Prologue
Once upon a time, there was a hockey player at a seaside university in the smallest state in the country.
The hockey player had a tiny crush on the beautiful figure skater who often argued about ice time at their local college rink. However, that heat on the ice turned even hotter off-ice, forming a strong bond that took them by surprise.
When that college hockey player was drafted in the third round to a team across the country, the young figure skater followed, creating new dreams for the two of them.
The couple married, and a few years later, they were blessed with the news of an impending baby. They packed up and moved across the country again, back to the sleepy college town where they first met, to put down roots.
The pro hockey player retired and bought the ice arena where they met, since the college had recently built a state-of-the-art facility to replace the run-down one.
On the day the baby girl was born, it should have been a happy one, but horror struck instead. An unexpected complication arose that left the husband without his wife and the little baby without her mother. Both cried for the wonderful ice skater who died too young.
The baby girl, Ella, grew up in the happiest home with a dad who loved her fiercely. The old ice rink became her second home, and the hockey players and staff became her family.
Everything was perfect, but the little girl soon realized that perfection never lasts. Something always goes wrong, and life likes to screw you over as soon as you get comfortable.
When Ella was eight, her dad met a woman with two daughters at the ice rink pro shop, and six months later, they were married. Ella was no longer the only girl in her dad’s life, sharing the attention with three others. Everything was fine, though; she still had her dad, her whole world.
Until she didn’t.
Five days after her tenth birthday, her dad was killed instantly in a tragic car accident when he was away for a work trip.
Ella wasn’t familiar with the wordwillbefore, but she soon learned the importance of one and wished that her dad had the foresight to create one.
The day after her dad’s funeral, she was banished—by her stepmother—to the attic of her family’s ocean-side home, a few blocks away from the same university where her parents once met.
It wasn’t until years later that Ella, too, became a student there, walking to classes while working at the family ice rink that her stepmother now owns and controls.
Her dreams of following in her parent’s footsteps are now on hold, but sometimes dreams have a hard time dying as they are branded into our hearts forever, just like our loved ones.
Chapter One
Ella
“Ella! Where is my smoothie? I need my green smoothie pronto!”
“Coming!” I yell from the kitchen over the blaring noise of the blender, currently making said smoothie.
I swipe my hand across my forehead to clear away the sweat. It’s an abnormally warm day for September in New England, in the high eighties.
I grab the cutting board and cut additional fruit into wedges, then pour the blended mix into a highball glass. I add the fruit wedges to the rim just the way Vienna likes it: over-the-top and excessive.
I clutch the drink with my left hand and stride over to the living room, sliding open the large glass doors to the over-sized balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
My stepmother is lying on a white lounge chair with a massive pink umbrella over her.
“Finally,” she spouts as I hand her the drink.
She lifts it to her mouth, searching for the swirly straw, but misses on the first few attempts. She has on a pink face mask with orange slices covering her eyes, because—I have no idea why, but this is basically our routine every single day. Just withdifferent fruits, depending on what is trendy and the hardest to source, because Vienna loves to ruin my life.
“What are you still doing here?” she asks, not even bothering to turn her head an inch to face me. “Get to work.”
“I can’t today. I have to study before class.” Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance yet. Between my first year at the local university, regular work at the ice rink, and the mile-long list of chores Vienna has for me on a daily basis, I’m struggling to balance everything. I’m only in my third week of college, and I already feel behind.
I thought once I made it to college, everything in my life would instantly improve, but that’s not the case at all. If anything, life is even harder than it was in high school.
Maybe I should’ve picked a college five-thousand miles away from my stepmother and stepsisters, instead of one five minutes away. I’m sure they’d still find ways to make me suffer wherever I was located.
