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The word settles somewhere deep inside me.

I look back at the ice.

“Yes.”

One whispered word.

Yet somehow, it feels like fate taking its first step toward me.

A few minutes later, Dad kneels in front of me, carefully tightening the borrowed skates around my feet. His tattooed hands move slowly, as if the blades might hurt me.

Impossible.

Not me.

Never me.

When he finishes, he rises and helps me onto the ice, keeping one large hand wrapped firmly around mine.

Steady.

Safe.

“Go slowly, my fearless girl,” he whispers with a smile. “And fly.”

And I do.

The moment my blade touches the ice, the world changes.

No.

Not the world.

Me.

Something clicks into place.

I push forward carefully.

One glide.

Then another.

Nothing feels wrong here.

Nothing is backward. Nothing is tangled.

The ice doesn’t care that my brain works differently from everyone else’s.

For once, nothing needs to be explained.

Cold air rushes past my cheeks as snowflakes dance through my white-blond hair. The lights above blur into streaks of silver and gold, and the ice sparkles beneath me like enchanted glass.

For a moment, the world grows silent.

Just as it did when I first saw the lonely boy.

Everything disappears.