Chapter 2 Waking Up

POV: Silver Preston

The world comes back in pieces.

First, the sound. A steady electronic pulse that echoes from somewhere far away, then closer, then inside my skull.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Each tone feels like a small hammer tapping against my consciousness, dragging me back from whatever dark place my mind retreated to.

Then the smell hits me.

Antiseptic so sharp it burns my nostrils, mixed with something else. Industrial cleaning solution that makes my throat constrict.

Nothing like the cold, clean scent of ice rinks or even the familiar mustiness of training facilities. This is a hospital smell, sterile and unforgiving.

I blink slowly, my eyelids feeling like they're made of sandpaper.

Above me, fluorescent lights hum behind plastic covers, casting everything in a harsh, greenish glow that makes my skin look corpselike. My mouth feels stuffed with cotton, my tongue thick and unresponsive.

I try to shift position and immediately regret it.

Pain shoots down my left leg like liquid fire, so intense I suck in a sharp gasp that scrapes my raw throat.

"Don't move."

The voice belongs to a stranger. A man in his thirties wearing pale blue scrubs that have seen better days. He holds a clipboard against his chest and wears the kind of carefully neutral expression that doctors perfect when delivering news no one wants to hear.

"You dislocated your knee in the fall," he continues, consulting his notes. "We've relocated the joint and stabilized it for now, but there's significant ligament damage. We'll need an MRI to determine the full extent, but preliminary X-rays show—"

"How bad?" My voice comes out as a croak, barely recognizable as my own.

The doctor hesitates.

That pause, barely two seconds, tells me everything I need to know.

In figure skating, ligaments are like the strings of a violin. Damage them, and even the most beautiful music becomes impossible.

"We won't know the complete picture until we get the scan results," he says finally. "But this isn't a minor injury, Ms. Preston. You're looking at extensive rehabilitation, and even then..."

He trails off, but I fill in the silence.

Even then, you might never compete again.

My chest tightens as I force myself to look down.

Past the thin hospital blanket, my left leg is wrapped in white bandages and secured in a bulky black brace that extends from my thigh to my ankle. Ice packs are tucked around the joint, and my leg is elevated on a stack of pillows that makes it look like some alien appendage that doesn't belong to my body.

This leg carried me through thousands of hours of training.

It launched me into triple jumps that felt like flying.

It's been featured on magazine covers, praised by commentators, analyzed in slow motion replays.

Now it looks broken, foreign, like something that betrayed me in the worst possible way.

The door opens with a soft whoosh, followed by the sharp click of expensive heels against linoleum.

I don't need to look to know who's arrived.

Leona Preston sweeps into the room like she owns it, perfectly pressed navy blazer unmarked despite the chaos of the past few hours. Her makeup remains flawless, blonde hair pulled back in the same severe chignon she wore at the arena.

She looks like she stepped out of a boardroom rather than spent the night in a hospital waiting room.

But I know that look in her eyes.

It isn't relief that her daughter is conscious. It isn't fear or worry or any of the emotions a normal parent might display.

It's fury, barely contained beneath a veneer of professional composure.

"Silver."

The single word carries enough ice to freeze the room.

My throat closes. I've heard that tone before. After disappointing performances, after falls in practice, after any moment when Silver Preston the person failed Silver Preston the brand.

The doctor clears his throat.

"Ms. Preston, perhaps we should discuss the treatment plan—"

"Give us a moment."

Leona's voice could cut glass. She doesn't even glance at the doctor, just keeps her laser focus on me until the man gathers his clipboard and retreats, the door closing behind him with a soft click.

The silence stretches between us, filled only by the mechanical beeping of monitors and the distant sounds of hospital life filtering through the walls.

Leona crosses to the bedside, arms folded, her designer heels clicking against the floor like a countdown.

"What was that?" she demands.

I blink, confusion mixing with the lingering fog of whatever painkillers they gave me.

"I fell. My knee—"

"You gave up."

Leona's words slice through the air.

"Champions don't stay down, Silver. They get up. They finish. That's what separates winners from everyone else."

The accusation hits harder than the physical pain.

"I couldn't stand. My leg—"

"You didn't even try."

Leona leans closer, her perfume, something expensive and cold, mixing with the hospital antiseptic.

"Do you know what that looked like on television? America's sweetheart sprawled on the ice like some amateur who'd never learned to fall properly?"

My chest caves in on itself.

I've been falling and getting back up since I was four years old, when Leona first laced skates on my feet. I know how to tuck, how to roll, how to make even a disaster look graceful.

But this wasn't a normal fall.

"The knee dislocated," I whisper. "The ligaments—"

"Are fixable."

Leona's voice softens slightly, but somehow that makes it worse. The false gentleness feels like a trap.

"Listen to me carefully. This is a setback, not an ending. Nationals was one competition. There are other chances, other seasons. You'll do physical therapy, you'll train harder than ever, and you'll come back stronger."

She reaches out and touches my forehead with cool fingers, the gesture almost maternal if you didn't know better.

"You are Silver Preston. You're America's figure skating sweetheart, the girl who landed her first triple at twelve, who's graced the cover of Sports Illustrated twice. Olympic dreams don't die because of one mistake."

I want to scream.

Want to tear off the monitors and the brace and tell her that I'm not a machine to be repaired and put back on display. That I'm seventeen years old and scared and hurting in ways that have nothing to do with ligament damage.

But my throat closes again, and all that emerges is a whisper.

"It hurts."

Leona's expression hardens back into familiar territory.

"Pain is temporary. Quitting is permanent. You know that."

Outside the window, snow has begun to fall against the dark glass, each flake catching the light from the parking lot below before disappearing into blackness.

I watch them for a moment, remembering how snow looked falling past the windows of ice rinks during early morning practices, when the world was quiet and skating felt like magic instead of obligation.

The beeping continues, steady and relentless.

My mother's breathing is equally measured, waiting for the response we both know is expected.

But for the first time in years, I find myself asking a question that has nothing to do with jumps or scores or Olympic dreams.

The words slip out before I can stop them, hanging in the antiseptic air like a confession.

"If I couldn't skate... who am I?"