The question wouldn't leave her.
If I couldn't skate, who was I?
It had haunted Silver through every MRI scan, every consultation with specialists who spoke in careful measured tones about torn ACLs and damaged meniscus. It echoed through physical therapy sessions where therapists smiled encouragingly while she struggled to bend her knee past ninety degrees. It whispered during sleepless nights when reporters still called, their voices honey-sweet with false sympathy: "Silver, when can we expect your comeback? Will you make it to the next Olympic cycle?"
Now the question followed her onto the plane like unwanted baggage, settling somewhere between the persistent ache in her reconstructed knee and the hollow space where her future used to live.
The economy seat felt impossibly cramped. Her post-surgical knee brace—a hulking contraption of metal hinges and velcro straps—jutted awkwardly into the narrow aisle, forcing the flight attendant to navigate around it with apologetic smiles. Silver kept her gaze fixed on the small oval window, watching ground crews load luggage into the belly of the plane. Anything to avoid the curious stares from other passengers.
She recognized the look. Recognition followed by pity, sometimes mixed with the uncomfortable fascination people felt when witnessing someone else's spectacular failure. Oh, isn't that the figure skater? The one who fell at Nationals?
"Can I get you anything, miss? Extra pillow for your leg? Something to drink?"
The flight attendant's voice was professionally kind, the sort of practiced concern airline staff reserved for passengers who looked like they might need extra attention. Silver shook her head without looking up.
"I'm fine."
But she wasn't fine. Nothing about this was fine. Three months ago, she'd been on planes heading to competitions, her skate bag carefully stowed overhead, program music loaded on her phone for last-minute mental run-throughs. Those flights had been filled with anticipation, with the electric buzz of possibility.
This plane was carrying her away from everything she'd ever known toward something she'd never wanted: Yale University. College hadn't been part of the plan—it had been her father's insurance policy, the safety net Leona had dismissed with a wave of her manicured hand. "Champions don't need backup plans, James. They need focus."
Now the backup plan was all Silver had left.
She shifted in her seat, trying to find a position that didn't send lightning bolts of pain through her knee joint. The doctors kept saying the surgery had gone well, that she was ahead of schedule in her recovery. But "ahead of schedule" still meant months of rehabilitation, and even then, no guarantees. Figure skaters who came back from major knee injuries were rare. Those who came back at the same level were rarer still.
The guy across the aisle had been glancing at her since boarding. Early twenties, wearing a faded Bridgeport Sound Tigers hoodie—some minor league hockey team she vaguely recognized. His dark hair stuck up at odd angles from sleeping against the window, and there was a small scar cutting through his left eyebrow that suggested he knew something about sports injuries himself.
Athletes always recognized other athletes. It was something in the posture, the way they moved through space with controlled precision even when injured. He hadn't said anything, but she could feel him putting pieces together—the brace, her careful movements, maybe even her face if he followed figure skating at all.
Silver turned deliberately toward the window. She didn't owe him or anyone else an explanation or acknowledgment. Let him wonder. Let him google her name later when curiosity got the better of him.
Her phone buzzed against her thigh, trapped in the front pocket of her Yale University hoodie—a piece of clothing that still felt like wearing someone else's costume. She didn't need to check the screen to know it was Leona.
Stay focused on rehab. Don't let Yale distract you from the real goal. This is temporary.
Silver shoved the phone deeper into her pocket without reading the full message. Her father had called that morning before her flight, his voice carrying the kind of gentle concern that made her throat tighten.
"You don't have to prove anything to anyone, kiddo. Not to the skating world, not to your mother, not to me. Yale's a fresh start if you want it to be. Or just a place to figure things out. Either way is okay."
But James Preston's voice felt distant compared to Leona's constant presence in her head, the relentless drumbeat of expectations that had shaped Silver's entire existence.
Outside the window, clouds stretched endless and white—cotton batting pulled across an impossibly blue sky. From thirty thousand feet, everything looked small and manageable. The ice rink where she'd fallen, the hospital where she'd learned the extent of her injury, even her mother's disappointment—all of it reduced to miniature landscapes far below.
But her knee was very real. Every slight bump of turbulence sent jolts through the joint, reminder that some damage couldn't be left behind at altitude. She shifted again, biting down on her lip to keep from making any sound that might draw more unwanted attention.
Would it always be like this? Would every step carry the echo of that moment when her blade caught wrong and physics betrayed preparation? She'd been falling and getting back up since she was four years old, but this fall felt different. Final.
The memory surfaced unbidden: the practice session three days before Nationals where she'd landed the triple Lutz perfectly, the satisfying scrape of blade against ice as she checked out of the rotation. Leona had actually smiled—a rare crack in her perpetual stern expression.
"That's it. That's the one that wins it for us."
Us. Always us, as if Leona would be the one launching into the air, defying gravity through sheer force of will.
Silver dozed fitfully as the flight dragged on, jerking awake each time her knee shifted at an uncomfortable angle. She dreamed in fragments—jumps that turned into falls, crowds that cheered and then fell silent, her mother's voice cutting through applause like a blade.
The pilot's voice over the intercom jolted her fully awake: "Ladies and gentlemen, we've begun our descent into Bradley International Airport. Flight attendants, please prepare for landing."
Connecticut. Silver's stomach clenched as the plane began its descent, ears popping with the pressure change. This wasn't just a change in altitude—it was a complete transformation of trajectory. Her life cleanly divided into before and after, with the moment her skate blade caught serving as the dividing line.
The wheels touched down with a screech that made her wince, and passengers immediately began the familiar ritual of standing, stretching, and jockeying for position in the aisle. Silver waited until the crowd thinned, her brace making quick movement impossible anyway.
When she finally made it to the jet bridge, the hockey player from across the aisle fell into step beside her, clearly having waited.
"You okay with that bag?"
His voice was deeper than she'd expected, with just a hint of what sounded like Canadian accent roughening the edges. Silver glanced at him sideways, taking in the genuine concern in his expression.
"I've got it."
She did, barely. Her carry-on felt like it was filled with rocks, but accepting help felt too much like admitting defeat.
He nodded and didn't push, which she appreciated. "Yale?"
Silver paused at the top of the jet bridge, suddenly uncertain. "How did you—"
"The hoodie." He gestured at her sweatshirt, then at his own. "Different sport, same destination. I'm transferring in for hockey."
The airport terminal buzzed with typical travel chaos—families reuniting, business travelers checking phones, the constant drone of departure announcements. Silver found the Yale shuttle waiting near the pickup area, its navy blue logo crisp against white paint.
The driver took her bag with a sympathetic smile, but Silver kept her eyes on the pavement. Sympathy was almost harder to handle than outright stares.
The ride through Connecticut countryside felt like traveling through someone else's life. Highway gave way to smaller roads lined with trees just beginning to show hints of fall color. They passed coffee shops with chalkboard signs, bookstores with narrow windows, the kind of small-town New England charm she'd only seen in movies.
Her knee throbbed with each bump and turn, but Silver found herself pressing closer to the window as they entered New Haven proper. The city wrapped around Yale like it had grown up specifically to support the university—narrow streets lined with brick buildings, students with loaded backpacks hurrying across crosswalks, professors in tweed jackets walking dogs.
Then the shuttle turned through wrought-iron gates, and suddenly they were inside the Yale campus itself.
Silver's breath caught.
The Gothic architecture rose around them like something from a fairy tale—stone towers reaching toward the sky, arched windows glowing golden in the late afternoon light, courtyards that looked like they belonged in medieval England rather than modern Connecticut. The buildings carried weight, history pressed into every carved detail and weathered stone.
It was beautiful. And completely foreign.
The shuttle slowed as they passed students throwing frisbees on a tree-lined quad, their laughter carrying through the open windows. A group of girls in matching field hockey uniforms jogged past, their ponytails bouncing in synchronized rhythm. Normal college students doing normal college things.
Silver's chest tightened. She'd never been normal. Since childhood, her days had been structured around ice time, training schedules, competition calendars. She'd been homeschooled to accommodate travel, socialized mainly with other skaters, measured her worth in scores and standings.
Now she was here, surrounded by people who probably chose their classes based on interest rather than scheduling around practice, who went to parties because they wanted to rather than because their coach thought it would be good for their image.
The shuttle turned again, pulling up in front of a residential college that looked like a castle. Students streamed in and out of the entrance, some carrying musical instruments, others with paint-stained hands, a few in athletic gear heading toward what she assumed were practice facilities.
For the first time since her fall, Silver felt something stir that wasn't pain or regret or her mother's disappointed voice echoing in her head.
It was small, tentative, almost too fragile to name. But as she stared up at the Gothic spires etched against the darkening sky, she recognized it.
Possibility.
Yale. Her next chapter, whether she'd chosen it or not.