat, hair disheveled like he literally just rolled out of bed. Which he probably did.
You step out from behind the corner.
When Garrett sees you, his entire face changes.
You must look worse than you thought. You can see the horror in his eyes as he takes in your appearance — the handprints on your throat, the swelling on your face, the way you’re shaking so hard you can barely stand.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathes.
He starts toward you, hand outstretched, then stops himself. Lets his hand fall.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says softly. “I promise. I just want to help.”
You nod, but you can’t seem to make yourself move.
“Can I come closer?” Garrett asks.
Another nod.
He approaches slowly, carefully, like you’re a wild animal that might bolt. When he’s close enough to touch, he holds out his hand.
“Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”
You take his hand. His skin is warm, his grip gentle but steady. He leads you toward the door, but you balk when you see the street outside.
“What if he’s out there?” Your voice is barely a whisper.
“Then I’ll handle it.” Garrett’s jaw is set, his eyes hard. “He’s not going to touch you again. I promise you that.”
You let him guide you outside, into his car. It’s still running, heat blasting. He opens the passenger door and helps you in like you’re made of glass.
But before he closes the door, you grab his arm.
“What?” Garrett asks.
You can’t put it into words — the gratitude, the relief, the overwhelming sense that this stranger has just saved your life. So you just hold onto his arm for a moment, looking up at him.
“Thank you,” you manage.
His expression softens. “Don’t thank me yet. Let’s just get you somewhere safe.”
He closes your door and runs around to the driver’s side. As soon as he’s in, he locks the doors and checks his mirrors. You can’t help doing the same thing — looking back down the street, expecting to see Cameron appear at any moment.
“He’s not coming,” Garrett says, but his hands are tight on the steering wheel. “And even if he does, I’ll kill him.”
He says it so matter-of-factly that you believe him.
Garrett pulls away from the curb and starts driving. You don’t ask where you’re going. Don’t care. Anywhere is better than where you were.
“I’m taking you to my place,” Garrett says after a few minutes. “I live with my teammates. Three other guys. They’re good people, I promise. You’ll be safe there.”
“Okay.”
“In the morning, we can figure out next steps. Police report, restraining order, whatever you want to do. But tonight, you just need to rest.”
You nod, but the word makes your stomach churn. Cameron’s parents are lawyers. Rich, connected lawyers. The last time you tried to leave, he threatened to have them destroy you. Said they’d make you look crazy, make sure no one believed you.
And you believed him. Just like you believed everything else.
“Hey.” Garrett glances over at you. “You with me?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
The drive to Garrett’s place takes about fifteen minutes. He lives in a house off-campus, the kind of place that definitely houses multiple hockey players based on the Briar Hockey flags in the windows and the hockey sticks on the porch.
He parks in the driveway and turns to you.
“Okay, so fair warning: the place is kind of a mess. We’re college guys. But it’s safe, I promise.”
“I don’t care about the mess.”
“Good.” He gets out, comes around to your door, and opens it for you.
You follow him up the walkway, up the porch steps. Your legs feel like jelly. The adrenaline is wearing off and everything hurts.
Garrett unlocks the door and leads you inside. The house is dark except for the kitchen light. It’s quiet — everyone’s probably asleep.
“Let me give you the quick tour,” Garrett says softly. “Living room, kitchen, bathroom’s down that hall. Upstairs are the bedrooms. Mine’s the second door on the left.”
“I can sleep on the couch-”
“No.” His voice is firm. “You’re taking my room.”
“Garrett, I can’t-”
“Yes, you can. It’s got a lock on the inside if you want to feel safer. Clean sheets, bathroom right next door. I’ll bunk with Logan.”
You’re too tired to argue. Too broken to do anything but nod.
He leads you upstairs. The hallway is covered in hockey photos and what looks like a championship banner. Garrett’s room is at the end, exactly as he described.
It’s neater than you expected. A queen-sized bed with navy sheets. A desk covered in textbooks and hockey equipment. A Briar Hockey poster on the wall.
“Bathroom’s through there,” Garrett says, pointing to a door. “There should be towels and stuff. I can get you some clothes to sleep in-”
“This is fine.” You’re still in your sweatshirt and jeans, but the thought of changing feels impossible right now.
“Okay. Well, if you need anything, I’ll be with Logan. His room is the first door on the right. Just knock.”
You nod.
Garrett lingers in the doorway, looking like he wants to say something else. “You did the right thing. Calling me. Running. You saved your own life tonight.”
The words hit you harder than they should. You feel tears pricking at your eyes again.
“Get some sleep,” Garrett says gently. “We’ll figure everything else out in the morning.”
He closes the door behind him, and you’re alone.
You stand in the middle of his room for a long moment, just breathing. Then you go to the door and turn the lock. The click is oddly reassuring.
You should probably shower. Should probably wash the day off. But you can’t seem to make yourself move. Instead, you sink onto Garrett’s bed, still fully clothed, and pull the blanket around yourself.
It smells like him — clean, masculine, safe.
You close your eyes and let yourself cry.
***
Garrett makes it to Logan’s room and closes the door before he loses it.
“Dude, what the fuck-” Logan sits up in bed, squinting at him. “It’s like 1 AM-”
“I need to bunk with you tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s someone in my room.”
That wakes Logan up. “What?”
Garrett runs both hands through his hair, pacing. “That girl. From the parking lot. Beck’s girlfriend. She called me. He hurt her, Logan. Really fucking hurt her.”
“Shit. Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. She’s-” Garrett’s voice cracks. “You should see her throat. He strangled her. She’s got bruises all over her face, her neck. If she hadn’t gotten away-”
“Fuck.”
“I want to kill him.” Garrett’s hands are shaking now, adrenaline and rage coursing through him. “I want to find him and beat him so badly he never gets up again.”
“Garrett-”
“I should have done more. At the parking lot. I should have made her leave then-”
“You did what you could.”
“It wasn’t enough!” Garrett slams his fist into the wall, then immediately regrets it when pain shoots up his arm.
Logan gets out of bed, walks over to him. “Look at me. Look at me, G.”
Garrett forces himself to meet Logan’s eyes.
“She called you,” Logan says. “When she was in trouble, when she needed help, she called you. That means you did everything right. You gave her an option and she took it. That’s huge.”
Garrett wants to believe that. Wants to believe he did enough. But all he can see is your face — the terror, the pain, the way you flinched when he reached for you.
“She looks like she’s halfway to dead,” Garrett says quietly.
“But she’s not dead. She’s here. She’s safe.”
“For now.”
“For now is all we’ve got.” Logan claps him on the shoulder. “Come on. You can take the beanbag.”
“I’m not sleeping.”
“Fine. Then you can not-sleep on the beanbag.”
Garrett collapses into the oversized beanbag chair in the corner of Logan’s room. It’s not comfortable, but he barely notices. His mind is racing, playing the phone call over and over. The sound of your voice — terrified, desperate. The way you were gasping for breath.
The fact that you thought Beck was going to kill you.
Because he was. Garrett knows that now with certainty. If you hadn’t fought back, if you hadn’t gotten away, Beck would have killed you.
“What are you going to do?” Logan asks from his bed.
“I don’t know. Call the cops. Get her a restraining order. Press charges.”
“You think she’ll do it?”
“I don’t know.”
That’s the truth. You’re terrified of Beck, terrified of his family’s power, terrified of what he’ll do if you fight back. Garrett’s seen it before — the way abuse victims get trapped in this cycle of fear and dependency.
His mom never pressed charges against his dad. Not once. Even when she had evidence, even when people offered to help, she always backed down.
And look where that got her.
“He’s going to come looking for her,” Garrett says.
“Then we’ll deal with it.”
“We?”
“You think I’m going to let some abusive piece of shit show up at our house?” Logan’s voice is hard. “Fuck that. He tries anything, he’s going through me, Dean, and Tucker. And you know Tucker will lose his shit.”
Despite everything, Garrett almost smiles.
“We should tell them,” Garrett says. “In the morning. They need to know.”
“Agreed.”
Garrett leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. But every time he does, he sees you — trembling in that apartment lobby, handprints on your throat, looking at him like he’s the only thing standing between you and death.
“I should have done more,” he says again.
“You did enough.”
But it doesn’t feel like enough. It feels like he’s still that seven-year-old kid watching his mom get hurt and being powerless to stop it.
Except this time, he’s not powerless.
This time, he can fight back.
And if Cameron Beck shows his face anywhere near you again, Garrett’s going to make sure he regrets it.
Summary: Garrett is supposed to hate you by association. You’re dating his rival. You’re wearing the wrong colors. But he doesn’t look at you like you’re the enemy, he looks at you like he’s seeing something everyone else has learned to ignore. And when you run out of places to hide, his number is the only one you can think to call
Warnings: 18+ content, domestic violence, sexual assault, and trauma recovery
Read part one here
You wake up to sunlight streaming through unfamiliar curtains.
For a moment, you can’t remember where you are. The bed is too comfortable, the room too clean, the sheets smell wrong — not wrong, just different. Not like Cameron’s cologne and expensive detergent. Like something cleaner. Safer.
Then it all comes rushing back.
The napkin. The attack. Running through Boston in the freezing dark. Garrett’s voice on the phone, steady and sure. The apartment lobby. His car. This house.
You sit up slowly, every muscle in your body screaming in protest. Your throat feels like you swallowed glass. Your face throbs. When you catch sight of yourself in the mirror across the room, you barely recognize the person staring back.
The bruises are worse than you thought. Dark purple handprints wrap around your throat like a necklace. Your left cheek is swollen, a deep red-purple that’s going to turn black soon. There’s a split in your bottom lip you don’t remember getting.
You look like you went twelve rounds with a professional fighter.
You look like a victim.
The thought makes you want to throw up.
There’s a knock on the door — soft, hesitant.
“Y/N?” Garrett’s voice. “You awake?”
“Yeah.” Your voice comes out raspy, damaged.
“Can I come in?”
You pull the blanket up higher, suddenly aware you’re still in yesterday’s clothes. “Sure.”
The door opens and Garrett steps inside, carrying a tray. He’s showered and changed — different sweatpants, a clean t-shirt, hair still damp. He looks almost normal except for the dark circles under his eyes and the tension in his jaw.
“I brought breakfast,” he says. “Nothing fancy. Just toast and eggs and coffee. Tucker made it. He’s weirdly good at cooking for a guy who lives on protein shakes and beer.”
He sets the tray on the desk, and you see he wasn’t kidding. Scrambled eggs, buttered toast, a mug of coffee with cream. There’s even a glass of orange juice.
“You didn’t have to do this,” you say.
“I know.” Garrett leans against the desk, arms crossed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a truck.”
“Yeah. You look-” He stops himself. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”
“I know what I look like.”
There’s a long pause. Garrett’s looking at you with an expression you can’t quite read. Concern, maybe. Or pity. You’re not sure which is worse.
“I think you should go to the police,” he says finally.
Your stomach drops. “Garrett-”
“I know you’re scared. I know you think he’ll get away with it. But Y/N, look at yourself.” He gestures toward the mirror. “You have evidence. Documented injuries. That’s assault. That’s attempted murder.”
“His parents are lawyers-”
“I don’t give a shit if his parents are on the Supreme Court.” Garrett’s voice is hard. “What he did to you is a crime. You have rights. You have options.”
“And if he gets away with it? If they make me look crazy? If no one believes me?”
“Then at least you tried. At least there’s a record. At least the next time he does this — because there will be a next time, to you or someone else — there’s a paper trail.”
You want to argue. Want to explain all the reasons why this won’t work, why it’s pointless, why you should just disappear and hope Cameron forgets about you.
But Garrett’s looking at you with those dark eyes, and you can see the plea in them. The desperate need to do something, to fix this, to make it right.
“Will you come with me?” You ask quietly.
“Every step of the way.”
***
The police station smells like bad coffee and bureaucracy. You sit in a hard plastic chair in the waiting area, Garrett beside you, while an officer processes your intake paperwork.
“Someone will be with you shortly,” the desk sergeant says, barely looking up from his computer.
Shortly turns into twenty minutes. Then thirty. You’re about to suggest leaving when a female officer appears.
“Y/N Y/L/N?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Officer Murphy. Come on back.”
She leads you and Garrett to a small interview room. It’s exactly like the ones on TV — gray walls, metal table, chairs that look designed to be uncomfortable. There’s a camera mounted in the corner.
“For documentation purposes,” Officer Murphy explains, following your gaze. “Everything we discuss will be recorded. Is that okay?”
You nod.
“I’m going to need verbal consent.”
“Yes. That’s okay.”
Officer Murphy sits across from you, pulls out a notepad. Garrett takes the chair beside you, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his body.
“So,” Officer Murphy begins. “You’re here to file a report about an assault?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me what happened? Start from the beginning.”
You take a breath. Try to organize the chaos of last night into something coherent.
“My boyfriend — Cameron Beck — he attacked me last night. At my dorm room.”
“What time was this?”
“Around eight PM, I think. Maybe a little after.”
Officer Murphy is writing everything down. “And what precipitated the attack?”
“He found a phone number in my bag. He thought I was cheating on him.”
“Were you?”
The question catches you off guard. “No. It was just—someone gave me their number and I kept it. That’s all.”
“Okay. So he found this number and then what?”
“He got angry. Started yelling. Threw my stuff everywhere. Then he-” Your voice catches. “He put his hands around my throat. Choked me until I couldn’t breathe.”
Officer Murphy’s expression doesn’t change. “Did you lose consciousness?”
“Almost. I thought I was going to die.”
“What happened next?”
“He let go for a second. Hit me. Across the face. Twice.” You point to your cheek. “Then he started choking me again.”
“How did you get away?”
“I kneed him. In the groin. He let go and I ran.”
“Where did you run to?”
“Just … ran. Down the street. I called for help.” You glance at Garrett. “He came and got me.”
Officer Murphy looks at Garrett for the first time. “And you are?”
“Garrett Graham. I’m-” He hesitates. “A friend. She called me and I picked her up.”
“You’re a student at BU as well?”
“No. Briar University.”
Something shifts in Officer Murphy’s expression. Recognition, maybe. “You play hockey.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And the boyfriend — Cameron Beck — he plays for BU?”
“Yes.”
Officer Murphy writes something in her notepad. You can’t see what.
“Okay, Y/N. I’m going to need to document your injuries. Is it alright if I take some photographs?”
Your stomach churns. “Do you have to?”
“It’s important for the case. Physical evidence of assault.”
You look at Garrett. He nods slightly, encouraging.
“Okay,” you whisper.
Officer Murphy pulls out a digital camera. “I’ll need you to remove your sweatshirt so we can see your throat and face clearly.”
With shaking hands, you pull off your sweatshirt. You’re wearing a tank top underneath, which means the bruises on your arms are visible too. The ones from before last night. The finger-shaped marks that have faded to yellow-green.
Officer Murphy’s jaw tightens. “How long has he been hurting you?”
“I don’t know. A while.”
“Months? Years?”
“About a year. It started small. Then got worse.”
“And you never reported it before?”
The judgment in the question makes you flinch. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was scared. Because I thought I could fix it. Because he said no one would believe me.” Your voice rises. “Because I didn’t think it mattered.”
She starts taking photos. Flash after flash, documenting every bruise, every mark. Your throat from multiple angles. Your face. Your wrists. Your arms. You feel like a crime scene.
Which, you suppose, you are.
Garrett has gone completely still beside you. You can feel the tension radiating off him in waves.
“Alright,” Officer Murphy says finally, lowering the camera. “You can put your sweatshirt back on. I just need to get the rest of your statement.”
She asks you to walk through the entire relationship. When it started. When the abuse began. How often it happened. You try to remember specific incidents but they all blur together after a while. The time he threw your laptop across the room. The time he locked you in his apartment for two days. The time he pushed you down the stairs and then convinced everyone, including you, that you’d just tripped.
Officer Murphy writes it all down without comment.
Then she asks: “Did he ever sexually assault you?”
The room goes very quiet.
You can’t look at Garrett. Can’t bear to see his reaction.
“Yes,” you whisper.
“Can you describe what happened?”
“He would-” Your throat closes up. “He would force me. When I didn’t want to. When I said no.”
“How many times did this happen?”
“I don’t know. A lot. Too many to count.”
“Most recently?”
You close your eyes. “Yesterday morning. I woke up and he was already—he didn’t ask. He just-”
You can’t finish the sentence.
Beside you, Garrett makes a sound. Almost like a growl. When you glance over, his hands are clenched into fists so tight his knuckles have gone white. There’s something wet on his palms.
Blood.
His nails have cut into his skin.
“Garrett,” you whisper.
He doesn’t seem to hear you. His eyes are fixed on the table, jaw clenched so hard you can see the muscle jumping.
Officer Murphy notices too. “Mr. Graham, do you need to step outside?”
“I’m fine.” His voice is rough.
“You’re bleeding.”
Garrett looks down at his hands like he’s surprised to see them. Slowly, mechanically, he unclenches his fists. Crescent-shaped cuts mark his palms.
“I’m fine,” he says again.
Officer Murphy doesn’t look convinced, but she continues. “Y/N, I know this is difficult, but I need you to be as specific as possible about the sexual assaults. Dates, times, locations if you remember them.”
You do your best. You tell her about the times in his apartment. The time in his car. The time in a bathroom at a party when you were too drunk to consent. You tell her until the words stop meaning anything, until you’re just reciting facts like they happened to someone else.
Through it all, Garrett sits beside you, silent and bleeding.
When you’re finally done, Officer Murphy closes her notepad.
“Okay. This is what’s going to happen next. We’re going to issue a warrant for Cameron Beck’s arrest. Based on your statement and the photographic evidence, we have probable cause for assault, battery, strangulation, and sexual assault. Those are serious charges.”
“Will he go to jail?” You ask.
“That depends on a lot of factors. The DA will review the case and decide whether to prosecute. If they do, there will be a trial. You’ll have to testify.”
Your heart sinks. “I have to see him again?”
“In court, yes. But we’re also going to help you file for a restraining order. That means he can’t contact you, can’t come within a certain distance of you. If he violates it, he goes to jail immediately.”
“His parents are going to fight this,” you say. “They have money. Lawyers.”
“Let them fight. We have evidence. We have your testimony. And frankly, based on what you’ve described, this isn’t going to be a hard case to make.”
You want to believe her. Want to believe that for once, the system will work the way it’s supposed to.
But you’ve been disappointed so many times before.
“What do I do now?” You ask.
“Go home. Rest. We’ll contact you when we have more information. In the meantime, avoid any contact with Mr. Beck. If he tries to reach out, document everything and let us know immediately.”
“Okay.”
Officer Murphy stands, offers her hand. “You did the right thing, coming here. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you’re incredibly brave.”
You shake her hand, but you don’t feel brave. You feel exhausted and broken and terrified of what comes next.
Garrett stands too, still favoring his bleeding palms. Officer Murphy notices.
“Mr. Graham, you should get those looked at.”
“They’re fine.”
“They’re not fine. There’s a first aid kit at the front desk.”
Garrett just nods, but you can tell he has no intention of doing anything about it.
You follow Officer Murphy out of the interview room, back through the station. At the front desk, she hands you a folder.
“Resources,” she explains. “Domestic violence hotlines, counseling services, legal aid. And my card. Call me anytime if you have questions or concerns.”
“Thank you.”
You walk out of the station into the gray February morning. The cold hits you like a slap. You don’t have a coat. You left everything at your dorm when you ran.
Everything except your phone and your life.
Garrett guides you toward his car with a hand that doesn’t quite touch your back. Protective but not possessive. It’s such a contrast to Cameron that you almost cry.
Once you’re both in the car, Garrett turns to face you. “Where do you want me to take you?”
You hesitate. “My dorm, I guess. My roommate should be back by now-”
“No.”
“What?”
“I’m not taking you back there. Not where he knows where to find you. Not where you’ll be alone.”
“Garrett, I can’t just hide forever-”
“I’m not saying forever. I’m saying until we know he’s been arrested. Until we know the restraining order is in place.” He starts the car. “You’re coming back to the house.”
“I can’t impose like that-”
“You’re not imposing. You’re surviving. There’s a difference.”
You want to argue. Want to insist you can take care of yourself. But the truth is, you’re terrified. Terrified Cameron will show up at your dorm. Terrified he’ll convince you to take him back again. Terrified of what he’ll do when he finds out you went to the police.
“Okay,” you say quietly.
Garrett drives back to his house in silence. His hands are tight on the steering wheel, and you can see the blood from his palms smearing the leather.
“You’re still bleeding,” you say.
“I know.”
“You should clean that.”
“I will.”
But he doesn’t sound like he cares. He sounds like he’s somewhere else entirely. Somewhere dark and violent.
When you pull up to the house, there are two other cars in the driveway. Garrett parks and turns to you.
“My roommates are home. They know you’re here — I told them last night. They’re cool, I promise. But if you want to go straight to the room and not deal with people, that’s fine too.”
“It’s their house. I should at least say hi.”
“You don’t owe them anything.”
“Still.”
You follow Garrett inside. The house looks different in daylight — messier but homier. There are hockey bags by the door, shoes scattered everywhere, a pile of mail on the hall table. It smells like coffee and something cooking.
“G, that you?” A voice calls from the kitchen.
“Yeah. And Y/N.”
Three guys emerge from the kitchen. You recognize one of them from Briar Hockey’s most recent post on Instagram — Logan, Garrett’s best friend. The other two you don’t know.
They all stop when they see you. You watch their expressions change as they take in your injuries — shock, anger, pity.
“Jesus,” one of them breathes. He’s auburn-haired, built like a tank. “He did that to you?”
You nod, unable to speak.
“I’m Tucker,” he says. “And when I see that motherfucker, I’m going to break every bone in his body.”
“Get in line,” Garrett mutters.
The third guy — tall, blond hair, kind eyes — steps forward. “I’m Dean. And you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need. Seriously.”
“I don’t want to be a burden-”
“You’re not.” Logan’s voice is firm. “Any friend of Garrett’s is a friend of ours. And anyone that piece of shit hurt automatically gets our protection.”
You’re overwhelmed suddenly. These boys — these strangers — are offering you sanctuary without hesitation. Without judgment. Without demanding anything in return.
“Thank you,” you manage.
“You hungry?” Tucker asks. “I made chicken noodle soup earlier this week.”
“I could eat,” you say.
“Good. Sit. I’ll heat it up.”
Garrett leads you to the dining table — a beat-up wooden thing that’s seen better days. You sit, and Garrett takes the chair beside you.
Logan grabs a first aid kit from under the sink. “Let me see your hands.”
“I’m fine,” Garrett says.
“You’re bleeding on my chair. Let me see your hands.”
Reluctantly, Garrett holds out his palms. The crescent-shaped cuts are deeper than you thought, still seeping blood.
“What the hell did you do?” Dean asks.
“Nothing.”
Logan starts cleaning the cuts with antiseptic. Garrett doesn’t even flinch.
“We went to the police this morning,” Garrett says. “She filed a report. They’re issuing a warrant for Beck’s arrest.”
The room goes quiet.
“Good,” Tucker says finally from the kitchen. “Fucking good.”
“Did they believe you?” Dean asks you.
“I think so. There’s evidence. Photos. My statement.”
“And if he tries to come near you?”
“Restraining order. But it takes time.”
“Until then, you stay here,” Logan says. It’s not a question. “We’ll make sure you get to your classes, get whatever you need from your dorm, whatever. But you don’t go anywhere alone.”
“I can’t ask you guys to do that-”
“You’re not asking. We’re offering.” Tucker brings over two bowls of soup, sets one in front of you. “Eat. You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”
He’s not wrong. You can’t remember the last real meal you had. You pick up the spoon, take a bite.
It’s delicious. Rich and warm and exactly what you need.
“This is really good,” you say.
“Told you.” Tucker grins. “Hockey and cooking. My only two skills.”
Despite everything, you almost smile.
Garrett’s still watching you with that intense expression. Like he’s memorizing every detail. Like he’s afraid if he looks away, you’ll disappear.
“You’re safe here,” he says quietly. “I know it doesn’t feel like it. I know you’re scared. But we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
You look around the table at these four boys — these strangers who are treating you like family. Who are offering you protection without asking for anything in return. Who believe you, unconditionally.
“Why?” You ask. “Why are you all doing this?”
The boys exchange glances.
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Logan says simply.
“Because that asshole deserves to rot,” Tucker adds.
“Because you deserve better,” Dean says.
Garrett doesn’t say anything. Just reaches over and squeezes your hand gently. Carefully. Like you’re something precious.
You squeeze back.
And for the first time since last night, you let yourself believe that maybe, just maybe, you’re going to be okay.
***
Three weeks feels like both an eternity and no time at all.
Garrett’s been counting down the days like a prisoner marking time on a cell wall. March 14th. The date he highlighted in his calendar. The date he’s been waiting for.
The date he’s going to make Cameron Beck pay.
He’s in the locker room now, lacing up his skates with mechanical precision. Around him, his teammates are going through their pre-game routines. Logan’s taping his stick. Tucker’s blasting music through his headphones. Dean’s doing some complicated stretching routine that looks like yoga.
Everyone knows what tonight is. What it means.
You filed charges. Cameron was arrested. And then, less than twenty-four hours later, he was released on bail. Fifty thousand dollars — pocket change to his parents. He walked out of that police station like nothing happened, posted some bullshit on Instagram about “false accusations,” and went right back to his life.
Including hockey.
Boston University’s administration reviewed the case. Looked at the evidence, the photos, your statement. And then decided that since Cameron hasn’t been convicted yet, he should be allowed to continue playing while awaiting trial.
Innocent until proven guilty, they said.
Never mind the handprint bruises on your throat. Never mind the records documenting your injuries. Never mind that you can barely sleep without having nightmares.
None of that matters to BU’s athletic department as much as their winning record.
Garrett’s jaw clenches so hard his teeth ache.
Coach Jensen appears in the doorway, clipboard in hand. “Alright, boys. Listen up.”
The room quiets.
“We all know what tonight is,” Coach says, his eyes scanning the team. “We all know who we’re playing. And I’m going to say this once: I don’t care about your personal feelings. I don’t care about drama. I care about hockey. You play clean, you play smart, you win the game. Got it?”
There’s a murmur of agreement.
Coach’s eyes land on Garrett. “Graham. My office. Now.”
Garrett stands, follows Coach down the hallway to his office. Coach closes the door behind them.
“Sit.”
Garrett sits.
Coach leans against his desk, arms crossed. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?”
“You’re thinking about that girl. About Beck. About what he did.”
Garrett doesn’t confirm or deny.
“I get it,” Coach continues. “I do. What happened to her is horrific. But Garrett, you’re the captain of this team. You’re a junior. You’re probably going to the NHL in a year. You can’t throw that away because you want revenge.”
“I’m not throwing anything away.”
“If you go after him tonight, you will be. You’ll get suspended. Maybe for the rest of the season. Maybe permanently. Is that really worth it?”
Garrett meets Coach’s eyes. “Yes.”
Coach sighs. “I can’t stop you. But I’m asking you to think about your team. About your future.”
“I have thought about it.” Garrett stands. “And I’ve made my decision.”
He walks back to the locker room. His teammates look up as he enters, reading his expression.
“Well?” Logan asks.
“Same as always. Play clean, win the game.”
“And are you going to play clean?” Tucker asks with a knowing smile.
Garrett doesn’t answer. Just pulls on his jersey — number 44, GRAHAM across the back in bold letters.
When it’s time to head to the tunnel, Garrett catches Coach Jensen’s eye one more time.
“Coach?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
Coach’s brow furrows. “For what?”
“For the fact that the team will probably have to play without me for a few games.”
Coach opens his mouth to respond, but Garrett’s already moving down the tunnel. He can hear Coach calling after him, but the words don’t register. There’s only one thing on Garrett’s mind now.
The ice.
***
You’re sitting on Garrett’s bed, laptop balanced on your knees, streaming the game. You probably shouldn’t watch. Your therapist — the one the victim services advocate connected you with — said you should avoid triggers. And watching Cameron skate around like nothing happened, like he didn’t try to kill you, is definitely a trigger.
But you can’t help it.
You need to see this.
The arena is packed — a sold-out crowd for what the announcers are calling “one of the most anticipated matchups of the season.” Briar versus BU. First place versus second place in the conference standings.
They have no idea what else this game means.
The camera pans across the Briar bench. There’s Garrett, sitting between Logan and Tucker, face hard and focused. He looks dangerous. You’ve never seen him look like that before — like violence contained in a hockey uniform.
Then the camera cuts to the BU bench and your stomach drops.
Cameron.
He’s there. Number 14, sitting at the end of the bench, laughing at something one of his teammates said. Like this is just another game. Like he didn’t assault you. Like he didn’t rape you. Like he didn’t leave you so broken you still can’t look at yourself in the mirror without flinching.
The commentators are talking about him. About his stats, his performance this season, his NHL prospects. They mention, briefly, that he’s facing “personal legal issues” but don’t elaborate. Wouldn’t want to damage his reputation with something as trivial as the truth.
You feel sick.
The door opens and Beau, Dean’s best friend, pokes his head in. He promised the boys to keep an eye on you while they are at the game. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look okay.” He comes in, sits on the edge of the bed. “You know you don’t have to watch this, right?”
“I know.”
“But you’re going to anyway.”
“I need to see it.”
Beau nods like he understands. “Want company?”
“Sure.”
He settles in beside you, close enough to be supportive but not so close it feels invasive. It’s something you’ve noticed about all the boys — they’re incredibly careful about your boundaries. They never touch you without asking. Never get too close. Never push.
It’s the opposite of Cameron in every way.
The puck drops.
***
Garrett’s never been a dirty player. He plays hard, plays physical, but he doesn’t cheap shot. Doesn’t go for injuries. Doesn’t use his stick as a weapon.
Tonight’s going to be different.
He’s skating his shift, focused on the puck, when he sees Beck coming up the ice. Their eyes meet across the neutral zone and Beck smirks. Actually fucking smirks at him.
Garrett’s vision goes red for a second, but he forces it down. Not yet. He needs to wait for the right moment. Can’t just jump him in the middle of open ice or the refs will toss him before he gets a chance to do real damage.
The first period is surprisingly restrained. Both teams feeling each other out, testing boundaries. Garrett gets a few good hits in — all legal, all clean — but nothing that satisfies the rage burning in his chest.
Logan scores midway through the first. Dean gets an assist. Briar’s up 1-0.
The period’s winding down — about three minutes left — when Garrett finds himself lined up against Beck for a faceoff in the defensive zone.
They’re at the dot, sticks ready, waiting for the ref to drop the puck.
Beck leans in close.
“Hey, Graham,” he says, voice low enough the ref can’t hear. “How’s my girl doing?”
Garrett’s stick tightens in his grip, but he doesn’t respond.
“She still staying at your place?” Beck continues, that smirk playing on his lips. “That’s cute. Playing house. But we both know she’ll come back to me eventually. She always does.”
The ref’s getting into position.
“She’s a good fuck though, right?” Beck’s voice drops to a whisper. “Tight. Eager. Especially when she cries.”
Something inside Garrett snaps.
The puck hasn’t even dropped yet when Garrett rips off his gloves and launches himself at Beck.
His first punch catches Beck square in the jaw. Beck’s head snaps back and he goes down hard, hitting the ice, but Garrett doesn’t stop. He’s on top of him, raining down punches with methodical precision. Face, ribs, face again.
Beck tries to cover up, tries to fight back, but Garrett’s bigger, stronger, and absolutely fucking furious.
“You piece of shit-” Punch. “You fucking coward-” Punch. “You think you can talk about her like that-” Punch.
Beck’s nose breaks with a satisfying crunch. Blood sprays across the ice.
The refs are shouting, trying to pull Garrett off, but he shrugs them away. Gets in two more solid hits before two refs manage to grab his arms and haul him backwards.
Garrett’s still trying to get at Beck, still ready to throw more punches, but the refs have him locked down.
Beck’s on the ice, face a bloody mess. His teammates are rushing over. The crowd is going absolutely insane — some people cheering, some people booing, everyone on their feet.
One ref is talking into his mic. “Number 44, Briar. Five-minute major for fighting. Game misconduct. You’re done.”
Garrett doesn’t argue. Doesn’t protest. Just skates toward the tunnel, ripping off his helmet.
The Briar bench erupts.
Every single player starts tapping their sticks against the boards. The sound echoes through the arena like thunder. It’s the hockey equivalent of a standing ovation.
Support. Solidarity.
They know why Garrett did it. And they’re backing him one hundred percent.
Coach Jensen is standing behind the bench, shaking his head, but even he’s fighting a smile.
As Garrett disappears into the tunnel, he catches one last glimpse of the ice. Beck’s sitting up now, holding his face, blood pouring through his fingers. His coach is yelling at the refs, demanding Garrett be suspended, banned, arrested.
Garrett doesn’t care.
It was worth it.
***
You watch the whole thing happen in real-time.
One second, they’re lined up for the faceoff. The next, Garrett’s on Cameron like a feral animal.
Beau jumps up beside you. “Holy shit!”
You can’t speak. Can’t breathe. You just watch as Garrett hits Cameron again and again and again. Watch as the refs try to pull him off. Watch as Cameron’s face turns into a bloody pulp.
The commentators are losing their minds.
“Absolutely vicious attack by Graham — completely unprovoked — this is going to be a lengthy suspension-”
But it wasn’t unprovoked. You know that. Something happened at that faceoff. Cameron said something. Did something. Pushed Garrett past his breaking point.
And Garrett responded.
For you.
The camera follows Garrett as he skates toward the tunnel. His face is set, determined, completely unrepentant. Blood — not his own — is splattered across his jersey.
Then the camera cuts to the Briar bench and you see it. Every player tapping their sticks. The sound might not come through clearly on the broadcast, but you know what it means.
They’re supporting him.
All of them.
“Did you see that?” Beau’s grinning. “The whole fucking bench. They all know.”
“Know what?”
“Why Garrett did it. They’re telling him they’ve got his back.”
Your throat feels tight. Your eyes are stinging.
Garrett just got himself ejected. Probably suspended for multiple games. Maybe even kicked off the team. And he did it for you. Because Cameron said something about you. Because he couldn’t let it slide.
The game continues. BU gets a five-minute power play because of the major penalty, but Briar’s penalty kill holds strong. Dean blocks three shots. Tucker strips the puck from a BU forward and clears it down the ice.
When the period finally ends, it’s still 1-0 Briar.
You close the laptop.
“You okay?” Beau asks.
“I don’t know.”
“That was pretty intense.”
“He did that for me.”
“Yeah. He did.”
“He’s going to get in so much trouble.”
“Probably.” Beau shrugs. “But Garrett doesn’t care. You should’ve seen him these past three weeks. He’s been counting down to this game like it was Christmas.”
“I need to-” You stand up. “I need to call him.”
“He’s probably in the locker room or getting reviewed by the league officials right now.”
“I don’t care. I need to talk to him.”
You grab your phone, pull up Garrett’s number. It rings four times before going to voicemail.
“Hey, it’s Garrett. No phones allowed on the ice. Leave a message.”
Beep.
“Hey, it’s me. I just—I saw what happened. What you did. And I-” Your voice cracks. “Thank you. I know that probably sounds crazy. I know you’re probably in trouble and I should feel bad about that but I just—thank you. For standing up for me. For not letting him get away with it. For everything.”
You pause, trying to find the right words.
“I’ll be here when you get back. We can talk then. Just be safe, okay?”
You hang up.
Beau’s watching you with a soft expression. “You care about him.”
It’s not a question.
“He saved my life,” you say.
“That’s not what I asked.”
You sit back down on the bed. “I don’t know what I feel. Everything’s so complicated and messed up and I’m barely holding myself together most days. But yeah. I care about him. How could I not?”
“He cares about you too. A lot. Like, a scary amount.”
“What do you mean?”
Beau hesitates. “He doesn’t really talk about his feelings. None of us do — we’re athletes, we’re emotionally constipated. But the way he is with you? I’ve never seen him like that with anyone. He’s protective to the point of obsession.”
“I don’t want to be his redemption project,” you say quietly.
“You’re not. Trust me. If you were, he’d be treating you like a victim. Like someone who needs to be saved. But he doesn’t do that. He treats you like a person. Like someone who deserves respect and autonomy and choice.” Beau stands, stretches. “Anyway. I’m going to make some popcorn. You want some?”
“Sure.”
He leaves and you’re alone with your thoughts.
You pull the laptop back open, reload the stream. The second period is underway. Briar’s still up 1-0. BU’s pressing hard, trying to tie it up, but Briar’s goalie is playing out of his mind.
The commentators are still talking about Garrett’s ejection.
“We’re hearing that Graham will face supplemental discipline from the league. Likely a multi-game suspension. Possibly more serious consequences given the severity of the attack.”
Good, you think viciously. Let them suspend him. Let them punish him. It was worth it.
You think about Cameron’s face. The blood. The way he looked genuinely scared for the first time since you’ve known him.
You should feel bad about that. Should feel guilty that you’re glad Garrett hurt him.
But you don’t.
You feel vindicated.
***
Garrett’s in Coach’s office when the game ends. Briar won 3-1. Logan got another goal in the second, and Tucker scored an empty-netter in the third.
But Garrett wasn’t there to see it.
“The league’s reviewing the footage,” Coach says, arms crossed. “They’re talking about a five-game suspension minimum. Maybe more.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it? Just okay?”
Garrett shrugs. “What do you want me to say? I knew what I was doing. I knew there would be consequences.”
“Did you know Beck is in the hospital?”
That gets Garrett’s attention. “What?”
“Broken nose, fractured orbital bone, possible concussion. They took him out on a stretcher.”
Garrett should feel bad about that. Should feel some kind of remorse.
He doesn’t.
“Good,” he says.
Coach’s expression hardens. “Garrett-”
“He did horrible things to her, Coach. Too many times to count. He strangled her until she thought she was going to die. He made her so scared she couldn’t even function. And BU let him keep playing because they care more about winning than doing the right thing.”
“So you decided to take justice into your own hands?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“That’s not your job.”
“Maybe not. But someone had to do it.”
Coach is quiet for a long moment. “What did he say to you?”
“What?”
“At the faceoff. Right before you hit him. What did he say?”
Garrett’s jaw tightens. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does if it pushed you that far.”
“He talked about her. About-” Garrett can’t repeat the words. Can’t make himself say them out loud. “It was disgusting. Disrespectful. And I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.”
Coach sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “You know I have to suspend you from training as well. Team policy.”
“I know.”
“You’re probably done for the season.”
“I know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
Garrett meets Coach’s eyes. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Coach studies him for a long moment. Then, surprisingly, he smiles. “You’re a good kid, Graham. Stupid as hell sometimes, but good.”
“Does that mean you’re not kicking me off the team?”
“I should. But no. You’ll serve your suspension and then we’ll see where we are.” Coach stands. “Now get out of here. I’m sure you’ve got someone waiting for you.”
Garrett doesn’t need to be told twice.
He showers quickly, changes into his street clothes. His hands are sore — he definitely bruised his knuckles on Beck’s face — but it’s a good kind of pain. Satisfying.
His phone has seven missed calls and twice as many texts. Most from teammates, congratulating him. A few from reporters, asking for comment. One from his dad, which he deletes without reading.
And one voicemail from you.
He listens to it in his car, sitting in the parking lot.
Your voice is shaky but sincere. Thanking him. Telling him you’ll be there when he gets back.
Something in his chest loosens.
He starts the car and drives home.
When he walks through the door, the house is quiet. Beau’s on the couch, watching TV.
“She’s in your room,” Beau says without looking up.
Garrett takes the stairs two at a time.
His door is closed. He knocks softly.
“Come in.”
You’re sitting on his bed, laptop closed beside you. You look up when he enters and something in your expression makes Garrett’s breath catch.
“Hi,” you say.
“Hi.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Are you?”
“I watched the whole thing.”
“And?”
You stand, walk over to him. You’re close enough now that he can see the fading bruises on your throat, the shadows under your eyes.
“Thank you,” you say quietly.
“You already said that. In your message.”
“I know. But I wanted to say it to your face.” You reach out, hesitate, then gently take his hand. Look at his bruised knuckles. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
The smallest smile touches his lips. “Maybe a little.”
You hold his hand carefully, like it’s something precious. “You’re probably suspended.”
“Yeah.”
“For multiple games.”
“Probably.”
“Because of me.”
“Because of him,” Garrett corrects. “Because he’s a piece of shit who deserved to have his face rearranged.”
You look up at him, and there’s something in your eyes Garrett can’t quite read. Gratitude, maybe. Or something deeper.
“No one’s ever stood up for me like that before,” you say.
“They should have.”
“But they didn’t. You did.”
Garrett wants to close the distance between you. Wants to pull you into his arms and promise that he’ll always protect you, always fight for you, always be there.
But he doesn’t.
Because you’re not his to protect. Not really. You’re just someone he couldn’t walk away from. Someone he couldn’t save until you decided to save yourself.
“Get some sleep,” he says instead. “We can talk more in the morning.”
You nod, but you don’t let go of his hand.
“Garrett?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad it was you. That night. When I called. I’m glad it was you who answered.”
Something in Garrett’s chest cracks open.
“Me too,” he says.
You finally release his hand and he steps back into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
He leans against the wall, closes his eyes, and lets himself feel everything he’s been holding back for three weeks.
The rage. The fear. The overwhelming need to protect you.
And something else. Something he’s not ready to name yet.
But it’s there.
Growing stronger every day.
***
The suspension comes down two days after the game: four games for “excessive violence and intent to injure.”
Garrett doesn’t even blink.
Four games. That’s it. He was expecting worse — six, maybe eight. The fact that the league went relatively light on him suggests that maybe, just maybe, someone up there knows what Beck did. Knows why Garrett did what he did.
“Four games,” Logan says, reading the official statement on his phone. “That’s nothing.”
“Could’ve been worse,” Garrett replies, sprawled on the couch with an ice pack on his still-swollen knuckles.
“Could’ve been better. Could’ve been zero games and a medal.”
Tucker walks in from the kitchen, protein shake in hand. “Did you see the prospect rankings?”
“What about them?”
“You moved up.” Tucker grins. “Apparently scouts love a forward who can put up points and throw down when needed. The Bruins are talking about you even more now.”
Garrett sits up. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Check Twitter. Hockey analysts are going crazy. Half of them are calling you a thug, but the other half are saying you’re exactly what the league needs. A player with skill and grit.”
Dean appears in the doorway. “There’s already a highlight reel of the fight on YouTube. It’s got like two million views.”
“Jesus.”
“You’re famous, man. In the best and worst way possible.”
Garrett doesn’t care about fame. Doesn’t care about the projections or the highlight reels or what analysts think. He cares about one thing: that Beck is in the hospital with a face that looks like ground meat, and everyone knows why.
You appear at the top of the stairs, wearing one of Garrett’s old Briar Hockey hoodies that swallows you whole. You’ve been staying in his room for three weeks now, and the house has adjusted around you. The boys treat you like a little sister — protective, teasing, careful. It’s the safest you’ve felt in over a year.
“What’s all the noise about?” You ask.
“Garrett’s trending on Twitter,” Tucker announces.
“For the fight?”
“For being a badass, apparently.”
You come down the stairs, curl up on the couch next to Garrett. It’s become natural now, this casual proximity. He doesn’t flinch when you’re near. You don’t panic when he moves. It’s taken weeks to build this comfort, but it’s there.
“How are the knuckles?” You ask.
“Better. Still ugly.”
“Battle scars.”
“Something like that.”
Your phone buzzes. You pull it out, check the screen, and Garrett watches your expression change. The color drains from your face.
“What?” He asks immediately.
“The DA. The trial date got moved up.”
“To when?”
“Three weeks from now.” Your voice is shaky. “April seventh.”
Garrett does the math. That’s right after his suspension ends. Almost like fate scheduled it that way.
“You okay?” He asks.
“I don’t know. I thought I’d have more time to prepare.”
“You’ve been preparing for weeks. You’re ready.”
“Am I?” You look at him, and there’s real fear in your eyes. “What if I mess up? What if I freeze on the stand? What if his lawyers tear me apart?”
“Then I’ll be there to put you back together.”
It’s a promise. Simple and absolute.
You lean into him slightly, and Garrett puts his arm around your shoulders. The gesture is still new enough to feel significant. Still careful enough that either of you could pull away.
But neither of you do.
***
The three weeks pass in a blur of preparation.
The DA — a sharp woman named Katherine Doherty who looks like she could argue a case in her sleep — meets with you six times. Goes over your testimony, prepares you for cross-examination, teaches you how to stay calm under pressure.
“They’re going to try to discredit you,” she says during one session, Garrett sitting quietly in the corner. “They’re going to imply you’re lying, that you wanted it, that you’re just trying to ruin his life because you’re bitter about the breakup. And you cannot let them see you break.”
“How do I not break?” You ask. “How do I sit there and listen to them call me a liar and not fall apart?”
“You remember why you’re doing this. You remember that you’re not just fighting for yourself — you’re fighting for every woman he might hurt in the future. Every girl who might think she deserves to be treated like he treated you.”
Garrett watches you absorb this. Watches you straighten your spine, lift your chin.
“Okay,” you say. “I can do that.”
“I know you can.”
The night before the trial, you can’t sleep. Garrett finds you in the kitchen at 2 AM, making tea with shaking hands.
“Hey,” he says softly.
You jump, nearly dropping the mug. “God, you scared me.”
“Sorry. Couldn’t sleep either.”
“Tomorrow’s the day.”
“Yep.”
You pour hot water over the tea bag, watch it steep. “What if he gets away with it?”
“He won’t.”
“But what if he does? His parents hired the best lawyers in Boston. They’ve got money and connections and-”
“And you have the truth.” Garrett moves closer, takes the mug from your hands before you spill it. “You have evidence. You have photos. You have medical records. You have me.”
“You can’t testify. You weren’t there.”
“No, but I can sit in that courtroom and make sure you know you’re not alone.”
You look up at him, and in the dim kitchen light, Garrett can see the fear and determination warring in your expression.
“I’m terrified,” you whisper.
“I know.”
“But I’m also angry. I’m so angry at him for what he did. For what he took from me. And I want him to pay.”
“He will.”
“Promise?”
Garrett shouldn’t make promises he can’t keep. Shouldn’t guarantee an outcome that’s out of his control. But looking at you — brave and broken and desperately needing something to hold onto — he can’t help himself.
“I promise.”
***
The courthouse is exactly as imposing as you imagined. All marble and high ceilings and the kind of quiet that feels heavy.
You’re dressed in a simple navy dress that Katherine helped you pick out. Professional but not severe. Respectful but not apologetic. Your hair is pulled back. Your makeup is minimal.
Garrett’s beside you in a suit that looks uncomfortable on him. He’s a jeans and hoodie guy, but today he looks like he walked out of a magazine. Dark suit, crisp white shirt, tie that Logan had to help him knot.
“You look good,” you tell him as you wait outside the courtroom.
“I look like I’m going to a funeral.”
“And still very handsome.”
He manages a small smile. “You ready?”
“No. But let’s do this anyway.”
Katherine appears, all business in her sharp pantsuit. “Alright, let’s go over this one more time. You tell the truth. You stay calm. You don’t let his lawyer bait you into anger. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Remember, the evidence is on our side. The medical records, the photos, the police report. This isn’t a he-said-she-said. This is a he-said-she-said-and-she-has-proof.”
You nod, trying to absorb her confidence.
The courtroom doors open and you walk inside.
It’s smaller than you expected. Maybe forty seats in the gallery, half of them filled. You recognize some faces — your parents, who flew in from wherever they’ve been. Julie, who’s been your rock through all of this. Some of Garrett’s teammates.
And Cameron’s parents. Sitting in the front row, looking like they’re at a country club meeting instead of their son’s rape trial.
You don’t look at Cameron. Can’t. Not yet.
The bailiff calls the court to order and the judge — an older woman with gray hair and sharp eyes — takes her seat.
“The People versus Cameron Jameson Beck,” the bailiff announces. “Charges of rape in the first degree, assault in the second degree, and attempted murder.”
The words hang in the air like a death sentence.
The trial begins.
***
Garrett sits in the gallery, three rows back, and watches everything unfold.
The prosecution goes first. Katherine is methodical, building her case piece by piece. She presents the medical records — the photos of your bruises, the hospital documentation of your injuries. She presents the police report, Officer Murphy’s testimony about the state you were in when you came to the station.
She presents your Instagram, showing the jury the transformation from bright, happy student to hollow-eyed ghost.
Cameron’s lawyer — a smarmy guy named Robert Coburn who probably charges a thousand dollars an hour — objects to nearly everything. “Relevance, your honor.” “Speculation.” “Prejudicial.”
Most of his objections get overruled.
Then it’s time for your testimony.
You take the stand, right hand raised, and swear to tell the truth. Your voice is steady, but Garrett can see your hands shaking.
Katherine approaches with a gentle expression. “Can you state your name for the record?”
“Y/N Y/L/N.”
“And how old are you, Y/N?”
“Twenty.”
“And you’re a student at Boston University?”
“Yes. Junior. Journalism major.”
“Can you tell the jury how you met the defendant?”
You take a breath. “We met at a party. March of last year. He was charming. Funny. He asked me out and I said yes.”
“And when did the relationship turn abusive?”
“Gradually. It started with small things. Criticizing what I wore, who I talked to. Then it escalated. He’d grab my wrist too hard. Shove me. Call me names.”
“And did you tell anyone?”
“No. I thought I could fix it. Thought if I just tried harder, he’d go back to being the person I fell for.”
“When did the physical abuse become severe?”
“Last summer. He pushed me down a flight of stairs. Told everyone I tripped. I had bruises for weeks.”
Katherine presents photos. The jury studies them, and Garrett watches their faces shift from neutral to horrified.
“And the sexual assault. Can you describe what happened?”
This is the hard part. Garrett can see you steeling yourself.
“He would force me. When I said no, he’d do it anyway. He said I owed him. That it was my job as his girlfriend.”
“How many times did this occur?”
“I don’t know. Dozens. Maybe more.”
“And the incident on February nineteenth of this year. Can you describe that?”
You detail it all. The napkin. His rage. The choking. The fear that you were going to die.
By the time you finish, half the jury is crying.
Then it’s Coburn’s turn.
He stands, adjusts his expensive tie, and approaches you like a shark circling prey.
“Ms. Y/L/N, you claim my client raped you. Is that correct?”
“It’s not a claim. It’s a fact.”
“A fact. I see. And yet you never reported these alleged assaults until after you left him. Why is that?”
“I was scared.”
“Scared. Of what?”
“Of him. Of what he’d do if I told anyone.”
“But you told Mr. Graham, didn’t you?” Carlisle gestures toward Garrett. “A hockey player from a rival school. Isn’t it true that you were having an affair with Mr. Graham and fabricated these accusations to justify leaving my client?”
Garrett’s hands clench into fists.
“No,” you say firmly. “I never even met Garrett until the day before it happened. He saw Cameron hurting me after a game and tried to step in. And I didn’t fabricate anything, Cameron tried to kill me.”
“Allegedly tried to kill you.”
“There’s nothing alleged about it. He choked me until I blacked out.”
“Or perhaps you two had rough sex and you’re retroactively withdrawing consent because you regret it?”
Katherine jumps up. “Objection! Badgering the witness.”
“Sustained,” the judge says. “Mr. Coburn, watch yourself.”
But Coburn isn’t done. “You say my client raped you dozens of times. And yet you stayed with him. You continued to see him, to sleep in his bed, to appear with him publicly. Does that sound like the behavior of a rape victim?”
“Yes.” Your voice doesn’t waver. “It sounds exactly like the behavior of someone trapped in an abusive relationship. Someone who’s been manipulated and gaslit into thinking they deserve it.”
“Or someone who’s lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You expect this jury to believe that my client — a decorated student athlete with no prior criminal record — is a rapist and attempted murderer based solely on your word?”
“Based on my word and the medical evidence and the photos and the testimony of everyone who saw what he did to me.”
Coburn smiles. It’s not a nice smile. “No further questions.”
You step down from the stand and Garrett wants to go to you, wants to pull you into his arms and tell you how incredibly brave you are. But he stays seated, hands gripping the bench in front of him so hard his knuckles turn white.
The defense presents their case. It’s weak — character witnesses who talk about what a great guy Cameron is, how he volunteers and gets good grades and wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Cameron himself takes the stand. Denies everything. Claims you were the aggressive one, the unstable one. Says you threatened to ruin him if he ever left you.
It’s all bullshit and everyone in the courtroom knows it.
When both sides rest, the judge gives instructions to the jury. They file out to deliberate.
And then you wait.
***
Two hours feel like two years.
You’re in a conference room with Katherine, drinking terrible coffee and trying not to throw up.
Garrett’s there too, because they couldn’t make him leave. He sits beside you, not saying much, just being present.
“What if they don’t believe me?” You ask for the hundredth time.
“They will,” Katherine says.
“But what if they don’t?”
“Then we appeal. But they’re going to believe you, Y/N. The evidence is overwhelming.”
Your phone buzzes. It’s your mom, asking for updates. You ignore it. Can’t deal with her nervous energy on top of your own.
Garrett’s phone buzzes too. He checks it, smiles slightly.
“What?” You ask.
“Logan. He says if Beck walks, they’re going to handle it themselves.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“I think it’s sweet.”
Despite everything, you almost laugh.
There’s a knock on the door. The bailiff pokes his head in. “Jury’s back.”
Your stomach drops. “Already?”
“Quick verdicts are usually good for the prosecution,” Katherine says, standing. “Let’s go.”
You walk back into the courtroom on legs that feel like jelly. The gallery has filled up — more people heard about the verdict and came to watch.
Garrett takes his seat in the gallery. You sit at the prosecution table with Katherine.
The jury files in. You try to read their faces, but they’re all carefully neutral.
The judge addresses the foreperson. “Has the jury reached a verdict?”
“We have, your honor.”
“On the charge of rape in the first degree, how do you find?”
“We find the defendant guilty.”
The courtroom erupts. Cameron’s mother gasps. His father starts shouting. The judge bangs her gavel.
“On the charge of assault in the second degree, how do you find?”
“Guilty.”
“On the charge of attempted murder, how do you find?”
“Guilty.”
You can’t breathe. Can’t process. Guilty. Guilty on all counts.
The judge is talking about sentencing, but you can’t hear her over the roaring in your ears. You turn around, looking for Garrett, and find him already standing, pushing his way toward the railing that separates the gallery from the floor.
“Twenty-five years,” the judge announces. “With possibility of parole after twenty.”
Twenty-five years. Cameron won’t be out until he’s almost fifty.
Katherine is hugging you. Julie is cheering. You’re crying.
And then you’re moving, pushing past people, until you reach Garrett.
He meets you at the railing and you throw yourself at him. He catches you, arms wrapping around you, pulling you close.
“We did it,” you sob into his shoulder. “He’s going to prison.”
“You did it,” Garrett corrects, voice rough. “You were so fucking brave up there.”
“I was terrified.”
“But you did it anyway. That’s what brave means.”
You pull back just enough to look at him. His eyes are wet, you realize. Garrett Graham is crying.
“I’m so proud of you,” he whispers, tucking your head under his chin. “So goddamn proud.”
Behind you, bailiffs are handcuffing Cameron. Leading him away. He’s shouting something — probably threats, probably curses — but you don’t care. Can’t hear him over your own heartbeat.
You’re safe. Finally, truly safe.
You look up at Garrett and something shifts. Something clicks into place.
He’s looking at you with an expression you’ve seen before but never fully understood. Fierce and protective and something else. Something deeper.
“Garrett,” you whisper.
“Yeah?”
You don’t have words for what you’re feeling. Don’t know how to explain that this boy — this stranger who became your savior who became your friend — has somehow become everything.
So you don’t say anything.
You just reach up, cup his face in your hands, and kiss him.
For a second, he freezes. Surprised. Then his hands come up to cradle your face, gentle and careful, and he kisses you back.
It’s nothing like kissing Cameron. There’s no demand in it. No ownership. Just soft and sweet and full of promise.
When you finally pull apart, you’re both crying.
“Was that okay?” You ask, suddenly worried you misread everything.
“That was-” Garrett’s voice breaks. “Yeah. That was okay.”
Around you, the courtroom is clearing out. People are talking, crying, celebrating. But you and Garrett are in your own bubble.
His thumbs brush your cheekbones, wiping away tears. His touch is so gentle it makes your chest ache. You think about all the times Cameron grabbed your face — harsh, controlling, meant to intimidate. And then you think about this. About Garrett holding you like you’re something precious. Something worth protecting.
“Thank you,” you whisper. “For everything. For answering the phone that night. For believing me. For fighting for me.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do. Because you didn’t have to do any of it. You could’ve walked away. But you didn’t.”
“I couldn’t.” Garrett’s forehead touches yours. “Not from you.”
Katherine appears beside you, tactfully clearing her throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s some paperwork we need to go over. And the press is outside — they’re going to want a statement.”
You take a shaky breath. “Can Garrett come?”
“Of course.”
You don’t let go of Garrett’s hand as you follow Katherine to another conference room. Don’t let go as she explains the next steps — the appeals process that Cameron will probably pursue, the restraining order that’s now permanent, the victim services available to you.
Don’t let go as you walk outside and face the cameras.
You read a prepared statement that Katherine helped you write. About believing survivors. About holding abusers accountable. About how justice, while imperfect, still matters.
The whole time, Garrett stands beside you. Not in front of you, not behind you. Beside you.
When it’s finally over, when you’re back in Garrett’s car heading home, you let yourself feel it. All of it. The relief and the grief and the rage and the hope.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” you say.
“It’s not over,” Garrett replies. “He’ll appeal. There will be more legal stuff. More healing you have to do.”
“But the worst part is over.”
“Yeah. The worst part is over.”
You look at him — really look at him. This boy who became a man in your eyes. Who taught you that not all strength is violent. That protection doesn’t mean possession.
“What happens now?” You ask.
“What do you want to happen?”
“I don’t know. I just know I want you in it. Whatever it is.”
Garrett reaches over, takes your hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
And for the first time in over a year, you believe that someone’s promise to you actually means something.
You believe in tomorrow.
You believe in healing.
You believe in love — the real kind. The kind that doesn’t hurt.
As Garrett drives you home, your hand in his, you think about that girl in the old Instagram photos. The bright, ambitious journalism student who wanted to change the world.
She’s not gone.
She’s been sleeping. Waiting. Healing.
And now, finally, she’s ready to wake up.
***
One year later.
You’re standing on the sidelines of Agganis Arena, camera crew behind you, microphone in hand, and you’ve never felt more alive.
The scoreboard reads 4-2, Briar. Opening game of the season, and your alma mater just got demolished by your boyfriend’s team. You should probably feel some kind of loyalty conflict, but honestly? You’re just happy to be here.
Happy to be doing what you love.
Happy to be yourself again.
“Alright, Y/N, we’re live in thirty seconds,” your producer says through your earpiece.
You smooth down your blazer — BU red and white, professional but not stuffy — and check your notes one more time. Post-game interview with Briar’s captain and star center, who just scored a hat trick.
Who also happens to be the love of your life, but you’re trying to keep it professional.
“And we’re live in five, four, three …” The producer counts down with his fingers, then points at you.
You smile at the camera. “I’m here with Garrett Graham, captain of the Briar University hockey team, who just led his team to a dominant 4-2 victory over Boston University in tonight’s season opener. Garrett, congratulations on the win.”
Garrett’s in his full gear minus his helmet, hair damp with sweat, face flushed from exertion. He looks good. Unfairly good. But you keep your expression neutral, professional.
“Thanks, Y/N,” he says, and there’s the tiniest hint of a smile playing at his lips. “Feels great to start the season with a W.”
“You had three goals tonight. Walk me through that second one — the wraparound. That was pretty spectacular.”
“Yeah, I mean, their goalie was cheating to the far post, so I saw an opening and just tried to jam it in. Got lucky.”
“Lucky?” You raise an eyebrow. “That was pure skill and you know it.”
Now he’s definitely smiling. “Well, I’ve had some good coaching. Great teammates. It’s a team effort.”
“Speaking of team effort, this is your senior year. How does it feel knowing this is your last season playing college hockey?”
Something shifts in Garrett’s expression. Gets more serious. “It’s bittersweet, you know? I love this team. Love this school. But I’m also excited for what’s next.”
You consult your notes, but you’ve memorized these questions. Did the research like you do for every interview. The fact that you also know Garrett’s favorite breakfast order and the way he likes his coffee doesn’t matter right now. Right now, you’re a journalist doing your job.
“Your team has high expectations this year,” you continue. “Returning most of your starters, strong recruiting class. Do you think Briar can make a run at the national championship?”
“I think we’ve got the talent and the drive. We’ve been working our asses off—sorry, can I say that on air?”
You fight back a smile. “We’re cable. You’re fine.”
“Well, we’ve been working really hard in the off-season. Everyone’s bought in. Everyone wants it. So yeah, I think we’ve got a real shot.”
“And what about you personally? Any individual goals for the season?”
Garrett looks directly at the camera. “Honestly? I just want to make the most of it. Enjoy every game. Play for my teammates. And hopefully leave Briar better than I found it.”
It’s a perfect answer. Humble but confident. Team-oriented but ambitious.
You should wrap up the interview. Move on to the next player. But there’s something in Garrett’s eyes — a warmth, a familiarity — that makes you relax slightly.
“So,” you say, going slightly off-script. “Three goals on opening night. That’s got to feel pretty good, especially against BU.”
“Oh, especially against BU,” Garrett agrees, and now he’s definitely teasing. “No offense to your school.”
“Some taken. We did make it competitive for two periods.”
“You did. That third period though …” He makes a yikes face.
“Okay, rude.”
“I’m just stating facts. As a journalist, I thought you’d appreciate factual accuracy.”
You bite back a laugh. “I appreciate winning more.”
“Well, you’re dating a Briar guy now, so technically you did win tonight.”
Your producer is probably having a heart attack in the truck, but you can’t help it. You grin. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Plus I scored three goals. You should be very impressed.”
“Oh, should I?”
“Definitely. I expect appropriate celebration later.”
You feel your cheeks heat up. “Garrett, we’re on camera.”
“I know.” He’s absolutely shameless, that smile widening. “Just keeping things interesting for the viewers.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You love it.”
And okay, you do. You love this — the easy banter, the way he can make you laugh even in the middle of a professional interview, the way he looks at you like you’re the only person in the arena.
“Alright, I think that’s probably enough for tonight,” you say, trying to regain some semblance of professionalism. “Garrett Graham, congratulations again on the win. Best of luck for the rest of the season.”
“Thanks for having me.”
He starts to walk away, then turns back. Before you can react, he’s leaning in and kissing you — quick and sweet but definitely not professional — right there on camera.
When he pulls back, you’re frozen, face burning, completely flustered.
“See you at home,” he says with a wink, then jogs off toward the locker room.
You turn back to the camera, trying to compose yourself. Your producer is definitely going to kill you, but you can hear him laughing through your earpiece.
“And that’s … that’s the post-game report from Agganis Arena,” you manage. “Back to you in the studio.”
The camera light goes off and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.
Your producer appears, shaking his head but grinning. “Well, that’s going viral.”
“I’m so sorry-”
“Are you kidding? That was gold. Adorable, authentic, exactly the kind of content people eat up.” He claps you on the shoulder. “Great job tonight, Y/N. Really great work.”
You pack up your gear, still blushing, and check your phone. There’s already a text from Julie: OMG I SAW THAT. YOU AND GARRETT ARE DISGUSTINGLY CUTE.
Then one from Logan: G’s getting chirped so hard in the locker room right now. Worth it though.
Then one from your mom: Sweetie, you looked wonderful! Very professional! Well, mostly professional 😊
You’re laughing as you head out to the parking lot. Your car is parked next to Garrett’s truck — you drove separately since you had to be here early for setup, but you’ll both end up at the same place.
Home.
It still feels surreal sometimes. That you’re here. That you’re happy. That you wake up every morning next to someone who treats you like you’re precious.
You drive home on autopilot, your mind replaying the interview. The way Garrett looked at you. The easy chemistry between you. The kiss that’s probably being GIF’d and memed as you drive.
When you pull into the driveway, his truck is already there. Lights are on in the living room.
You let yourself in — still a small thrill every time, having a key, being welcome, being home — and find Garrett on the couch, showered and changed into sweatpants and a Briar t-shirt.
“Hey, superstar,” you say, dropping your bag by the door.
He looks up, grins. “Hey, yourself. How’d the rest of the interviews go?”
“Fine. Though none of them involved impromptu kisses.”
“I couldn’t help it. You looked too good.”
You flop down beside him, and he immediately pulls you into his side. It’s automatic now, this casual affection. So different from the careful distance you maintained those first few months.
“You’re going to get me in trouble,” you say, but there’s no heat in it.
“With who? Your producer loved it.”
“With my professional reputation.”
“Your professional reputation is that you’re a talented journalist who asks great questions and happens to be dating the extremely handsome captain of Briar’s hockey team.”
“Extremely handsome? Really?”
“I’m just reporting the facts.”
You laugh, tilting your head up to look at him. “You played really well tonight.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. That second goal was beautiful. And the assist to Logan — perfect pass.”
“Are you analyzing my game?”
“I’m a sports journalist. It’s literally my job.”
Garrett’s expression softens. “You know what I love about you?”
“My devastating good looks?”
“Well, yes. But also that you never stopped chasing your dreams. Even after everything. You could’ve given up on journalism, on sports media, on everything. But you didn’t.”
You think about that. About the girl you were a year ago — broken, terrified, barely functional. About the slow, painful process of putting yourself back together. The therapy sessions. The nightmares that still happen sometimes. The moments of panic when someone moves too fast or raises their voice.
But also about the victories. Getting back on camera. Doing your first post-game interview. Continuing with your journalism degree. Landing the job with BU’s sports network.
Coming home to Garrett and feeling safe.
“I had help,” you say quietly.
“You did the work.”
“We did the work.”
Because it hasn’t been just you. Garrett’s been there for every step. Patient when you couldn’t be touched. Understanding when you had nightmares. Gentle when you needed gentleness and strong when you needed strength.
He’s been to therapy himself — dealing with his own trauma, his own guilt about his mother. Learning how to be supportive without being controlling. How to protect without possessing.
You’ve healed together.
“Come here,” Garrett says, pulling you fully into his lap. You go willingly, straddling him, your hands on his shoulders.
“Hi,” you whisper.
“Hi.”
He kisses you properly this time. Not the quick peck from the arena, but slow and deep and full of promise. His hands settle on your waist, thumbs rubbing gentle circles through your shirt.
When you break apart, you’re both breathing harder.
“I’m really proud of you,” he says. “For tonight. For everything. You were amazing out there.”
“It was just an interview.”
“It wasn’t just anything. You stood on that sideline in the arena where he used to play and you did your job like the professional you are. That takes guts.”
You hadn’t thought about it that way. Hadn’t consciously registered that you were in BU’s arena doing what you love without fear.
“He’s in prison,” you say. It’s a fact you remind yourself of sometimes. When the anxiety creeps in. When you wonder if he’ll somehow find you. “He can’t hurt me anymore.”
“He can’t hurt you anymore,” Garrett agrees. “And even if he could, he’d have to go through me first.”
“My fierce protector.”
“Always.”
You kiss him again, and this time it’s different. Deeper. More urgent. His hands slide under your shirt, warm against your skin, and you arch into the touch.
“Bedroom?” He murmurs against your lips.
“Bedroom,” you agree.
He stands, lifting you easily, and you wrap your legs around his waist. He carries you upstairs — something that should be cheesy but somehow isn’t, not with him — and lays you gently on the bed.
The first time you slept together, four months ago, you cried. Not from pain or fear, but from the overwhelming realization that intimacy could be tender. That sex could be about connection instead of control.
Garrett held you through it, whispered that you were safe, that you could stop anytime, that he loved you.
You don’t cry anymore. Now it’s just … good. Better than good. Amazing.
He takes his time with you now, kissing down your neck, your collarbone. His hands are reverent as he removes your clothes, piece by piece, checking in with every new touch.
“This okay?”
“Yes.”
“And this?”
“Yes.”
It’s something he always does. Always asks. Even a year into your relationship, even though you’ve done this dozens of times, he never assumes. Never takes.
Only gives.
He kisses the spot on your throat where Cameron’s handprints used to be. The bruises are long gone, but the memory lingers. Garrett knows this. Treats these places with extra care. Extra tenderness.
“Beautiful,” he whispers against your skin. “So fucking beautiful.”
You pull him up to kiss him properly, to tell him without words how much he means to you. How much this means.
Hours later, you’re both exhausted and sated, tangled together in the sheets. Your head is on his chest, his arm around you, fingers drawing idle patterns on your shoulder.
“What are you thinking about?” He asks.
“How different everything is.”
“Good different or bad different?”
“The best different.” You tilt your head to look at him. “A year ago, I couldn’t imagine being happy again. Couldn’t imagine feeling safe or loved or … whole.”
“And now?”
“Now I can’t imagine anything else.”
Garrett’s quiet for a moment. “I love you. You know that, right?”
“I know. I love you too.”
“I’m going to marry you someday.”
It’s not a proposal — just a statement of fact. But it makes your heart skip anyway.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. When you’re ready. When we’re ready. But someday, I’m going to put a ring on your finger and spend the rest of my life making sure you never doubt how loved you are.”
You should probably be scared by that level of commitment. Should feel trapped or pressured or uncertain.
But you don’t.
You feel safe.
“Someday sounds good,” you whisper.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He kisses the top of your head, and you settle back against his chest. Listen to his heartbeat. Let yourself drift.
You think about the girl in those old Instagram photos. The one who was bright and ambitious and full of dreams. The one who thought she could change the world.
She’s still here. She’s been here all along, just waiting to be found again.
And she’s got so much left to do.
Stories to tell. Games to cover. A career to build. A life to live.
But for now, in this moment, wrapped in the arms of someone who sees all of her — the broken parts and the healing parts and the parts that were never damaged at all — she’s exactly where she needs to be.
“Garrett?” You murmur, half-asleep.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you for answering the phone that night.”
His arms tighten around you. “Thank you for calling.”
Outside, the world keeps spinning. Tomorrow will bring new challenges, new victories, new moments to navigate. But tonight, you’re safe and loved and whole.
| hana | she/her | 21 | requests: closed | taglist: open |
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about ;
✦ my writing is all f!reader and i used to write for haikyuu, currently i am only writing when inspiration hits, there is no schedule
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writing ;
✦ Haikyuu Masterlist
✦ Loving Khaos & Greek Mythology Masterlist
✦ Criminal Minds Masterlist
✦ Moon Knight Masterlist
✦ The Sandman Masterlist
✦ Marvel Masterlist
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✦ Run girl, run
✦ Walking away from the best thing he could have had
To his people, he is Prince James. To the Reader, he is simply Bucky. Yet one day he shall be king, but she could never sit by his side as equal.
Pairing: Bucky x Reader
Warnings: smutish??? there is nothing descriptive really
Genre: angst; fluff
Word count: 7887
Since Bucky could remember himself, he knew he was important, that his future was already predetermined and his shoulders would carry a great weight. But that did not mean the young prince would give up his childhood, his friends for the throne. His parents wouldn’t have allowed it anyway, trying to raise the boy as kind and thoughtful as possible. Steve and Y/N helped with that.
Steven Grant Rogers was his best friend. They were distant cousins as Steve’s father was the royal advisor to King George and Queen Winifred, while Y/N was the daughter to the Queen’s handmaiden Frigga. The trio couldn’t be closer even if they had been born as triplets.
The two boys defended Y/N and her honour whenever any of the other highborn children made fun of her and she kept their lives fun and interesting. She was like a hurricane, doing all sorts of crazy things but not once forgetting her duties as one day she’d be the personal handmaiden to the future king.
They all grew up side by side until one, day things changed. Bucky was twelve years old when his father while tucking the boy in, told him that it was time to grow up a bit.
“Soon, you’ll have to take the throne. And you need to start learning what your responsibilities are.”
“But why do I have to not talk to my friends?”
“No,” George had chuckled, “no one is saying that. You just have to give more attention to your people, to your country. You have to show them, that they matter, that you care. No king is better than his people because without them he is nothing.”
Summary: Y/N has never been a fan of weddings. She’s dreading her sister’s and all the judgmental questions she’ll have to answer.
No one requested this.
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader
Word Count: 4,037
Bucky was making breakfast for Natasha and Steve. He’d made a stupid bet with Natasha on their last mission together. Unlike Steve, they liked to joke around on covert operations. It calmed both of them. Bucky couldn’t even remember what the bet had been now; he just remembered that he promised to make Natasha breakfast the morning after they returned back to the compound. He added Steve on the receiving end of the benefits because he was forced to listen to his and Natasha’s babbling every mission.
Just after he finished making piling breakfast onto three plates, Y/N came hurdling into the kitchen with a duffle bag over her shoulder. Steve and Natasha had been conversing casually until her loud arrival.
Can you write a fic between Bucky and an avenger reader (maybe she’s just a little older than Peter (like she’s in her mid 20s)and she always had a crush on Bucky)
notes: thank you for sending this in ! i hope you enjoy
warnings: fluff, mentions of night terrors
summary: you think you’re too young for Bucky to be interested in you. ironically, Bucky thinks he’s too old for you to be interested in him
“So how did that date go?” Wanda asks while watching you mindlessly scroll through the selection of movies Tony has on the entertainment room TV.
“I bailed,” Natasha admits shamelessly with an innocent shrug, prompting both Wanda and yourself to turn to her in shock. “I’m not really interested in giving up my personal time for something as trivial as a blind date.”
You hum thoughtfully at her response, only half listening as Wanda begins to pester her for more details about the man she had stood up. The three of you are enjoying a rare night of peace in the tower after forcing the men to vacate the premises and allow you to have the space to yourselves. The three of you are outnumbered on the team, so sometimes a break from the intense amounts of testosterone are needed for you all to decompress. Girl’s night is a simple tradition, but you all enjoy each other’s company more than anything.
“What about you, y/n?” Natasha prompts while gently nudging your side and breaking you from your daze. “Any guys out there you think are first date material?”
You shift uncomfortably now that the spotlight is on you and try to mask the embarrassment that washes over you in response to the question. You know your answer, but you think you’d rather die than admit the truth. You try to remain as nonchalant as possible by offering a seemingly uninterested shrug and answering with a quiet ‘No,’ but you unfortunately can’t hide the truth from a mind reader.
“She has a crush on Barnes,” Wanda blurts out before she can stop herself, causing your eyes to widen in horror at being exposed. Natasha lets out an amused huff while her counterpart quickly utters out apologies. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to say it. It’s just your thoughts get so loud when you think about him.”
“You don’t need to be a mind reader to know that,” Natasha jokes much to your dismay.
“Is it really that obvious?” You groan before allowing your head to fall back against the couch in defeat. Wanda pats your arm sympathetically, obviously still guilty about her slip up. You’re just thankful no one else is in the tower other than the three of you.
“Not to him,” the Widow consoles with a faint smile, “the man isn’t exactly the greatest at navigating social interactions. But I’ve seen the way you look at him from across the room and how your eyes light up when Steve puts you together on missions. You like him.”
“It’s pathetic, I know,” you admit with a defeated sigh, looking between the two in despair. “I don’t even know how it happened! One day we’re just teammates and the next I’m suddenly realizing just how blue his eyes are instead of paying attention to a debrief.”
“There’s nothing pathetic about your feelings,” Wanda says with a comforting smile, “it’s only natural. Maybe you should try talking to him about it.”
You look at her as if she’s grown a second head before scoffing at her suggestion. “You’re kidding, right? There’s no way I’d ever be his type. Besides, he probably sees me as some kid considering I’m only twenty-six and he’s basically a hundred years old.”
Natasha can’t help but to let out a small chuckle at your predicament before taking the remote from your fidgety hands. You don’t exactly appreciate her amusement towards your self-depreciating rant, but you know she means well, and you also know you have a tendency to be a bit dramatic.
“Don’t sell yourself short, y/n/n,” she advises before finally deciding to hit play on a random comedy movie. “Remember that you’re the prize, and any guy or girl would be lucky to have you. Besides, you’ll never know what could happen if you don’t give it a shot.”
The conversation ends there as your trio becomes engrossed with the movie, but her words linger on your mind for the rest of the night. You really doubt Bucky could have anything but platonic feelings for you, and it would be embarrassing to confess your feelings only to have him shoot you down. You don’t think you could show your face around the tower again if that were to happen, but you also know that you would give anything to win the super soldier’s heart.
Your inner turmoil persists, and you go to bed that night unsure of how to move forward.
~~~
“Barnes, y/l/n, how are you holding up?”
“We’re pretty much fucked, Cap,” you grunt into your earpiece after being slammed against a wall. You thought the room had been cleared, but you were soon proven wrong by the assailants who had been hiding in the shadows waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Bucky was currently taking on three on his own while you tried to fight off the woman who seemed hell bent on killing you. “If I survive this will I still be written up for swearing?”
“Focus, y/n,” Natasha’s voice chimes in. “Do you guys need backup?”
You manage to chance a glance over at Bucky and see that he’s fairing rather well on his own, and after returning your attention back to your own attacker, you swiftly lift your knee so that it slams into her gut and forces her to stumble back. It doesn’t take you long to disarm her and render her unconscious so that she no longer proves to be a threat, and you’re finally able to return to your own task.
“No, we’re good. Bucky should be able to hold them off while I plant the chip into the computer system,” you finally reply before setting to work. “It shouldn’t take long.”
“I hope so because they’ve got reinforcements already on the way,” Tony alerts over the earpiece. “You need to be out of there within the next five minutes.”
“Yep, you got it,” you affirm before looking over your shoulder to see Bucky finishing off the last of your attackers. His broad shoulders rise and fall with his labored breaths, hair falling perfectly into place and blue eyes looking up to meet your gaze. You swallow nervously and return your attention to the computer in an attempt to act inconspicuous. Luckily for you, the files you came for have been uploaded. “Alright, let’s get out of here before someone slams me up against another wall.”
“What?” Bucky retorts, eyebrows scrunched in confusion and cheeks slowly turning red at your poor choice of words. You pay him no mind and begin your trek towards the exit, though your stomach flips at the mere thought of having him cage you in against a wall and having you at his complete mercy. You shudder and try to shake the thoughts away, but it’s hard to do so when the man in question is right beside you matching your brisk pace.
“You okay?” He asks, eyes scanning your figure for any sign of injuries.
“Definitely going to have a bruise in the morning, but it’s nothing I can’t handle,” you note with an easygoing smile.
“I’m on dinner duty tonight,” Bucky notes thoughtfully before kicking down the doors and clearing your path to the outside. “You interested in lending a hand?”
“Oh, definitely. You and Steve can’t be trusted with dinner anymore after the last time.”
“I’ll have you know tuna casserole was a popular dish back in my day,” he retorts defensively only to make you laugh instead.
“Okay, grandpa, whatever you say,” you giggle much to his annoyance. He retaliates by playfully nudging your side with his elbow so that you stumble away, but he can’t hide the amused smile on his face at your antics.
“It’s about time,” Tony retorts impatiently after you two finally make it to the Quinjet. “I’d appreciate some sense of urgency, you know.”
“You said be back in five minutes, it’s only been three,” you reply defensively only to earn an eye roll from the man.
“You and Barnes can flirt with each other on your own time,” he quips to your dismay. You immediately feel yourself heat with embarrassment and do everything your power to avoid looking at Bucky who shifts uncomfortably beside you.
“We weren’t-“ Bucky starts to say only for Tony to interrupt.
“I don’t need the details, I just need both of your butts on the quinjet now.”
You’re mortified as you step foot inside where the rest of the team sits waiting. All eyes land on you and Bucky, and you try to ignore their gazes as you take your seat beside Wanda.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she whispers after leaning in closer to you, “his thoughts about you are loud, too.”
You swallow nervously and chance at a peek at the super soldier only to find he’s already looking right at you. You immediately turn your gaze towards the floor before sinking down sullenly into your seat.
It’s going to be a long flight home.
~~~
The tower is silent when you make your way to the living room in search of a distraction from the terrible nightmare you’d just endured. Your body still trembles with unease despite the blanket you have wrapped tightly around your figure, and it was times like these where you heavily contemplated begging Wanda to use her powers on you despite her reluctance to manipulate your mind.
There isn’t anything good playing this late on TV, but you don’t mind watching reruns of old sitcoms if it means you don’t have to sit in silence. You fixate your gaze on the screen, but you’re hardly paying any mind to your surroundings as you simply begin to dissociate. No one knows about the night terrors or the bad dreams that plague you after missions; you fear coming off as weak or unprepared for the life of an Avenger by telling any of your teammates about your dilemma, so you’ve learned to deal with it on your own by escaping through trivial distractions.
You’re so lost in thought that you don’t detect the presence of someone else in the room until a hand rests on your bare shoulder. You jump, obviously startled as your wide eyes look to the perpetrator sitting beside you. Bucky immediately yanks his hand back and raises his hands in surrender, his features apologetic at having startled you.
“Sorry, sorry,” he immediately says. “I tried calling your name first but you weren’t exactly responding. You okay?”
“Yeah, I um- sorry,” you utter with a soft shake of your head before swallowing, “I just got lost in thought I guess.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
You normally would have insisted you were fine and tried to change the topic, but there was something about the gentleness in his eyes and the comfort his presence brought you that made it easier for you to open yourself up. You sigh, shifting in place so that you’re facing him now. He offers you a an encouraging smile and already you can feel yourself melting.
“Sometimes I have night terrors,” you confess quietly, almost embarrassed to admit it out loud. “They usually tend show up after a mission or an intense fight. When they happen I just come out here and watch some TV until my brain shuts up enough for me to get some sleep. Pathetic, huh?”
Despite the humorless laugh you let out, Bucky frowns before uttering, “I don’t think that’s pathetic at all. I get it. This job is tough, and sometimes you see things you can’t unsee no matter how hard you try. Don’t beat yourself up for having a normal human reaction to trauma.”
“You sound just like a therapist,” you tease, prompting him to let out a sheepish laugh in return.
“I may have picked up a thing or two in therapy myself,” he admits. A beat passes before he takes your hand in his own and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Just know that if you ever need help chasing the nightmares away, I’m right here.”
Your heart pounds in your chest while the warmth of his hold encompasses your hand and spreads throughout your entire body. His eyes are full of sincerity, but you also detect something that you’ve never seen from him before. This look is different than the ones he normally gives you, more intimate, and you find yourself nervously biting the inside of your cheek while trying to decipher what it could be.
“Thank you,” you finally voice with a tired smile. Wanting to lighten the mood, you ask, “How come you’re up this late, anyway?”
“Made the mistake of having a cup of coffee after dinner,” he confesses with an embarrassed chuckle. “You mind if I keep you company?”
“Of course not, silly,” you retort as if it’s the most absurd question you’ve ever heard.
You and Bucky settle into a comfortable silence as you tune in to the sitcom playing on the TV screen. A sense of calm has washed over your body now that you’re no longer being tormented by the remnants of your nightmare, but there’s still a part of you that remains nervous around the man you secretly harbor feelings for. You find your mind drifting back to what Wanda had said you earlier and wonder if there was any truth to her words. What did she mean by it?
“Can I ask you something?” Bucky prompts after the episode ends.
“Anything,” you reassure him, grabbing the remote to lower the television’s volume so that he can have your undivided attention.
“I know it’s just your way of poking fun at me, but when you call me ‘grandpa’ or ‘old man,’ is that… that’s not how you see me, is it? Old?”
You’re honestly taken back by his comment, not expecting him to have thought this heavily into the subject. Of course you knew the man was out of his time, and if he had been given the chance to age naturally you most likely would not be sitting here on this couch with him, but you had never thought less of him because of the fact.
“No, of course not! Honestly sometimes I forget you’re technically 106.”
Bucky lets out a chuckle at that, but there’s still doubt lingering on his features as he self-consciously looks down at his hands in his lap. “I just see you with Peter and Wanda sometimes and wonder if I’m too old for you to be hanging around with.”
You shift closer to Bucky so that you can rest a comforting hand on his bicep, prompting him to lift his head and meet your softhearted gaze. Your entire being emanates warmth and tenderness, and it draws the soldier right in to you. You have no idea the effect you have on him or the way a single brush of your fingertips against his skin can satiate the yearning he feels every time he looks at you. Wanda had been telling you the truth; his thoughts are always loud when you’re around him.
“I guess sometimes it’s easier to connect with them considering we’re closer in age, but I like that you and I are so different because of it. I think there’s more to learn with you and more to appreciate. I genuinely enjoy any minute that’s spent with you,” you confess adamantly, prompting the corner of his lips to quirk up. “Besides, it’s going to take a lot more than a number to scare me away from you.”
Bucky only responds by wrapping his arms around your frame and pulling you into a long awaited hug. You try to stifle your gasp of surprise at suddenly being so close to him, and you hope he doesn’t pick up on the fact that your heart is nearly beating out of your ribcage. You feel his lips press to the top of your head and swear you must be dreaming this because there’s no way the Avenger you’ve pining after for months is now so boldly giving you his affection.
“How about we go away for a weekend?” He finally says after holding you in silence for some time.
“Go away?” You repeat, curiously peeking up at him.
“Leave New York, explore somewhere new,” Bucky reiterates, his features relaxed as he looks down upon you with an adoring gaze. “Be regular people for a few days.”
“I’d like that,” you profess quietly, sighing in contentment when the man pulls you against his chest once more before settling back against the couch. You can feel your eyelids already starting to become heavy, and the soothing circles he rubs into your back doesn’t help. You don’t want this moment with Bucky to end, but you also know that there’s so much to look forward to.
“Bucky?” You hum quietly after allowing your eyes to flutter shut.
“Yes, doll?”
“When we go away for the weekend, can we be regular people in a relationship?”
You feel his body gently shake from the quiet laugh he lets out at your response. You feel his lips press to your forehead as you drift to sleep, missing his answer when he replies, “I’d want nothing more.”
~~~
You slept through the rest of the night without issue; Bucky’s comforting presence was enough to lull you into a peaceful rest, and you entrusted him to chase away the nightmares for you. The two of you remained entangled together on the couch all the way until sunrise, and neither of you had bothered to consider the repercussions of your actions in the morning.
“I feel bad waking them,” Steve sighs, arms crossed over his chest as he and Natasha look down on your sleeping forms. There’s an almost proud smile on his face as he takes in the sight of his best friend holding the woman of his dreams in his arms.
“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to let them sleep a little longer,” Natasha notes with a knowing smile before promptly ushering the blond out of the entertainment room. Unbeknownst to either of you, by the time you wake up you’ll be the talk of the tower.
“So how much do you owe Wanda?” Steve asks after quietly shutting the door behind him. Natasha lets out a disappointed sigh.
“I’m out twenty bucks. I bet it would take at least another week before they finally got their heads out of their asses and confessed. But I guess as long as they’re happy…”
“That’s all that matters,” Steve finishes for her with a nod.
The team is happy they’ll no longer have to endure your obvious pining over each other, and they make sure to tell you so when you finally wake up.
Hmm, hmm, this got a little away from me! 18+ only - minors dni!
Warnings: fem!reader, oral [f receiving], squirting, over-stimulation, use of daddy, possessive!Bucky, language
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
“Bucky,” tears were pricking at the back of your eyes as Bucky grinned up at you from between your thighs. His face was slick with your arousal as you tried to close your legs and gently push him away. But he wasn’t having it - his strong hands kept your legs spread wide open as he pressed a few kisses to your cheeks, “no more. Stop, please, ‘s too much.”
“Oh come on, pretty little baby,” his voice was raspy as he pressed a few kisses to your tummy as you shook your head, “you’ve got another one left in you. I know you can do it.”
“No,” you shook your head as a few tears rolled down your cheeks. Bucky gently reached up and wiped them away, leaning over you and pressing a few kisses to your lips. You arched into his touch, tasting yourself on his lips. As soon as he’d gotten home earlier, he’d taken you to bed and laid between your legs, eating you out like a man starving. He made you cum again and again, until you were left a blubbering mess, whimpering out his name in between your soft whines, “no more.”
“You can do it,” he insisted as he nuzzled his nose against, “come for daddy. Your pretty little pussy is mine and you will come again for me.”
You whimpered softly but nodded, letting him kiss away your tears before he spread your legs again. He reached between your legs and ran a finger through your slick folds before slowly circling your sensitive clit. You mewled softly, already overstimulated from the many orgasms he gave you, but ground your hips slowly against his fingers.
“There you go, baby,” he cooed softly, “so fuckin’ gorgeous. No one else compares to you. This pussy is all mine.”
“‘m all yours, daddy,” a small gasp left your lips as he kissed your mound before delving back into you. He licked up your soaked folds, easily sliding two fingers into your tight cunt, curling them up just right to hit your g-spot, “hmmm, please.”
“Good girl,” he praised before sucking on your clit, using his mouth and fingers perfectly. His mouth was like magic as he had you seeing stars as your legs started to shake around him. You didn’t even bother to try and hold back your moans as your toes started to curl, “that’s right, little girl. Cum all over my fuckin’ face.”
It was enough to send you over the edge as you came again, throwing your head back as you reached down and held him between your legs. He was practically smirking against you as he worked you through your orgasm, not stopping until you were practically begging him to. Eventually, you were left boneless and practically melted into the bed. Bucky loomed over you, and you could see his face was glistening with your juices and for a moment you were almost embarrassed. You hadn’t realized you’d squirted all over him, “oh.”
“That was so fuckin’ hot, baby,” he practically growled against your lips, “didn’t know you could squirt like that.”
“I didn’t either,” you giggled as he laid down and pulled you on top of him.
“We’re doing that again,” he insisted, eyes clouded with lust, “gonna see how many times I can get you to do that, baby.”
“Bucky,” your face was warm and flushed, “you’ll have to let me get up sometime!”
“I will,” he agreed, “but I’m gonna fuck you all over the house. Every room. Gonna make you know who that pussy belongs to.”
