Emily Harper in Kiss Me, Captain

Emily Harper comes to Lakeview University on a figure skating scholarship after Coach Marquette recruits her. At her first practice, Ava warns her about the team captain. Then Emily realizes the captain is Maddie Reyes, the best friend she lost touch with years ago. In front of the whole team, Maddie acts as if they're strangers and calls their old friendship embarrassing.

Emily answers on the ice. When a teammate suggests that the new girl take on the captain, Emily decides she won't be the one to flinch first. She goes on to land a triple axel that Maddie doesn't attempt, and Coach Marquette holds it up as the standard for the season. That praise makes Emily a target: her things get hidden, and Maddie's circle sneers about scholarship kids. Then housing puts her in Maddie's room, with nowhere else available until spring.

Skating is what holds Emily steady. The triple axel is the jump that got her recruited, and she keeps winning with it. She takes first at regionals by about three points and wins again at sectionals. When Chris asks for more than friendship, the reasons she gives for saying no are skating, Nationals and her scholarship.

Under her sharp tongue is an old hurt. When Maddie says the girl she used to be is gone, Emily answers that she was the one who got dropped. Maddie hits back, accusing Emily of running from her mother and hiding behind skating. Both lines stick because both have some truth in them.

The person Emily hides from most is herself. She tells Maddie she has only ever dated men, and later says flatly that she isn't interested in girls. Privately, though, she admits she has wanted Maddie for a long time and feels nothing when Chris kisses her. Even while she calls what happens with Maddie an experiment, she knows it means more.

Ava is Emily's first real friend at Lakeview. She invites Emily to dinner on her first day and later waits outside her hotel room after Maddie's fall. She asks Emily outright whether she and Maddie are in love, and she's fine with it when Emily has no answer. At the hospital, she tells Emily she looks at Maddie the way people in love do.

Chris Nakamura, Emily's showcase partner, is kind and earnest. She can't return his feelings, but he stays a friend and warns her that Jenna's sabotage has gone too far. With Jenna Caldwell, Emily always hits back. She shuts Jenna down with a cutting line at a party, challenges her to a skate-off, and accuses her outright of slashing her gear.

Families come into it too. Emily's mother remembers Madison from childhood, notices how close the two girls are, and gently offers to listen, but Emily can't find the words. Meanwhile Maddie's parents, whom Emily hadn't spoken to in eight years, end up trusting her with Maddie's daily care.

Early on, Emily fights in the open. After Maddie's fall at Nationals, she starts protecting someone else instead. She calls Maddie's parents herself. She keeps what she overheard in the stands to herself until she can talk to Maddie, and she leaves part of the story out of her statement to the investigators. When Derek Hastings corners her, she records him and files a complaint. Agreeing to keep her distance from Maddie in public, though, leaves her feeling hollow.

Then the protecting turns into tenderness. Emily helps Maddie get ready for surgery and kisses her forehead in plain view before Maddie is wheeled away. Afterward, a groggy Maddie tells her she loves her, and Emily says it was nonsense. That night she lies awake going over their history and realizes she's in love with Maddie Reyes.

By chapter 50, Emily stops pretending. She asks Maddie about what she said in the recovery room, tells her she loves her, and says she thinks Maddie feels the same. Maddie can't say it back, and footsteps moving away from the door suggest someone overheard them.