Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Summer is in full swing, and it’s a lovely Saturday morning, 9:40 on the dot. It’s the kind of day where everyone is in a good mood, happy, and spending time with family, the kind of day where everyone is outside having picnics, smiling up at the cloud-free sky, lounging in the shade of a tree to avoid the hot sun as a gentle breeze tickles their neck, excited for future barbecues and pool days, the kind of day where Enid should be outside just like everyone else, but instead she’s in the arena, waiting for her turn on the ice rink.

After changing only her pants, opting to keep her comfortable jersey on for the time being, Enid settles onto the closest empty steel bench, swings her leg up onto it, and laces up her skates, starting with her right foot. Doing it all in a specific order helps her focus and get into the mindset needed for ice hockey.

Enid is the center on her hockey team, and while she’s addicted to the adrenaline from the challenging role, it’s still a challenge at the end of the day, and she always needs to be at her best. Like the famous and slightly corny (but still accurate) Spiderman quote, with great power comes great responsibility.

It’s become her motto over the years, the way she keeps herself going when things, life or otherwise, get rough, as they inevitably do in college and contact sports.

Aside from all that, the center is primarily an offensive role, so Enid likes to get all her extra energy and aggression out on the ice rather than her wall or her friends(although you could say she takes it out on her friends anyways, because they are the ones she barrels into while practicing).

Hockey has always been her escape. Even as a young child, she loved the game, even as her mother tried to force her out of it, she loved the game, and even as she was beaten down time and time again, she kept on loving the game, loving her game.

Esther Sinclair, prim and proper as ever, had put Enid in all the feminine activities she could think of. Wanting to please her mother, she tried to like them, she really did. She searched for that feeling of unadulterated joy in everything she tried, but Enid never found anything that matched the emotions that ice hockey gave her.

One way or another, this was before she realized that her mother would only be proud of her if she followed every single command without question, like a robot, so once Enid was out of the house, she left it behind. The knitting, gardening, even the candlemaking, she left it all behind. Learning how to cook is the only skill the blonde uses to this day. 

The joke is on her mother, though, because here Enid is, getting ready for her sophomore year of college, playing ice hockey like she had always dreamed of doing.

She’s not required to practice right now, being summer, but, as her coach likes to say, the grind never stops. And in any case, this is right where she wants to be, on the ice.

She clenches and unclenches her hands repeatedly to stretch them and warm them up from the crisp air of the arena. She grabs her lucky gloves and slides them on, wiggling her fingers when they don’t feel right.

She’s very particular about her pre-game rituals, and while others may laugh at it, her routine has never let her down before. After all, she’s the center for a reason, isn’t she?

It’s a wonderful role. People look at her, dyed hair and on the shorter side, bubbly and excitable, and underestimate her. She takes great pleasure in watching the jaw drops that follow her once she gets on the ice. 

Enid goes through her list, mentally checking off each one. Lucky gloves? Check. The worn-out gray shark-themed sock? Check. Skates laced up? Check. 

She looks to her left and groans when her stick isn’t there. Fuck, she knew she had forgotten something. She could grab one of the sticks in the lost and found, which is pretty much just a borrow-what-you-need box at this point, but how is she supposed to be on top of her game without her lucky stick?

So Enid pulls off a glove again, and then pulls off the other one too, placing them both beside her on the bench, because it feels weird to only have one glove on, and calls Yoko.

Enid slides the phone between her ear and shoulder and waits as it rings, wincing when her neck cracks. 

“I know we’re late, we are on our way. Traffic is a bitch today,” Yoko says in one breath as she picks up. 

Enid notices Yoko’s choice of pronoun and her flustered tone but chooses to ignore it. She silently cheers, though, because she’s been waiting for Yoko and Divina to get together for ages, even though it means she’ll constantly be third wheeling from now on.

“No, that’s fine,” she says. “That’s actually a good thing today, because I forgot my stick at home.” She waits and hopes that Yoko takes the hint. If it’s not apparent, asking for help isn’t really Enid’s thing. She’s more of a point out the problem and expect them to understand what you need type of person.

Yoko sighs. “Fine, we’ll go back and get it for you. But you better be grateful, you ass.”

Enid decides that because Yoko called her an ass, poking fun at her (and Divina) is not unjustified. “We?” she teases, “Who is we?”

She hears a groan in the background that, to no surprise, sounds curiously similar to Divina’s voice. “Am I on speaker?” Enid asks, and then resumes speaking without waiting for a response. “Alright, I’m sorry, just hurry and get my stick, please. I’ll start setting up. Thanks, guys; I love you.”

The blonde hangs up and chuckles to herself, eagerly awaiting a relationship status update from the pair. But then she remembers Yoko’s flustered manner and realizes what probably made them late, and now she’s grimacing and praying that the image of her friends doing… stuff will leave her mind quickly.

She places her phone on the bench and checks the clock, sighing as the bright red numbers read 9:48, meaning she still has to wait a little over 20 minutes before the 9:15–10:10 session finishes.

With nothing better to do, Enid opts to watch whoever has booked the current session, crossing her fingers that it’s an exciting activity and not— she shudders at the possibility—something like curling.

Before she leaves the locker room, because she doesn’t have her skate guards, Enid decides to unlace her ice skates and put on her shoes. While annoying, the extra effort of taking them off now and putting them on again later is much nicer than getting injured.

She makes her way out of the locker rooms and into the arena. The blonde’s eyes sweep over the rink, finding it empty, and her eyebrows furrow when she doesn’t spot anyone. 

But then she takes a closer look, and her gaze catches on a small, slender girl elegantly skating circles around a tall white man.

Her jaw doesn’t quite fall open at the sight, but she’s left so speechless that the metaphor might as well be a true statement.

The girl is stunning, with her raven-colored braids and slim stature, her black suit that hugs her body as perfectly as perfect can be, her graceful form and figure, Enid looks at her and all she can think is, goddamn, I am so gay.

Quietly, Enid sneaks onto the bleachers to observe the pair, never once taking her eyes off the female skater. The girl is captivating, completely and utterly captivating, and Enid willingly submits herself to the trap.

She watches as the two go through their routine, and she’s just—she’s just captivated, there’s really no other word for it. 

Enid chuckles slightly, because god, this is so much better than watching curling. In fact, she doesn’t think there is anything she’d prefer to watch right now instead of these two figure skaters.

In Enid’s expert opinion (she watched a documentary about figure skating once… around five years ago), the man she’s with is less than stellar, but the girl more than makes up for his bland movements.

She’s broken out of her haze as the phone in her hand, which she had forgotten about while obsessing over the figure skaters, vibrates, her alarm for 10:00 going off.

Enid has alarms set to ring at 10:00, 10:05, and 10:08, because she is nothing if not thorough. Her turn on the ice is from 10:15-11:10, those 55 minutes are hers(and Yoko’s and Divina’s, but mostly hers), and she is determined to use every single minute of them.

She meanders back into the locker room, silences the rest of her alarms, and places her phone onto the bench, And then, realizing the inefficiency of her route, she turns on her feet and picks up one of the red hockey goals near the wall. 

Enid hoists it up over her shoulder by the crossbar and returns to the rink. She marches, muttering “hup, two, three, four” as she steps in time with each word, pretending as though she’s marching in the army.

Enid opens the gate and steps onto the ice, humming an Andy Grammer song under her breath. She’s looking at the ground while walking, assuming that the figure skaters have already vacated the rink, because it’s common courtesy to exit a few minutes early to give the next group time to set up.

Operating under this assumption, she doesn’t notice the two people still on the rink, who have stopped skating, who are now glaring at her. Well, the girl is glaring at her, while the guy just looks slightly fed up.

But Enid doesn’t notice, she just whistles to herself and places the goal down at the end of the ice, and then she turns around to begin shuffling back onto solid ground.

Before she can get too far, Enid hears choppy footsteps, like someone in skates is stomping on the ice(probably because someone in skates is stomping towards her on the ice).

“Excuse me,” someone hisses in a hostile tone. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Enid spins around, startled, and raises her palms in a surrender-like pose. “Woah, woah,” she says while making a soothing motion with her hands, “What’s the issue?”

Enid doesn’t even realize that she’s speaking to the girl she was so obsessed with earlier; the only thing on her mind now is that she’s supposed to be playing hockey at the moment and something, someone, is stopping her from doing that.

“The issue,” the girl spits out, “is that we are on the ice, practicing, and you,” she makes a vague disparaging gesture towards Enid, who recoils, “are in the way. So, I’ll ask you again, what the fuck are you doing?”

Enid waves her hand toward the digital clock on the wall, which reads 10:08. “See the time? It’s my turn, darling.”

“No, it’s not, and don’t fucking call me that. Mine ends ten after the hour, and yours starts a quarter past. I still have two minutes left, and yours doesn’t start until eight more.”

“Oh my god,” Enid groans.

“You don’t have to call me that, Wednesday works just fine.” The girl crosses her arms and huffs,

“Wait,” Enid questions, “Your name is Wednesday? Like the day?”

Wednesday glowers at Enid, who decides to let go of that particular sentiment. “Ok, but the point is, you’ve got two—no, you’ve got one minute left. So you might as well just go and let me set up.”

“We still have one minute left, and I want to use it. It’s not your choice.”

“Ladies, ladies,” Wednesday’s partner says, “It’s fine, stop arguing. Weds—“

“Stay out of this. And I’ve already told you a thousand fucking times, never call me that, Tyler,” Wednesday interrupts him and repeats what she told Enid to her partner, and Enid winces. It seems she doesn’t like nicknames as much as she likes swearing, Enid concludes without much difficulty.

She now knows their names, both of which she thinks are fitting. Wednesday, she decides, is a weird name for a weird—beautiful but still weird—girl, while Tyler is a dull name for a dull man. Fitting.

“Yeah, pretty boy,” Enid says, backing up Wednesday. She might not like the girl’s attitude very much, but she hates patronizing men even more. “Stay out of it.”

“Don’t tell my partner what to do.”

Enid almost wants to giggle at the scowl sent her way, because Wednesday is just so tiny, but she doesn’t laugh to avoid any more bad blood.

“Alright, how about this. I will leave the goal here because I do not want to set it up again. I will go back and put on my skates and stuff, giving you a few more minutes. But then, when I return, you both will need to leave because it will be my turn at that point. Deal?”

Wednesday gives her a look of disdain, but the blonde stands her ground, so she agrees to the compromise. “Fine,” Wednesday grumps, and then she turns around and skates away gracefully, calling for Tyler to follow her.

Enid watches as Wednesday leads into another beautiful toe loop jump (it might have been a different jump, but she’s pretty confident she’s right, because of that one figure skating documentary), and this time she thinks her mouth actually does drop open.

“You’re drooling,” Tyler says with a laugh. “Don’t worry though, if I liked women, I’d be doing the same.”

Enid’s head tilts, and she reevaluates her opinion of him. Maybe he’s not so bad, she thinks, if he’s joking around with her after she just clearly ogled his skating partner. 

“Well,” he amends his statement, “it’s not that I don’t like women, I just have a boyfriend. His name is Ajax, and he also does ice hockey.”

Enid wonders why he’s even telling her this, and then the name sinks in. “Wait,” she says, “Ajax as in Ajax Petropolus?”

Tyler grins and gives her a fist bump. “You know him?” he asks rhetorically, then continues, “Well, I’ve got to go back to Wednesday, but have a good time with your hockey stuff! I’ll tell Ajax you said hello.”

He wiggles his fingers in a little wave and then skates off to Wednesday.

Enid lets him leave and then makes her way off the ice, doing a little slide as she reaches the exit. She looks up as she hears the faint sound of people clapping and spots Yoko and Divina staring at her with matching cheeky smiles on their faces.

Enid hurries over to them. “When did you guys get here?” she asks, giving them each a brief hug as she reaches them.

“Just in time to watch you fall over yourself for the girl out there. She’s cute too; what’s her name?” Yoko winks at her with an amused expression that quickly fades away as Divina elbows her.

“Stop teasing her,” Divina says to Yoko, and then turns to Enid. “Seriously though, you guys looked adorable arguing like that.”

Enid huffs and doesn’t respond. She walks into the locker room, flipping them off behind her back, and she knows they saw it because Yoko’s cackle rings out throughout the building.

She puts on her skates, starting with the right one, goes through her list, and then walks back out to where Yoko is standing, holding Enid’s stick in one hand and a puck in the other.

She looks around, frowning slightly when she sees that Wednesday and Tyler have left. Then she wonders why she’s frowning, because shouldn’t she be thankful that the rink is now free?

She shakes away the thoughts and grabs her stick and puck from Yoko, and then they both head to the ice.

Divina is already set up and waiting for them. 

“Let’s play,” Enid says, throwing the puck onto the ice and chasing after it as the puck slides away, all her worries sliding away along with it. “Let’s go, let’s fucking go.”

Chapter Text

Enid groans and stretches. Her muscles are sore as hell and her head hurts, but she has a strict routine to follow—wake up at 6:00 in the morning, shower, and go for a run. It’s quite inefficient to take a shower before running, and she knows that, but it’s her routine, so she does it anyways.


Yoko is always on her case about wasting water, though, but Enid can’t help it. She has to follow her routine.

Sundays mean she goes for a longer run and stops to get coffee, her motivation for getting out of bed most days.

So she gets up and heads to the bathroom and brushes her teeth while humming along to Fun Fun Fun by the Beach Boys playing out of her tooth tunes toothbrush (don’t judge her, it’s fun, and she’ll die on that hill). She then hops into the shower, continuing to sing.

After putting on shorts and a Legend of Zelda t-shirt, she grabs a capri sun and shoves it into her pockets, where it barely fits because of her damn women’s pocket size, and heads out the door.

The path she takes is predominantly uphill, making it a grueling experience. Divina calls her a masochist for running it every morning, even in the freezing cold, but Enid laughs it off. It’s worth it, she says to herself every time her motivation dwindles, it’s worth it for the results. Besides, she used to play hockey in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan with her cousins every time she visited; if she could handle the cold then, in the frigid Canadian air, she could handle the cold now, in New York City.

Her airpods have stopped working properly, and she needs to get them fixed, so the run is slightly more prosaic than it usually is. But just slightly, because as she enters her new favorite coffee shop, The Daily Grind (it makes her laugh because she can apply the name to her hockey career too), she spots a short girl with raven black hair.

Fuck , she mentally curses as she watches Wednesday’s braids swing while the girl walks to grab her coffee. Usually, Enid goes to the Weathervane because she doesn’t need to stray from her path, and it’s cheaper, even though the coffee isn’t as good. But of course, the cafe is closed for the foreseeable future while they remodel, so she’s forced to go out of her way and come to The Daily Grind. She doesn’t mind too much because it’s better coffee, but this seems to be Wednesday’s place too.

Enid stands in line to order, tapping her toes with impatience. All the pent-up energy has nowhere to go right now, and besides, who doesn’t get frustrated when stuck in a line?

Enid sees Wednesday start to walk towards the door, thus heading in Enid’s direction, so she looks down to avoid any chance of making eye contact. Don’t look up, don’t look up , she repeats to herself. Her prayers answered, Wednesday walks out the door with her quad over ice, and Enid grimaces when she reads the label on Wednesday's cup, because who actually drinks those?


Enid has many opinions about coffee. Strong, aggressive opinions, one of which is that quad over ices are made for people with no soul.  Another is that drip coffee is for people who hate themselves. Caramel macchiatos are for people who are better than everyone else.

“Hi, can I get a small iced caramel macchiato,” Enid says to the barista, who nods and writes it down on the cup with a Sharpie.

Enid pays with apple pay, and the barista rolls his eyes as the payment takes a while to go through. She shakes her phone a few times and sags with relief when she hears the classic ding that signifies completion. Then she straightens back up because she cannot slouch—posture is essential to play hockey.

Her posture sucks, though, because of her hockey stance, but she likes to pretend that she’s on track with it.

“Iced caramel macchiato,” the barista calls, holding the cup in the air to show it to everyone, then once Enid raises her hand in a “that’s mine” fashion, he places it down on the counter for Enid to come and pick it up.

She grabs her coffee and takes a sip, groaning in relief when the cold coffee flows down her throat. Then, not missing a beat, she turns and half-walks, half-jogs out the door, returning to her run.

She mutters expletives when a few drops of coffee spill on her hand, but she brings her hand up to her mouth and licks it off. She wipes her hand on the back of her pants and sets off.

Yoko would give her shit for cursing, telling her not to “eff and blind,” while also swearing in the sentence because that’s just a Yoko thing to do.

It’s a fun joke between them to use British slang whenever possible, and that is one of the many. They used to call each other “blokes,” but that one got old real quick, and their classmate (she was a grand total of 4% British) would give them both the stink eye whenever she heard them say that.

She gets home, tired but content, and takes another shower, lathering herself in the jasmine shampoo she loves.

It’s 8:00 now, so she makes herself breakfast, consisting of a hard-boiled egg, toast, and a protein shake. Enid hates protein shakes. She absolutely loathes them. But they’re healthy and necessary for hockey, so she drinks them anyways.

Her entire life is hockey, really. Everything she does relates to the sport somehow.

After finishing her egg and the shake, she lugs her hockey equipment to her car and then goes back to grab the toast, which she eats on the way.

The radio is playing a DNCE song, and she shouts along to it with her windows down. An older man pulls up next to her when they stop at a red light, and he glares at her. She mouths a synonym for female dog at him and then speeds away as the signal turns green, sticking her hand out the window and giving him the middle finger.

She pulls into the parking lot of the NYU Rink and spots two cars already there. Enid groans because she hadn’t expected anyone else to be here at 9:00 in the morning, and now she might not have a free rink because, of course, she forgot to sign up for a slot and was betting on nobody else being as crazy enough as her to sit in the rink on a Sunday morning.

Enid pushes open the double glass doors and saunters down the hallway. She had left her gear in the car and decided to check who was on the rink. Perhaps she and the other skaters could share the rink if they were still using it.

She steps into the rink area and stops dead in her tracks when she spots the two figure skaters on the ice—Wednesday and Tyler.

Fuck .

Chapter Text

Enid watches Wednesday and Tyler as they skate in tandem, pushing and pulling each other into elaborate spins and jumps.

Enid watches as Wednesday glides into the air, braids swinging with her, and lands softly into a little twirl. She does a little fist pump when she makes the landing, and a grin lights up her face, and Enid is reminded of the satisfied expression on her own face every time she and Dora scared away Swiper when she was young.

Enid watches the back of Wednesday’s head as she talks to Tyler, hears the words “Let’s do it again,” carry across the arena, and laughs as Tyler grimaces and shakes his head at Wednesday’s request.

Enid watches as Wednesday turns around with a huff, and then her determined glare meets Enid’s gaze, and now she’s just standing there as Wednesday’s eyes burn into her.

Enid gives her a nod, refuses to back down at the sight of Wednesday’s smoldering stare, and then blinks in surprise as Wednesday returns the silent greeting.

It’s simply an acknowledgment of her presence, the bare minimum, but it’s the kind of gesture that actually conveys respect, in Enid’s opinion.

So Enid takes a few steps backwards, and then decides to actually turn around and face the direction she’s walking in, because god forbid she get injured.

Maybe the real reason is that it would be embarrassing to trip over something while Wednesday watches, but Enid stays rooted in denial.

The gym is calling her name, and a mid-morning workout never hurts, so Enid heads there. It’s in the same building as the rink, so it’s no trouble at all to change her schedule.

The locker rooms are empty (truly a shocking occurrence at this time on a Sunday morning), and Enid plops down onto one of the metal benches and dumps her stuff onto the floor, forsaking a locker in favor of laziness.

She considers the fact that perhaps leaving her expensive hockey equipment unguarded in the lockers for anyone to take is unsafe, but then she remembers that the only person with access to the women’s locker rooms right now is Wednesday, and the girl would probably drown in Enid’s hockey gear with her slim stature.

Without her hockey getup, Enid is left in a light gray muscle tee, which, in hindsight, probably isn’t the best idea for a gym outfit. Her sweat would surely soak through it, but it wasn’t like she had another option at the moment.

She grimaces at the thought of doing pushups in her hockey outfit.

Like almost every other room here, the gym is empty, leaving Enid so many options to choose from. She picks the dumbbells.

Enid puts in one airpod—only one, so that her hearing won’t be impaired—and begins her set.

The music really helps her get going. it’s a large part of her life; she thrives on listening to music all day, every day. The thought of never hearing Taylor Swift again elicits an intense fear in her. Maybe she’s just being dramatic.

But it does help her think, it truly does. However, her thoughts are typically on her limitless psychology homework, but this time, Wednesday won’t get off her mind.

Replaying what she saw earlier, Enid comes to the realization that maybe Tyler and Wednesday aren’t just annoying figure skaters that take up her time on the ice.

Maybe they’ve actually got a goal—like her, like Enid, who’s gearing up for hockey season, maybe Wednesday is gearing up for figure skating…competitions or showcases or whatever it is that figure skaters do, and now she’s developed a hell of a lot more respect for the girl.

Enid has moved on to bench presses when she notices a small figure standing in the doorway in her peripheral vision. But, of course, she must finish her set before acknowledging anything. With a groan, she heaves the barbell up and begins to lower it back down to her chest.

Meanwhile, Wednesday is staring at Enid, or more specifically, her biceps. The sweat dripping off them, the shine only accentuating the drool-worthy muscle. Wednesday is practically salivating.

Enid doesn’t notice, though, until Wednesday speaks.

“I assumed you had left,” the figure skater says, stalking towards Enid.

Enid places the barbell behind her and slides off the bench to face Wednesday, whose mouth is partially dropped open as she gapes at Enid’s physique. ““Nope!” Enid respond. “I’m working out. I need to stay in shape for hockey, and, you know, the whole shebang.” She flexes a bicep—because she’s so fucking inelegant—cringes, and lets her arm drift to the metal pole next to her in an attempt to lean against it in a smooth fashion.

Of course, this fails, and she barely catches herself from pitching sideways past the pillar when she misjudges the distance.

Fuck me, she thinks, because the only words that really shine through when she’s talking to Wednesday are swear words. This fucking sucks. Can this day get any worse?

Of course it can!

But, thankfully for Enid, it doesn’t. Because after she rights herself and gets her balance back together, she awkwardly flexes her right bicep again and taps the muscle with her the knuckles of her left hand, accompanying the awkward motion with a halfhearted “See? Muscles!”

The bicep flex seems to have worked in her favor though, because is Wednesday…drooling? She’s definitely attracted to Enid (her body) that’s for sure.

But then Wednesday spouts another mean retort, and ok, maybe not.

“Is there something I’m supposed to be looking at?” she deadpans. “Perhaps I need to get my vision checked again. It was 20/20 last time, but it seems to have deteriorated greatly.”

Enid pouts, but the corners of her mouth perk up a little bit when she notices Wednesday’s eyes drift back to her biceps.

To test out this new control she seems to have, Enid decides to wipe the sweat off her face with the bottom of her shirt, exposing her—(this is what Yoko calls them when she tries to get Enid to go out to the dive bar on the corner of 13th and Brick)—glorious abs. No, seriously, that’s what Yoko calls them.

Judging by the look gracing her face, Enid thinks Wednesday agrees with the sentiment.

But Wednesday just scoffs at her and flounces out of the gym with a fuck ton more grace than Enid could ever hope to possess.

Enid grins anyways, watching her go.

Chapter Text

Enid runs her hand through her hair to tame the unruly strands that cling desperately to her damp forehead. She wipes away the sweat dripping down with the back of her arm. Her clothes stick uncomfortably to her body as she moves her arm, and she grimaces.

The summer weather is sweltering and humid and positively miserable.

Enid never stops running, though.

She’s outside The Daily Grind now, hands on her knees, huffing and puffing. The line stretches out the door and her heart sinks as she laments the loss of the brief wait time at her old coffee shop. Oh, how she misses the five minutes it took to be in and out of there with some (admittedly bad) coffee.

Enid stands there, debating whether the delay is worth it, when she spots a short girl in line, almost through the door. Her head is barely visible every now and then as the crowd towers over her, but Enid knows it’s Wednesday, knows those braids like the back of her hand, knows those arms that hang limply by the girl’s side.

Her brain noticed the eerie similarity a few days ago between the position of Wednesday’s arms when they’re at ease and the floppiness of those educational skeletons, and now she holds back a giggle every time her thoughts gravitate towards them.

She’s certain it’s Wednesday standing there when she sees the man behind her tap her on the shoulder, and then, in a sudden commotion, the man is writhing on the ground, clutching his ankle.

Wednesday’s face is visible now, the barest hint of a sneer adorning her lips as she mouths, “Don’t ever touch me again,” and it’s a sight Enid has become quite accustomed to over the last few weeks.

It’s been three weekends since their brief interaction in the gym, and thus it’s been six days of seeing each other at the rink, and many, many more days of quick glances over coffee cups.

The Daily Grind

“Goddamnit,” Enid mutters to herself as she juts out her elbow in an attempt to open the door.

It doesn’t work. Her frustration skyrockets as she fiddles around with her belongings to try and free up a limb.

Her hands are occupied with coffee cups, two in each hand, fingers stinging from the unnatural position. Enid is an all-in-one-go kind of person for any sort of trip—be it bringing in groceries, transporting her hockey equipment, or carrying anything and everything.

Even though the shop isn’t empty, nobody is looking at the door to help, and Enid refuses to ask for someone to assist her.

She briefly considers holding a cup with her teeth—unsure of the logistics, but she wonders if it’s worth a try—when the door opens before her.

Wednesday appears. Her face is stoic and her eyes a cold kind of curious, and she’s holding the door open while tapping her foot, the perfect picture of impatience.

“Hurry up.”

Enid nods and says nothing while stepping outside. Her phone falls out of her pocket as she moves, almost in slow motion, like the stereotypical scene in the old Bollywood films that Divina loves to put on.

Enid lets out a weary sigh, exasperated and exhausted and totally done with the world.

The phone lands face up and the screen turns on, showing the time and her lock screen, which—she cringes inwardly—is a photo of Enid presenting a Wookiee stuffed animal to the camera while she stands next to Chewbacca. She’s eight years old in the picture, at Disneyland for the first time.

Her four front teeth are missing, causing her grin to appear a little wonky and her tongue to awkwardly fill in the gap. She had lost one tooth the week before and had decided to force the other three out to see if the tooth fairy would give her more money.

(The tooth fairy did not. Enid was sorely disappointed when she woke up the following day with a dollar and a lisp).

Wednesday glances at the phone, and her eyes twinkle just a little, hinting at her mischievous curiosity. The corners of her mouth perk up in a slight smile at Enid’s lock screen. Ever the angel, Wednesday picks up the phone for her, and when she slides it in between Enid’s outstretched fingers, their fingertips touch.

Her heart flutters, and she wonders if it would be too much of an exaggeration to say sparks flew between them.

The Ice Rink

Enid pushes the door open with her left hand and lugs her skates through with her right. She doesn’t have her hockey gear with her this time, thankfully, as she only wants to work on her skating skills today.

She’s crossing her fingers, praying that the rink will be empty, wanting nothing more than a solitary session where she can relax and lose herself in the unshakeable speed. The air is cold and quiet, and she thinks she’s made it, but then the unmistakable screech of skates on ice reaches her ears.

Enid sighs, inhaling and letting the air out slowly, like she’s smoking, watching as the clouds puff away in the frigid air. Of fucking course the rink is taken , she thinks, and is seconds away from turning around when she hears a familiar voice echo throughout the arena.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Tyler?” Wednesday’s voice is strained, beginning in a low whisper but rising in pitch as she seemingly gets more desperate. “Screw your fuckin’ car.”

Evidently, Enid has missed vital sections of the conversation, but she hears the most important part—Tyler isn’t here, likely because his car broke down, because she’s sure Wednesday didn’t mean the ‘screw your car’ statement literally.

Tyler not being here means that either Enid gets to talk to Wednesday or she gets to skate with Wednesday, and both of those options sound like a damn good time to Enid.

She walks through the hallway, snickering softly when Wednesday spits more complaints into her phone.

Wednesday hangs up once she spots Enid.

Neither of them speak, but Enid holds up her skates in an unspoken request, and Wednesday nods, so Enid races over to the bench in front of her, forgoing the locker rooms for the purpose of speed.

Her skates are on within seconds, probably the fastest she’s ever put them on, and now she’s sprinting onto the rink.

And…everything goes wrong. Enid’s right foot lands on the ice and slides out from underneath her. She probably looks like she’s doing the run-of-the-mill cartoon banana peel slip, windmilling her arms like the balloon people outside of car dealerships.

Her head slams onto the ice and she groans, sure that a bump will develop there in a little while.

It’s still silent, like it’s been since Wednesday hung up the phone, but it’s a crushing sort of silence.

Then, Enid hears a snort. And a giggle. And then Wednesday delves into full-blown peals of laughter, clutching her stomach and struggling to breathe.

Enid smiles, just for a second, because the sound of Wednesday’s laughter is like heaven to her ears. Then she recalls that Wednesday is laughing at her , at Enid, so now she pushes herself back up while grumbling, “Yeah, laugh it up, it’s hilarious. I’m injured and you’re giggling at me.”

She pouts and Wednesday laughs even harder.

The Daily Grind

Enid frowns. She’s kept her eyes on the door for the last half hour, waiting for a certain girl to walk in.

The barista calls out, “Caramel macchiato and quad over ice for—” the barista pauses, and then pronounces her name in a mess of syllables that almost perfectly rhymes with ‘Kenneth’.

Enid groans and wonders why she doesn’t just say her name is Olivia or some other unambiguous name. After all, she never thought Enid could be mispronounced—it’s not a very hard name to say, as long as one doesn’t play order of operations with the letters.

Enid is grateful, though, because Divina has a much harder time getting her names pronounced right. Hell, half the time it’s spelled wrong too.

Enid then considers the reaction Wednesday gets. She imagines the conversation goes something like how their first meeting went:

“Name, please?”

“Wednesday.”

“Like the…”

And then the barista would trail off as Wednesday fixes them with her patented death glare.

Enid jolts out of her thoughts and moves to rise when her name is repeated (pronounced wrong again ). At this very moment, right before she gets up to retrieve the two coffee cups, the door creaks, and Wednesday walks through.

She moves to step in line and order, but Enid quickly hops out of the booth she’s sitting in and cuts Wednesday off.

“I ordered for you already,” she says, a little bashfully.

Wednesday’s eyebrows rise almost comically and Enid regrets every decision that had brought her here today.

“How, may I ask, do you know my order? Stalking me?” Wednesday crosses her arms over her chest.

“No, wait, I—“ Enid stutters, reduced to blabbering nonsense like she always is whenever Wednesday is around.

It’s bullshit, it really is. Her smooth, suave personality evades her and she’s thrown into a stammering mess.

“I’m just joking,” Wednesday says with a straight face. “I’ve seen you around here too, you know. You and your damn diabetes-inducing tastebud-destroying caramel macchiatos.”

“They aren’t that bad,” Enid whines, and wonders how Wednesday knows her order, because Enid knows Wednesday’s thanks to her god-awful crush(wait, what?), but what’s Wednesday’s reason? In her delusions, she conveniently forgets that, of course, Wednesday always sees her leap out of her chair whenever the barista calls her name and the sugary drink. “Come with me and you can have a sip, and then you’ll see that it actually tastes pretty good. Don’t knock it till you try it.” Enid shakes her head and huffs, feigning disappointment, because how dare Wednesday describe her favorite drink as anything other than perfection?

Wednesday’s eyes narrow. “Fine, I’ll try it. But if it tastes bad, I’m never speaking to you again—or maybe I’ll steal your lucky stick.”

She finds it funny that they know such specific things about each other, like coffee orders and good luck charms, but they’ve yet to see each other in a planned fashion, and, hell, they haven’t even exchanged numbers.

Enid doesn’t even know Wednesday’s last name.

When they go to grab their drinks, Wednesday takes one look at the sugary concoction in Enid’s hands and immediately backs away. “No. I refuse, under any and all circumstances, to ever, ever consume that. What the actual fuck.”

“But you said you wouldn’t knock it till you try it!” Enid whines. She shoves the drink in Wednesday’s face and shakes it like she’s trying to entice a dog into playing with a toy.

The dog (Wednesday) does not bite.

Enid’s hand is left dangling in the air as Wednesday grabs her drink and backpedals out the door before she can even lower her arm.

Present

The line to the coffee shop had grown even longer in the time that Enid spent mulling over her memories, so her morality debate of whether or not she should use the “My friend was saving me a place in line” fails to provide enough motivation to ‘do the right thing.’

Who decides what the right thing is anyways , Enid questions.

She slides in next to Wednesday as subtly as possible. Does it work? Probably not, and she’s sure that people noticed.

Does she care? Not really.

Either way, she’s sure that Wednesday would set them straight if anyone tries to complain. That is, if Wednesday lets her get away with it.

“Are you really cutting in line right now?” Wednesday asks when Enid twiddles her thumbs with a sheepish look. “You peon . What makes you think that’s ok?”

And Enid knows she’s joking, can tell by the slight humorous lilt in her voice, the way she nudges Enid with her shoulder, so Enid purses her lips and responds with, “God, is it that big a deal? You can’t help out a poor peon in need?”

“No need to call me God, Wednesday is fine,” she says, and Enid rolls her eyes because the response is just so completely and utterly Wednesday . And which other person would insult someone with the word ‘peon’ rather than something more conventional?

With a confidence that Enid hadn’t known she possessed, she looks Wednesday in the eyes and says, “If I’m a lowly peon, I should call you something more,” she pauses for suspense, “…appropriate. Queen? Master, maybe?” Fuck . She takes a step forwards, bringing her inches away from Wednesday’s face, watches as her mouth drops open slightly. “Or should I call you Your Majesty?”

Wednesday’s eyes widen, and now they are just staring at each other. Wednesday’s pupils dilate almost imperceptibly, and Enid thinks, oh shit what did I do , but then Wednesday says, “If that’s what you’re into, I’m not stopping you,” and now Enid can’t think anymore at all, can’t look away from Wednesday’s almost predatory gaze, can’t do anything at the sight of Wednesday’s dark eyes burning into her own.

She looks on as Wednesday’s tongue darts out over her lower lip, and Enid’s breath hitches and her heart lurches and she just can’t—

The moment is interrupted when the man who had tapped Wednesday on the shoulder earlier complains that “Hey! You can’t cut in line, you—“ he abruptly stops speaking, holding back the insult that was sure to follow, when Wednesday turns her steely gaze towards him.

“Sorry, I thought you were someone else,” the man says meekly. He scratches his neck, fidgets with his Bass Pro Shop hat, and pretends to search for another person.

Enid smirks at his attempt to save face and whispers, “Is the someone else in the room with us right now?” to Wednesday, who bites back a laugh.

There’s nothing Enid enjoys more than watching men back down at the sight of a powerful woman (even if she’s really, really short). Girl power, or something along those lines.

The man leaves them alone after that.

The rest of the wait is peaceful, the roar of the crowd fading away into simple background noise, the chorus of impatient murmurs now a soft song, a cool breeze picking up to chase away the heat.

Enid and Wednesday talk about everything and nothing while the line slowly inches forwards. Curiously, hockey and figure skating never gets brought up, and perhaps this is a good thing because it means they have more to talk about than just their rival sports.

They order and then receive their coffees, and it feels like no time has passed at all. Enid gives the barista a little fist bump when he hands her the cup. Wednesday gives him a glare.

“Thanks for letting me join you in line. Time flies when you’re having fun,” Enid says as they go to part ways. She raises her cup in a little gesture of gratitude and moves to walk away.

Wednesday responds dryly, to no one’s surprise. “How very presumptuous of you to say we both had fun.” She has an amused little grin on her face and her eyes gleam, a sure sign that Enid is being messed with.

Enid laughs and jogs away.

Wednesday stands up and watches her go, amused grin widening when she sees Enid stumble and spill her coffee over herself, and then cuss the coffee cup out

Enid spots Wednesday still looking at her and pouts, before sporting a matching smile when Wednesday giggles. She playfully sticks up her middle finger in protest and rounds the corner with a skip in her step, peering at the girl over her shoulder until Wednesday is out of sight.

Chapter Text

“Thanks, Mags,” Enid calls to Maggie, who just finished driving the Zamboni, as she steps onto the freshly resurfaced ice, waving her hand like a suburban soccer mom, curling her fingers inwards and extending them twice in quick succession.

“You’re welcome, E,” Maggie shouts back, voice cracking on the words where her Irish lilt shows. “Gimme two, and I’ll be on the ice with you. Pickup game starts in ten, I believe. Bunch of raggedy boys still putting on their shit in the locker rooms.”

Boisterous laughter and the unmistakable sound of slapping someone’s back while dressed in hockey gear echo throughout the arena.

Enid is grateful, so grateful for Maggie, the only other girl who regularly shows up for pickup games (Yoko and Divina get up to things she doesn’t want to know about on ‘pickup Sundays’). Unlike the name implies, the pickup games border on scheduled, a little whiteboard in the lobby where people put tally marks on availability times and show up whenever there’s a decent amount of faint blue lines from the dull, squeaky markers.

Sunday morning usually has tally marks overlapping—that’s why Enid is here today. How can she get better if she doesn’t play against all different types of people?

She puts her gear on—starting with her right foot first, of course—and runs through her checklist. Lucky gloves? Check. The worn-out gray shark-themed sock? Check. Skates laced up? Check. 

She likes to tell people it’s just a luck thing—a fun routine—because it’s easier to joke than tell them that it’s born from the desire to control.

And how she desires, requires, craves control. Her arteries and veins, her heart and brain, her entire being lives and thrives on it, on something she cannot ever have.

If I put my left skate on first, my ankle will break. Why? Enid couldn’t say for sure. But the compulsion, that nagging fear doesn’t disappear.

Similar thoughts appear in every part of her daily life. She doesn’t talk about it, though—about the fear of loss, the fear of injury, the fear of existence.

What a life it is to fear life.

The mood of the arena borders on excited and antsy as the group of 18 people splits into two teams based on skill and position. 

Enid and Maggie end up on the same team, and the other team’s sexist goalie jeers at them.

“We’re gonna kick you back to the kitchen,” he taunts.

Enid makes eye contact with the douche of a goalie and then looks at Maggie, who joins her in laughter as the goalie trips on a teammate’s stick and windmills his arms.

Enid and her opponent line up for the face-off. He glares at her, and she gives him a little wink. “Good luck,” she says, chuckling when he doesn’t respond.

A player’s friend ends up refereeing. “Alright, guys—and girls—“ he says, nodding to Enid and Maggie, “—get ready to start.”

Enid taps her stick on the ground, rolling her shoulders and setting up to begin.

The puck drops, and Enid zeroes in with lightning speed, winning the face-off and zooming past the player who gets left in her dust.

“E, over here!” Maggie calls, and Enid sends a smooth pass in the direction of her voice.

The puck makes its way to Maggie with ease, who passes it to another player.

Enid skates circles around the opponents, in her element, nowhere else she would prefer to be.

Tracing lines on the ice, running through different plays and passes and options in her mind.

The puck gets sent around the rink, a few points on the board already, eventually ending back to Enid, who gears up for a shot.

She takes a deep breath and swings, and as her stick hits the puck, it shatters at the base, and the puck skids leisurely towards the goalie, who, prepared for Enid’s wicked slap shot, fumbles with his glove and lets the puck slide into the goal.

His team erupts into groans while Enid’s erupts into hysterics.

Maggie coasts over to Enid and sprays ice on her as she stops and slaps Enid on the back. “Looks like you’re headed to the bleachers,” she giggles. “Have fun watching.”

Enid smiles weakly. “Yeah,” she says, “I’ll be cheering loudly.”

Enid grabs the pieces of her stick—her lucky stick—and hobbles off the ice as a guy from the bench tightens up his laces. She clutches the shards to her chest and her grin wavers, and then falls away entirely as she turns away.

Her mind begins to race, spiraling out of control.

Fuck. My stick. My lucky stick. What do I do? What will happen?

And maybe, just maybe, Enid would consider actually getting help for these out-of-control thoughts. Because let’s be honest—who connects a broken stick with death? 

“But it’s a lucky stick,” she might say, claiming it to be a more reasonable conclusion.

Denial is her best friend.

She feels a tap on her shoulder, jolting her out of this volatile spiral.

Looking over her shoulder, Enid spots nobody and turns back to face the ground in front of the bleachers, getting back into her head. 

“You bitch,” she hears a recognizable voice speak. “I’m not that short.”

“Sorry!” Enid says, laughing. All thoughts of death and fear disappear at the sight of Wednesday, who was unfortunately under her line of sight when she turned around.

“I was watching the game. You looked good out there,” Wednesday says, and Enid beams.

“Did you see the goal? The guy was taunting me and Maggie earlier, saying he would send us back to the kitchen. I handed his ass to him.”

Wednesday frowns almost imperceptibly at the mention of Maggie, but Enid pays no notice to it, excited about the embarrassment of the douchebag goalie.

“Your stick broke,” Wednesday noted. Her tone was not pity, merely an observation with slight curiosity.

The lack of pity caused Enid to respond truthfully. That and (her crush, cough cough) her need to talk about what happened and get a response from a voice other than her self-sabotaging mind.

“Yeah.” Enid looks down. “It was my lucky stick. I’ll need to buy a new one.”

“How about we do it now? Let’s head over to Ice Cold  on 24th Street and get one, and then we can customize it and make this one lucky too.”

“Really?” Enid asks, surprised. “You’d want to do that with me?”

“I’ve been meaning to look at some fresh figure skating stuff anyways. It’s always more fun to go with someone else.”

Enid smiles. “Let’s go then.”

They walk to Ice Cold, the best hockey shop this side of the city, after Enid hastily shoves her gear in her locker. Either of their cars was an option, but why would Enid consider that when this means they would spend more time with each other while walking back together?

More time, Enid’s life is always about more time. More time to practice hockey before a game, more time to do schoolwork, more time for her internship (how else is she meant to pay the bills), more time for life.

Wishing for more time is kind of a necessity when you’re afraid that anything going wrong means an unavoidable early death.

“Look at that idiot.” Wednesday points to the street out of nowhere.

“What? Who?” Enid asks, her tone sounding like the verbal version of sending ‘???’ over text.

“The guy on the motorcycle. He’s doing a wheelie, yeah? But he’s taken his hand off the rear brake to wave at those silly women gushing over his basic tricks.”

“Wait, you drive a motorcycle?” Enid asks incredulously, unable to reconcile the thought of the small woman on a bike.

“A Ducati, yeah. I don’t have it in the city, though—it’s at my parent’s estate down in Jersey.”

“Why are we walking then?” Enid asks, even though she was perfectly willing. “Playing up the broke college student life, huh?” Enid remarks. Wednesday denies it defensively, but Enid shakes her head sarcastically. “I don’t know if I can associate with you anymore, as a not-faking broke college student.”

The moron on his motorcycle crashes into a telephone pole and distracts them from the friendly debate at hand. Wednesday shrugs as if to say, “Men are dumb. What can you do?”

“Oh my god!” Enid exclaims over the sound of bells jingling as Wednesday opens the door for her, rushing over to the wall of hockey tape. “Look, it’s sharks!”

Wednesday just looks at her with a deadpan expression on her face. “What an astute observation.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Enid continues, undeterred. “My lucky socks have sharks on them!”

“So do you plan on buying them?”

“Are you kidding?” Enid asks. “Consider them already bought.”

Enid meanders through the aisles, filling up her arms with hockey supplies.

Wednesday trails after her and sighs, turning around to grab a cart. She returns to find Enid looking at sticks with her head tilted sideways to read the flex numbers. 

“60, 75, 80! And this one is so pretty! This is perfect, that’s the same flex as my last one.” Enid’s grin lights up her face as she hugs the stick to her chest.

If Enid had remembered her earlier sadness at all, she would’ve noticed that being with Wednesday had prodded all the sadness away. Unobservant as ever, she did not notice a thing.

“Explain what flex is?” Wednesday asks, wanting to hear Enid speak even though she’s well aware of how hockey sticks work.

“So it’s basically the flexibility of the stick shaft. The numbers refer to the pounds of force needed to bend it by one inch.”

Wednesday interrupts her. “Ah yes, like specific heat conversion.”

“What?” Enid asks in her triple-question-mark tone.

“Chemistry.”

“Ah, I sucked at that. But, then again, my chem teacher was a misogynistic prick. I hated that guy.

“Well, you know what they say,” Wednesday begins, and Enid gives her a curious look. “It’s called ChemisTRY, not ChemisSUCCEED.

“Did you just make a pun? Holy shit.”

“I have so many chemistry jokes, but I’m afraid I won’t get a good reaction.”

“As long as you employ them periodically, I don’t mind,” Enid responds. “Now, let’s go check out.”

Wednesday doesn’t end up buying anything but, again, Enid doesn’t notice. She’s too caught up in the excitement of a new lucky stick.

“Here, let’s take a picture,” Enid suggests.

“Ah yes, we must commemorate this momentous occasion.” Wednesday says drily.

“English please, for us non-English majors.”

“Let’s celebrate.”

Enid says cheese as she takes a selfie of them both holding the hockey stick.

Wednesday says nothing, the perfect picture of boredom, but Enid’s smile is wide enough for two.