Faking It With The Hockey Star

Harper’s POV

I woke up to my phone vibrating across my nightstand. Once. Twice. Then continuously, like it had decided this particular morning was far too important for me to sleep through. I frowned and reached for it with one eye still closed. Forty-three notifications. Instagram. TikTok. Email. Messages from Ava, Mia, Emma. Even Noah had texted me, which meant whatever was happening had already reached my younger brother before I’d even sat up properly.

For one terrifying second I thought, what now?

My stomach tightened as I opened TikTok. Then I blinked. Last night my video had crossed twenty thousand views, a number that had felt enormous when I’d finally gone to sleep. This morning the screen showed 2.8 million. "What?" I sat upright so quickly I nearly dropped the phone entirely. The number refreshed itself while I was still staring at it. 2.9 million. "No way," I whispered to the empty room.

I clicked into the comments with slightly shaking fingers, fully braced for another wave of cruelty. Instead, the first comment read:

I’m so sorry, Harper. We judged you without knowing the truth.

I stared at it. Then scrolled. You explained everything with so much grace. Wishing you and Justin the best. Another. As someone studying film, I love how organized your editing workflow is. That folder structure? Goals. Then another. Can we please stop attacking this girl now? She literally showed receipts.

I kept scrolling. People were tagging the anonymous account and calling out the posts one by one. Sharing clips from my response video instead of the original smear campaign. Someone had stitched my video alongside Ethan’s ill-advised comment from yesterday, and the contrast wasn’t doing him any favors. The internet had turned. Not completely, not cleanly. There were still hateful comments. Still people who had decided they knew my heart better than I did. But for the first time since this whole nightmare started, they weren’t the loudest voices in the room anymore.

A message popped up from Ava. In full capitals. CHECK YOUR INSTAGRAM RIGHT NOW!!!

I laughed despite myself. "I’m already checking," I told my phone.

I switched apps. My follower count had nearly tripled overnight. Thousands of new followers, most of them with "Film Student" or "Cinematography" or "Documentary Lover" somewhere in their bios. My direct messages had completely overflowed. Students asking about my documentary. Others wanting editing advice. A few asking what camera I used. One message simply read: Thank you for reminding people that filmmakers have stories too.

I sat there on the edge of my bed reading that one for longer than I probably should have. I’d made the video because I was exhausted and I wanted the rumors to stop. I hadn’t been thinking about my work or my portfolio or what any of it might mean. I never imagined people would actually care about the filmmaking part. Apparently, they did.

By the time I arrived on campus, something had genuinely shifted. The whispers that had followed me through every hallway for the past week were simply gone. People still looked at me, but the quality of the looking had changed entirely. Some of them smiled. A few nodded. One girl I recognized from my elective class gave me a small wave from across the courtyard.

One student slowed down as she passed me. "Harper?" I turned. She looked genuinely embarrassed, like she’d been working up the nerve for this for a while. "I just wanted to say I’m sorry," she said quietly. "I shared one of those anonymous posts. I saw it and I didn’t think. I just clicked." She looked down at her shoes briefly. "I shouldn’t have."

Something about the honesty of it touched me more than I’d expected. "Thank you for telling me," I said, and meant every word.

She nodded once and hurried away. A few steps further, another student stopped me. "I can’t wait to see your documentary," she said, sounding genuinely excited. Then another, heading in the opposite direction. "My roommate and I watched your video together last night. You handled yourself really, really well."

I still didn’t know quite what to say to any of it. So I smiled, said thank you, and kept walking. For the first time in days, crossing campus felt like something I could do without bracing myself first.

My phone buzzed just as I reached the journalism building. Professor Silas. Please come to my office when you arrive on campus. I smiled to myself as I pushed through the doors. Hopefully this one isn’t another complaint.

Professor Silas barely waited for me to knock before calling me in. "Harper," he said, his voice carrying something I hadn’t heard from him before. Genuine excitement. "Come in."

I stepped inside. He was standing instead of sitting, which was already unusual. One hand rested on his desk. The other held a printed email. "You wanted to see me?" I said carefully.

"I did," he replied, his smile impossible to contain. "I have some interesting news." He walked around the desk. "Do you remember submitting your documentary proposal to the regional student showcase earlier this semester?"

"Yes," I said, frowning slightly.

"Well." He held up the email and handed it across to me. The sender wasn’t anyone I recognized. But the subject line made my heart skip an entire beat.

National Student Documentary Film Festival.

I looked up at him. "What is this?"

He laughed softly. "They’ve been following the online conversation. They saw your response video. They contacted the university directly this morning." He pointed toward the email in my hands. "They’re asking whether you’ll submit your completed documentary for consideration."

I stared at the words. I read them twice. Then a third time because my brain kept skipping over them. The festival. One of the biggest student showcases in the country. Internships came out of it. Representation. Real industry conversations. The kind of opportunity that existed mostly as a distant dream for most film students, and they were asking about my film.

"They want my documentary?" I whispered.

Professor Silas smiled warmly. "They do."

I shook my head slowly. "But it’s not even finished yet."

"They know," he said. "They’re asking to review it once it’s complete. The submission window works in your favor."

I read the email one more time. My vision blurred at the edges. Just yesterday I had sat in this exact building convinced I was about to lose this project entirely. Today someone wanted to see it on a national stage. A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.

"I don’t know what to say," I admitted.

Professor Silas folded his arms. "I do," he said proudly. "I told you. People notice exceptional work."

Then his expression sobered into something more serious. "There is one thing you need to understand," he said. I looked at him. "The expectations just changed." He nodded toward the email. "If you accept, this documentary won’t just determine your graduation." He paused deliberately. "It could determine your career."

The room felt very quiet suddenly. Very small. Very real. I looked down at the email one final time, feeling the full weight of what it meant settle over me slowly.

Then my phone vibrated.

A message from Justin.

Coach just called an emergency team meeting. Something’s happened.

My heart dropped straight through the floor. After everything we had finally survived together, I stared at those eight words and felt the familiar cold settle back into my stomach.

What now?

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