Chapter Text
PROLOGUE.
𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅ now playing: 500 miles by Peter, Paul and Mary
Kate Hansen died three years ago, not in a quiet room, but in the center of the ice she once called home. For weeks, she had been a ghost haunting her own skin, her body a fraying wire stretched to its absolute limit, hummed with the electric, hollow ache of grief. She had pushed herself until exhaustion and it wasn't just a state of mind, but a physical law she was desperately trying to defy.
When she took flight for that final, crucial jump—the one that was supposed to anchor a flawless performance—her body simply refused to follow. The fatigue she had been carrying like a heavy shroud finally reclaimed her; her ankle buckled beneath her with a sickening, audible crack followed by the feeling of something snapping within her, that silenced the arena, and she collapsed and could no longer move. She hit the ice with a bone-jarring impact, the white-hot glare of the spotlights turning the rink into an operating table. In that split second, as the music continued to play to an empty performance, the girl who lived for the applause was extinguished. She was shattered under the merciless, surgical glare of the lights—discarded the moment she became too broken to shine.
Her house in Marley was a monument to things that could be bought and things that could never be repaired. It was a vast, hollow space, echoing with the sound of expensive things and empty rooms. Growing up, Kate learned early that in this house, tears had a price tag. If she scraped her knee, a new pair of shoes appeared before the bruise even settled. If she cried over a competition, an upgrade to her bedroom or a designer dress arrived like an apology she never asked for. Her father was a master at turning grief into inventory, papering over the cracks in their family with golden leaves, hoping that– maybe– if he bought her enough of the world, she’d forget the one thing he refused to give her: a father.
She had spent her entire childhood auditioning for his love, turning herself into a collection of achievements. Winning became intoxicating. Every medal, every standing ovation, every headline proved she deserved to be looked at. She sharpened herself into someone difficult to rival and even harder to approach. She was brilliant, beautiful, and painfully aware of it. If someone had to lose for her to stand on the podium, then so be it. That was simply how the world worked.
But he had also bought her the means to her own unraveling. The skating world was a harsh, demanding mirror, and by the time she was sixteen, the pressure to be as perfect as the life her father curated had driven her into a quiet, starving corner. Her mother had wept and begged, and her brother ended up being the one forcing her into the clinics that finally saved her life, but the shadows of those habits still lingered, waiting in the periphery. She had eventually clawed her way back to the ice, but she knew how fragile the balance was—how easily she could slip back into that cold, calculated performance of perfection.
She hadn't forgotten the lessons of the past; she had simply become an expert at wearing her isolation like a silk gown—perfectly tailored, expensive, and cold.
Her mother was a soft, trembling thing, fluttering in the periphery like a trapped bird. Her mother’s love was a touch on the shoulder or a tearful glance, but it was never enough to shatter the glass wall her father had built. When Kate told him she was leaving for University of Paradis, he hadn't even looked up from his desk. He had merely gestured toward her trust fund account with a cold, detached nod, as if he were simply ordering a luxury car instead of watching his daughter walk out of his life.
She stood in her doorway, surrounded by the remnants of a life bought and paid for. She looked at her skates—her own, a gift from her late sister, Kiara, not the money he had thrown at her.
She didn’t feel guilty about leaving. How could she? You cannot mourn the loss of a home that was never a sanctuary.
She shoved the black card her father had slipped her—a parting gift of insurmountable, cold purchasing power—into her wallet. She’d use it, of course; she wasn't a martyr, and she wasn't about to pretend she was above the resources she had. But it didn't feel like power anymore. It felt like a leash.
The skates, however? Those were the only things she owned that felt truly and unconditionally hers. She adjusted the ribbon scarf which sat loose against the base of her neck, looking back one final time to the hollow monument of a home that once was, before stepping out into the cold air.