Silver had spent weeks carefully avoiding Ingalls Rink, constructing elaborate routes across campus that bypassed the athletic complex entirely in favor of the safer territories of libraries, coffee shops, and the occasional snowball skirmish that didn't require her to confront the ghosts of her competitive past.
But Americus possessed an almost supernatural talent for dragging people into situations they weren't emotionally prepared to handle, and the Winter Gala's "Skating Exhibition" had apparently been declared absolutely non-negotiable by forces beyond Silver's control.
