Silver left the café feeling like she'd been yanked off the ice mid-spin—dizzy, unbalanced, her entire equilibrium destroyed by forces beyond her control. The carefully constructed sense of stability she'd been building at Yale over the past months felt as fragile as spun glass suddenly subjected to hammer blows.
Leona's words clung to her consciousness like frost that wouldn't melt, sharp and persistent against her skin despite the distance she'd put between herself and that marble table where her mother had delivered ultimatums disguised as maternal concern.
You'll skate again. No excuses. No compromises.
She wanted desperately to peel those expectations away, to leave them behind with the untouched cappuccino and the perfectly arranged café setting, but they followed her across campus with the tenacity of shadows that grew longer rather than fading with distance.
