Chapter 7
GRACE
Ishould be excited about the first night of performances for this year’s Reverie Ice Show.
I should be so hyped for this that my heart vibrates like a tuning fork.
But my insides feel sticky and twisted, which is not a feeling I can skate through.
It’s not about the show itself. It’s about the person with whom I’ll be sharing the stage, the one who’s made it impossible to ignore the scent of peppermint over all the other noise.
Connor isn’t in the dressing room yet. Is he here at the arena at all? I don’t let myself care. Connor’s presence or absence is squarely Director Hannah’s problem. If he’s not here, maybe the princess can be her own happy ending this time.
Instead, I tie and untie my skates, and check the ribbons on my dress. I listen to the pulse of rehearsal music echoing from the main arena. The stage crew is laughing as they ready for their part in the show.
“Are you ready?” asks a voice behind me.
I nearly jump out of my skin. Charlotte stands there grinning at me.
I summon up a smile. “Do I look ready?”
She gives me a slow, critical once-over. “Yeah. But you look like you’re about to barf.”
“Not a chance.” That I refuse to do.
Charlotte sits beside me and tugs her skate guards off with sharp, practiced flicks. “You’ll be okay. You—us—we’re all going to nail tonight’s performance.”
I nod. The effort of holding myself together feels visible, like an extra costume piece I can’t shed. The pressure of having to be near Connor these last few days has been enough on its own. But now I have to pretend I don’t hate everything about him in front of tens of thousands of people.
Okay, yeah. I may barf.
More and more skaters trickle in. Every conversation is loud, staccato, filled with the desperate need to mask nerves. The room gets crowded fast as people tiptoe around the tails of costumes and unzipped skate bags.
The minutes melt away, and before I’m ready, there’s a sharp whistle from the hallway. Director Hannah stands in her signature glittery tracksuit with a smile so electric it could power the arena.
“Let’s do this!” she calls out, clapping her hands together. “Everyone, main corridor, now! Curtain call in ten!”
The dressing room explodes in a controlled stampede. Skaters grab water bottles and touch up lipstick. I fall into step behind the others and hug my arms around my ribcage.
The corridor outside the dressing rooms is pure mayhem: techs in headsets, producers on walkie-talkies, and the scent of fog machines starting to churn.
The orchestra’s warming up with fractured fairy tale melodies.
Someone bumps into me and mutters an apology.
I keep walking, letting myself be swept along.
Director Hannah waits at the corridor’s end, corralling us all into a messy huddle. She’s short but commands the group like an alpha wolf, every syllable clear and impossible to ignore.
“Listen up!” she calls out. The noise dies instantly.
I realize Connor is here, suddenly materializing for the group huddle. He’s pressed in on the opposite side of the circle with a locked jaw. His prince costume makes him look taller and broader. His eyes flick to mine, then away, then back. He looks nervous.
Good.
“First show means first impression,” Hannah says. “People will be watching closely. But you’ve trained for this. You’ve lived for this. All you have to do is go out there and remind them why Reverie exists.”
She walks the inside of the circle as she speaks, making sure to meet every pair of eyes. Her confidence is infectious. It ripples out and sets a charge in the group.
“There will be nerves. There will be mistakes. But you don’t give up. You improvise, you recover, and you keep going. That’s what makes this show magical.”
Hannah stops right in front of me and Connor. She looks at me, then at him, as if daring the universe to challenge her.
“Grace, Connor, you two are the heart of this thing. Everyone is following your lead. Don’t think about what happened before. Think about right now.”
I glance at Connor. For the first time all week, his glare is gone. There’s just this tired, unfiltered honesty in his face. He gives me a nod—small, but unmistakably meant for me.
My chest tightens.
Hannah extends a hand into the center. “On three. One, two—”
The whole cast piles their hands in, a mess of gloves and callused palms.
“Three! Reverie!”
It’s louder than I expect. It reverberates in the corridor, bouncing off the cinder block walls.
We break apart and each person heads for their pre-show routines. I walk back towards the tunnel, my skate guards clacking against the tile. Behind me, Charlotte claps me on the back. “You’ve got this, Grace. We’re all rooting for you.”
I force a smile. “Don’t jinx it.”
I round the corner and see Connor, already waiting by the entryway to the ice. He glances at me, then at the silent blue surface beyond. His peppermint scent cocoons me entirely. An excited shiver of anticipation courses down my spine, one that has no reason to exist here.
Nothing will ever happen between me and Connor ever again.
“Ready?” he asks.
“As I’ll ever be,” I answer.
He shifts on his feet and opens his mouth to speak, but then the house lights dim and the orchestra begins. The time for words is over.
I step out beside him, princess and prince in our powder-blue costumes, a hundred thousand watts of spotlight waiting to catch us. My heart pounds, not from nerves, but from the impossible, dumb hope that this night could be different. That we could be different.
The curtain rises. I skate forward, the first note of the fairy tale about to be written on the ice.
My heart beats wildly in my ears. Every spotlight feels personal. They don’t just see the princess; they see me, Grace Davis, in all my imperfect glory.
By the time the intermission fireworks pop in the rafters, I’m high on the rush of skating. I love this: the gliding and the sly glances I shoot at the crowd to see if they’re following the story. I love the way the orchestra swells at the high points.
We’re halfway into the second act, the part with the monster chase and the big rescue. My routine is coming up—the complicated jump that got me the part in the first place. The one everyone expects me to land flawlessly, right into Connor’s waiting arms.
He’s already out there, circling the “castle” prop with his cape flaring behind him. His posture is perfect, every muscle sculpted into the role of prince and protector. The crowd eats it up.
My cue comes. I skate out onto the ice, letting the music carry me. I launch into the footwork, each step a drumbeat. I know this routine cold. I’ve drilled it so many times I could do it blindfolded.
Except tonight, I can’t stop thinking about Connor’s arms. About what it would feel like to let go, just for a second, and not have to worry if I’ll be caught. To not remember every time I see him what he, Zev, and Fowler did to me.
It makes me want to pretend we have a blank slate to begin again anew.
That’s the thing about trust: you don’t miss it until it’s gone. You don’t realize how much it matters until you have to leap for it.
I accelerate into the setup, feeling the tension build. The crowd quiets, sensing something big is coming. The princess is supposed to “escape” the monster with a triple lutz, landing in a dramatic swoop right into her prince’s embrace.
I push off, spinning high, seeing the lights blur into a ring. But on the third rotation, my focus flickers—just a millisecond of uncertainty.
I don’t know if Connor’s where he’s supposed to be. I don’t know if I’m ready to be caught.
And that’s all it takes.
My blade clips the ice early. Instead of gliding into Connor’s arms, I slam sideways into the frozen surface, hip first. The impact sucks all the sound out of the arena. Pain splinters across my hip and legs like fault-line cracks. Then it’s just me, sprawled like a broken marionette on the ice.
Time slows. I see Connor’s face: eyes wide, horror blooming, but also a weird kind of awe. I see the stage crew in the wings with mouths dropped open. A crowd of thousands of faces all hold their breath.
For half a second, I want to stay down. I want to vanish and become a rumor. Remember that first Reverie princess this year? She’s evaporated in front of the crowd. But that’s not the story, and it’s sure as hell not how I want this night to end.
I scramble up while ignoring the knife-edge ache in my hip. My tights are probably ripped, but the show must go on. I improvise a pirouette—wobbly, but upright—and stagger toward Connor. He’s moving now, gliding in to intercept with outstretched arms.
I collapse into him, letting him “catch” me. He sells it perfectly, lifting me in a smooth, heroic arc. The audience bursts into applause as if it was all planned.
“Are you okay?” Connor whispers.
I grit my teeth at the closeness of his mouth to my ear. “Yeah. Just bruised. Don’t drop me.”
His grip tightens. “Never.”
We finish the sequence in a blur, skating in tandem, our bodies moving together. My hip throbs, but adrenaline keeps me moving. The rest of the routine goes by in a haze—twirls, lifts, the big finale pose where I’m supposed to look blissful and in love.
Connor lowers me to the ice and our eyes meet. There’s sweat on his forehead and a silent question in his gaze. I nod, letting him know I’m still standing. The audience roars.
A roar that grows even louder as we end the show with our show-stopping finale kiss.
Connor’s lips press into mine. I close my eyes and force my mind to think of every horrible thing Connor, Zev, and Fowler said to me as I kiss him back. Stage kiss. Stage kiss. Nothing more.
It can’t ever be more.
My chest burns and my stomach twists until the kiss is over. Connor pulls back. Genuine care shines in his eyes, but I throw up my walls higher. I do not want or miss this.
Sure, Grace.
The curtain falls, and the noise backstage swallows us up. Charlotte rushes over, towel and water bottle in hand, looking genuinely worried.
“What the hell happened?” she hisses. “You scared the crap out of everyone!”
I force a grin and hide the limp as best I can. I don’t think anything’s broken, but for sure more than my ego is bruised. “You know me, Hannah said to improvise and I just wanted to make it exciting.”
Director Hannah appears summoned by her name alone. She claps me on the shoulder. “That was either a daring artistic move or a smooth recovery. Either way, let’s make sure you’re okay and work on the jump tomorrow at rehearsal.”
I nod, and then she moves on to wrangle the next group of skaters.
I head for the dressing room with Charlotte trailing behind me.
“Seriously,” she says, lowering her voice, “are you sure you’re okay?”
I check the bruise that’s already blooming purple beneath my tights. “I’ll live. I’ve had worse.”
She hands me a cold pack. “You’re insane, you know that?”
“Pretty much.”
Insane, and seriously bruised.