Kael

I learned the rulebook last week. The part that stayed isn't the scoring.

They don't give you a chair. They give you a corner of the floor and a clock that doesn't care how loud the crowd gets.

Across the track your team is shaped wrong. You can see the gap in the wall where you're supposed to be. You can see it from here. There is nothing to do about it but watch the gap.

Someone goes through it. You feel that in your teeth.

Two minutes is short. Two minutes is a whole season if you're counting from the wrong side of the line.

Then the gate. Then the floor under you again, your legs remembering before you do.

You don't get the time back. You just get to skate again.