Chapter 24: Behind the Lens
The words Justin asked us to help you refused to leave my head. We weren’t even talking. I’d walked away from him. I’d pushed him away. Yet somehow, while I was busy being angry with him, he’d been making phone calls to make sure I didn’t lose my documentary.
"You’ve been staring at the ice for, like, a full minute."
I blinked. Olivia waved a hand in front of my face. "Earth to Harper."
Heat crept into my cheeks. "I was thinking."
"About Justin?"
"No."
She laughed. "Sure." She offered me her hand. "I’m Olivia, officially. And that’s Mia."
Mia gave me a small wave. "I know," I said, laughing. "We’ve had classes together since sophomore year."
"Good." Olivia dropped her camera bag beside mine. "That saves us pretending we don’t already know each other." Mia knelt beside my equipment. "We wrapped our documentary last week. We’re in the editing phase now." "So when Justin asked if we’d help..." Olivia shrugged. "It was an easy yes."
"You said yes because you’re nice."
"I said yes because I still need production credits," Olivia corrected with a grin. "Being nice was just a bonus."
I laughed for the first time that morning. It felt strange, like a muscle I hadn’t used in a while. "Okay, Director."
"Don’t start."
"Oh, we’re definitely starting."
Mia opened her notebook. "Show us what you’ve filmed."
My confidence disappeared almost instantly. "It’s really not much." I opened my laptop anyway, half bracing for their polite indifference. One clip became another. The empty rink before sunrise. The equipment manager sharpening skates with quiet focus. Coach pinning practice schedules to the board. Players taping their sticks in the locker room, earbuds in, eyes down, completely in their own worlds. Justin leading stretches on the ice. Fresh ice catching the arena lights like something out of a painting.
Nobody spoke. I glanced up. Olivia hadn’t blinked in almost a minute. Mia quietly reached over and dragged the timeline backward, replaying the same shot. Then another. Then another. Finally she looked at me.
"You filmed all this?"
"Yeah."
"You didn’t use a gimbal?"
"No."
"Just handheld?"
"Yeah."
She looked at Olivia. "That’s insane."
Olivia turned the laptop toward herself. "Look at this sequence. You didn’t start with the players." "No." "You started with the room." I nodded. "I wanted people to meet the arena before they met the team."
Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Mia smiled. "I would’ve started with action." "I would’ve started with interviews," Olivia admitted. "But this..." She scrubbed back to the opening again. "This makes the arena feel like a character. Like it’s alive before anyone steps onto the ice."
I stared at the screen. I’d never thought about it that way, but she wasn’t wrong. "I just wanted people to understand where hockey players actually spend most of their lives. Not just game days."
Olivia slowly closed the laptop. "No wonder Professor Williams keeps talking about your visual storytelling."
I blinked. "He talks about me?"
"Harper." She laughed. "He uses your assignments as examples in class. Like, regularly."
"He never told me that."
"He tells the rest of us."
My ears burned. Before I could respond, Coach blew his whistle and players spilled onto the ice. The arena came alive all at once, that familiar rush of noise and movement that I’d grown weirdly attached to over the past few weeks.
Instinct took over. "Olivia, stay on Coach for warm-ups." She immediately lifted her camera. "Mia, grab reaction shots. Don’t follow the puck." "What are you taking?" I adjusted my lens. "Movement."
Neither of them questioned me. They simply nodded and spread out. I didn’t even realize I was directing until twenty minutes later when I heard myself saying "hold that shot" and "stay wide" without thinking. A freshman burst into celebration after scoring during a drill. "Now." My finger hit record. Perfect.
Coach skated past without interrupting. His eyes flickered to my monitor. He slowed just enough to glance at the footage, then looked at me. "Good eye." Then he kept skating. That was it, two words, but I smiled anyway.
Across the rink, Justin drifted toward the bench. I instinctively followed him with my camera. He wasn’t laughing with the guys. He wasn’t chirping at Mason the way he usually did. He barely looked up. Coach skated over, and they exchanged a few quiet words. I couldn’t hear what was said, but I caught Coach pointing toward the bench. "I need your head somewhere else today." Justin nodded once. No argument. No complaint. He simply sat down.
I lowered my camera slowly. "Have you ever seen him benched?" Olivia frowned. "The captain?" I shook my head. "Never."
Mia looked around the rink. "Where’s Ethan?"
I followed her gaze. She was right. His locker was open but his gear wasn’t there. No Ethan. No Chloe. No sarcastic comments drifting through the rink. Nothing. Just an empty space where he usually stood.
Another whistle. Practice ended. Players peeled off the ice, laughing and shoving each other toward the locker room like nothing in the world was wrong. I finally lowered my camera. "We’ve got enough for today."
"No interviews?" Olivia asked.
"Not yet."
"Why?"
I zipped up my camera bag. "Because cameras make people perform. And I don’t want performances." Mia tilted her head. "What do you want?" "The version of them that forgets I’m filming." Mia smiled. "That’s actually really smart."
The three of us wandered around the arena collecting details instead, the kind most people walked right past without a second glance. Gloves tossed onto benches. Helmets lined neatly inside open lockers. Tape scattered across the equipment room floor like confetti after a celebration nobody planned. I was framing one last shot near the boards when the arena doors slammed open.
Every conversation stopped. Even Coach looked up.
I lowered my camera.
Ethan stood in the doorway. Still in jeans, no gear, no hockey bag, like he’d just come from somewhere else entirely. He slowly scanned the arena, taking his time, until his eyes locked onto mine.
And then he started walking. Straight toward me.
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