Maddie Reyes in Kiss Me, Captain

Madison Reyes, Maddie to almost everyone, is captain of the figure skating team at Lakeview University and the center of its social world. On Emily Harper's first day, Ava warns her about Maddie before they've even spoken. When Emily recognizes her old best friend, Maddie treats her in front of everyone like an embarrassment. Then she agrees to a teammate's idea that the new girl face her in a head-to-head skate.

That first skate sets the tone. Emily lands a triple axel, Maddie doesn't try to match it, and Coach Marquette holds Emily's jump up as the standard for the season. After that, Maddie's title is never secure. The showcase is supposed to decide the captaincy, Coach reopens the question after Regionals, and Maddie ends up sharing the job with Emily for Nationals.

Off the ice, she keeps up a second performance. Jenna Caldwell and her circle believe Maddie has a trust fund and a father who pays for her private single. In reality her father runs an auto repair shop and her mother works extra shifts. Maddie skips meals to save money, even while she invents a Maldives investment at dinner with her rich friends.

For Maddie, the ice is where she tries to earn the right to be at Lakeview. After Jenna tells the team about the auto shop, Maddie goes back to the empty rink at night. She falls and gets up again and again, convinced that only a perfect performance can justify her being there.

Her parents are a big part of that pressure. When they visit, Maddie promises them success at Nationals and tells them her relationship with Derek Hastings is perfect. Afterward she breaks down in front of Emily and admits her parents don't know who she really is.

Under the ambition and the lies is a fear of losing herself. After Jenna mocks her in front of the team, Maddie admits to Emily that she's afraid of what will be left if her story falls apart. Later, after a night with Emily, she cries in the shower because she no longer knows who Madison is. Even her attraction to Emily starts out in disguise: at first she tells herself she's just keeping an eye on a rival.

Emily is the person Maddie can't fool. Their rivalry turns into a secret arrangement under Maddie's four strict rules. The softer moments say just as much about her, though. In a hotel room after Regionals, the two perform a silly routine from their childhood to an old pop-rock song, and Maddie admits she misses the girl she used to be.

With her parents, David and Hanna Reyes, Maddie hides things. She hides Emily's belongings and moves their lunch off campus, and she stays quiet when her father makes anti-gay remarks. In the hospital she whispers a voicemail to Emily rather than wake them. It stings when Hanna calls Emily just her roommate, but later Hanna calls what they have a relationship, and Maddie lets the word stand.

Jenna keeps pulling Maddie's cover story apart, first the private single and then the auto shop. Derek Hastings is the boyfriend Maddie shows the world. At a party she uses him to make a point to Emily, and after sectionals she ends things. Later he turns on both girls and pounds on their dorm door while Maddie records it.

Her turning point comes in the communal showers. When Jenna, Carol Martinez and Sophie Chen corner Emily, Maddie stops staying out of it, orders them out and threatens to report them.

Then Nationals takes skating away from her. Her skates have been tampered with, and she falls on a triple axel. Lying on the ice, she reaches toward Emily in the stands. Surgery follows, along with a long recovery and the end of her season. From her hospital bed she asks Emily to skate for both of them and tells her she needs her.

The girl who couldn't stand being linked to Emily now relies on her for daily care. Groggy after surgery, Maddie tells Emily she loves her. When Emily says it back plainly, Maddie admits she meant something but won't say the words, and the story pauses with her stuck between wanting and hiding.