Epilogue
They say your life can change in an instant. That’s only the part you see—the moment the ice finally gives way. No one talks about the hairline cracks underneath, spreading quietly long before anyone hears the break.
Mine changed like a thaw—slow at first, so gradual I barely noticed.
One small moment of warmth, then another, until a steady drip carved new paths through everything I thought I knew about myself.
Tiny fractures in the ice I’d built around my heart, letting light seep through until I couldn’t remember why I’d been so afraid of it.
When it finally settled, I was standing in the wreckage of who I used to be. And for the first time, that didn’t feel like a tragedy.
Some scars you can see. Others you carry where no one else can find them. And sometimes the right person learns to trace them like a map—love letters written in a language only the two of you speak.
The months after the Maple Leaf Classic blurred together in a rush of ice and sweat and early mornings. Samantha’s dad was doing better—well enough that she’d started watching Aspen again—which meant Derek and I could travel without the guilt spiral.
I competed at the Ice Challenge Montréal—my first Grand Prix assignment—and finished third. The bronze felt surreal, like borrowed luck. Two weeks later, I flew to Osaka for the Japan Open and placed second. Two podiums. Enough points to qualify for the Grand Prix Final.
November brought full run-throughs without my heart trying to escape through my throat.
December brought the Grand Prix Final in France—a fourth place finish that would have destroyed me two years ago but now felt like proof of something.
Proof that I could stand on the same ice as the best in the world and not shatter.
January was Canadian Nationals. The Olympic trials. Everything I’d been building toward.
Sabrina flew in for every competition she could manage, her homemade Team Théo shirts becoming increasingly elaborate. She brought my mom to the Grand Prix Final, their matching shirts a fluorescent pink that could probably be seen from space.
And through all of it—the triumphs and the setbacks, the panic attacks in hotel bathrooms and the late night calls when the noise in my head got too loud—there was Derek.
He couldn’t be at every competition. The Frost were fighting for a playoff spot and he was in the best form of his career, his comeback season becoming the kind of story sports journalists loved to tell.
But he watched every performance on whatever screen he could find—an iPad in a hotel room, a phone propped against a locker, on a TV in a bar in Winnipeg with his teammates cheering me on.
He sent flowers after every skate.
The Canadian National Championships were held in Ottawa that year.
January. Freezing cold. The kind of winter that reminded you why people invented heated seats and thermal underwear. I stood backstage, fully costumed, waiting for my scores after the free skate of my life.
Four minutes and thirty seconds of everything I had. Every fall, every failure, every moment I’d wanted to quit—I’d poured it all onto the ice and left it there. My legs were shaking. My lungs burned. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d skated that cleanly, that freely, with that much joy.
The kiss and cry was suffocating. Cameras everywhere. Coaches murmuring. Other skaters pretending not to watch.
And then—warmth at my side. A hand sliding into mine.
Derek.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. The Frost had a game tonight in Chicago. He was supposed to be on the ice in three hours, not sitting in a folding chair in Ottawa waiting for my score to post on the screen.
“How—” I started.
“I borrowed Bradley’s jet.” He squeezed my hand. “I wasn’t missing this.”
The announcer’s voice crackled through the speakers. The numbers appeared on the screen.
For a moment, I couldn’t process them. They didn’t make sense. They were too high—impossibly high—higher than I’d scored in years, higher than I’d dared to imagine—
“Théo.” Derek’s voice was strange. Choked. “Théo, look at the standings.”
I looked.
My name. At the top.
First place.
I was going to the Olympics.
The sound that came out of me wasn’t dignified. Something between a sob and a laugh, raw and broken and utterly beyond my control. Derek caught me before my knees gave out, pulling me against his chest, his arms solid around me as I fell apart in the best possible way.
“You did it,” he said into my hair. “You did it, snowdrop. I’m so proud of you. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
I couldn’t speak. I just held on.
Somewhere behind us, Sabrina was screaming. My mom was crying. Coach Miller was saying something about personal bests and redemption arcs. The cameras were probably capturing all of it—this moment, this mess, this love I’d never expected and didn’t deserve and couldn’t imagine living without.
But all I could feel was Derek’s heartbeat against my cheek. Steady. Sure.
Some scars you carry forever. I know that now. They don’t disappear. They don’t stop aching on the hard days. Recovery isn’t a destination—it’s a direction. A choice you make over and over again, even when it’s exhausting, even when the old paths feel easier.
But some scars become part of the story. Part of what makes you strong enough to stand on the ice and bare your soul to a thousand strangers. Part of what makes you human enough to let someone love you anyway.
I used to think I was broken beyond repair.
Turns out I was just waiting for the right person to help me find the pieces.