Ficool

Ice & Ivy

June_Calva81
14
chs / week
The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 14 chs / week.
--
NOT RATINGS
196
Views
Synopsis
Silver Preston was supposed to be America’s next figure skating sweetheart—until a brutal injury shattered her Olympic dreams and left her stranded at Yale, miles away from the ice that defined her. All she wants is to stay invisible, to escape the suffocating grip of her former coach-mother, and to outrun the whispers that she’s finished. But Yale hockey isn’t quiet, and neither is Eli Hayes—the team’s captain, campus golden boy, and infuriatingly unreadable. To Silver, he’s arrogant, cold, and everything she swore she’d avoid. To Eli, she’s reckless, stubborn, and a distraction he can’t afford. Their worlds were never meant to collide—except the rink has a way of pulling broken people back onto the ice. When gossip turns cruel and secrets from the past threaten to destroy her for good, Silver is forced to decide whether she’ll keep running or fight for the life—and the love—she thought she lost. And as Eli battles his own demons under the unforgiving glare of NHL scouts, their fragile connection becomes the one thing that could save them both…or break them completely. Full of sharp banter, late-night study sessions, stolen glances at the rink, and the electric push-pull of enemies who might be more, this is a story of ambition, redemption, and the thin line between pride and passion.
VIEW MORE

Chapter 1 - Nationals Fall

The ice looked too clean to be real.

Silver Preston had skated on plenty of rinks—cramped training facilities with flickering fluorescents, outdoor ponds that cracked under winter sun, even the gleaming Olympic oval in Colorado Springs where dreams felt tangible as morning frost. But this sheet of ice stretched before her like polished glass, so perfect it seemed manufactured rather than frozen. Every overhead light caught its surface, throwing back her reflection in fragments: a flash of sequined blue, the sharp line of her ponytail, eyes that had learned to hide doubt behind determination.

The crowd pressed against the boards of the Nationals arena, a wall of expectant faces blurred into motion and color. Parents clutched programs. Coaches scribbled last-minute notes. Somewhere in the darkness beyond the spotlights, cameras waited to capture either triumph or devastation, ready to replay either outcome until it became legend.

Her stomach twisted—not from nerves, not exactly. Nerves she could handle. She'd performed under scrutiny since she was eight years old, when local news stations first called her "Georgia's golden girl" and skating magazines put her gap-toothed smile on their covers. She'd learned to swallow fear like medicine, bitter but necessary.

This was different. This program wasn't just another competition—it was the gateway. The performance that would either launch her toward the Olympics or leave her scrambling to explain why America's sweetheart had stumbled when it mattered most.

Leona's voice cut through the arena noise, sharp as blade edges. "Remember the Lutz setup. Low and forward, not up and back. You've been telegraphing it in practice."

Silver nodded without looking toward the coaching box. She could picture her mother's expression perfectly: lips pressed thin, arms crossed, that particular stillness that meant every muscle was coiled tight with expectation. Leona Preston had been many things—coach, manager, media handler—but mother had always come last on the list.

"You don't get to fail," Leona had said during warm-up, gripping Silver's shoulders hard enough to leave marks. "Not here. Not tonight. This is what we've worked for."

We. As if Leona would be the one launching into the air, trusting physics and prayer to land safely.

The music began—Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, sweeping and dramatic, the kind of piece that demanded everything from both skater and audience. Silver let the opening notes wash over her, feeling her heartbeat sync with the melody's pulse. This was the moment when doubt had to disappear, when Silver Preston the person stepped aside to let Silver Preston the performer take control.

She pushed off, blades carving into ice that sang beneath her. The opening sequence unfolded like muscle memory: spiral into triple toe loop, check, double axel with arms that painted lines against the spotlights. Each movement felt sharp and clean, practiced until perfect, then practiced some more.

The crowd responded with appreciation that built like rising tide. Applause mixed with camera shutters and the occasional whistle from someone's proud parent. Silver caught glimpses of faces as she moved—a little girl pressed against the glass, eyes wide with wonder; an older man with tears on his cheeks; teenagers holding phones high to capture moments they'd replay later.

But in the coaching area, Leona remained statue-still. Approval had to be earned, not given.

Silver transitioned into the program's centerpiece sequence, the triple Lutz that would either make or break everything. Her "money jump," as sports commentators loved to say. The element that had secured her three national junior titles and launched a thousand social media clips tagged with #NextOlympian and #IceQueen.

She carved the entry edge with precision born from repetition, feeling the blade grab ice just so. The crowd held its breath—they knew this moment, had watched her nail this jump in competition after competition. Silver felt their expectation like heat against her back.

The takeoff was perfect. For one crystalline second, she was weightless, spinning in controlled chaos above ice that reflected arena lights like scattered stars. Time suspended. The crowd's roar began building, recognition and anticipation blending into something that felt like flying.

Then her left skate caught.

The sound wasn't loud—barely a whisper against the music's swell. But to Silver, it was everything: the sound of physics betraying preparation, of bodies failing when perfection was required. Her knee twisted midair as momentum carried her forward while her leg pulled sideways. The landing spot rushed up to meet her, unforgiving as concrete.

Pain exploded through her leg, white-hot and screaming. She hit the ice shoulder-first, her head snapping back against the surface with a sound that carried to the front rows. The impact sent shock waves through her spine, driving the breath from her lungs in a sharp gasp that the microphones caught and amplified.

The arena fell silent except for the music, which continued its sweeping arc toward crescendo, indifferent to the catastrophe unfolding on ice.

Silver tried to stand. Her left leg refused the command, buckling the moment she put weight on it. The world tilted, edges blurring as tears she refused to shed made everything swim. Through the chaos of pain and shock, she caught sight of Leona in the coaching box.

Her mother was on her feet now, but not moving forward. Not rushing to help. Just standing there with lips pressed into that familiar razor-thin line, disappointment already crystallizing into something harder. No shouting, no visible emotion—just that look Silver knew too well. The one that said this is what happens when you're not good enough.

The music played on, building toward the climax that would never come. Silver's chest heaved as she tried to draw breath that didn't come wrapped in glass. Her hands scraped against ice, gloves sliding uselessly as she attempted to push herself upright. She could taste copper where her teeth had caught her lip during the fall.

"Get up." The words came out as a whisper, lost beneath Rachmaninoff's soaring melody. "Get up. Finish it."

But her knee screamed in protest, locking against every command her brain sent. Pain flooded her vision until the arena lights fractured into kaleidoscope pieces, beautiful and devastating at once.

Somewhere beyond the spotlights, the little girl who'd been pressed against the glass was crying. Somewhere in the coaching area, Leona still stood frozen, unwilling to move toward her daughter's broken form. Somewhere in television booths, commentators were already crafting narratives about dreams deferred and comebacks that might never materialize.

Silver's last coherent thought before consciousness slipped away wasn't about skating, or medals, or the Olympic dreams that were dissolving like morning frost. It wasn't even about her mother's disappointment or the crowd's collective gasp of sympathy.

It was simpler, more desperate: This can't be how it ends.

The arena lights dimmed to black as Silver Preston, America's figure skating sweetheart, learned that sometimes the ice wins.