Chapter 1 The Letter #2
Five coaches who watched me skate, assessed my abilities, told me no to my face because the system would not allow them to say yes, and then went home and wrote letters saying she deserves a chance even though we could not give her one.
My throat tightens.
I push through it.
"Valenridge University provides a comprehensive educational and athletic program designed to develop elite performers across multiple disciplines.
Our facilities include professional-grade hockey rinks, figure skating arenas, strength and conditioning centers, and academic resources tailored to the unique needs of Alpha and Omega students. "
Professional-grade rinks. Elite performers. Unique needs.
Keep going. Do not get excited yet. Excitement is just the setup for a harder fall.
"More significantly, this invitation represents an opportunity that we believe aligns with your demonstrated aspirations.
Valenridge University is establishing the first competitive hockey program that formally supports the participation and inclusion of Omega athletes on a professional-level team.
This team will compete in sanctioned league play, with opportunities to attend multiple showcase events and, pending performance qualification, submit for entry into the Stanley Cup developmental pipeline. "
I stop reading.
The letter shakes in my hands.
Not from cold. Not from fatigue. From the specific tremor that happens when your body processes information so enormous that your nervous system cannot decide whether to celebrate or collapse.
Stanley Cup developmental pipeline.
An Omega. On a team. Competing in sanctioned league play. With a pathway to the actual, legitimate, no-asterisk-required professional hockey pipeline.
I look up from the letter, and my father is smiling.
Not the big, performative grin he saves for press conferences and charity events.
The quiet one. The private smile that lives in the creases around his eyes and the slight softening of his jaw.
The one he wore the first time I scored a goal in a real game, standing behind the plexiglass with tears streaming down his face that he blamed on the cold.
"I know you have been dealing with a lot of rejection lately," he says, his voice carrying that careful steadiness that fathers adopt when they are trying very hard not to cry in front of their daughters.
"But it seems those coaches truly hated rejecting you.
If they went out of their way to formally recommend your name to this university, Sage, that is not pity.
That is professional respect expressed through the only channel they had available. "
I stare at the letter.
Then at him.
Then at the letter again.
"This place," I say slowly. "It is not a brand new establishment?"
"Not entirely, no." He shakes his head. "They have been accepting Alphas for years.
Strong athletic program, respected academics, solid reputation in the hockey world.
But this is their first season opening enrollment to Omegas.
And from what I gather, they are not looking for token representation.
They are recruiting athletes with high-level skills in their respective sports.
The kind of talent that could make them Olympic-worthy, or in your case, league-worthy. "
First season. Inaugural. Groundbreaking.
Which means no precedent. No playbook. No guarantee that this experiment will survive its first contact with reality.
I fold the letter carefully, creasing the edges with the precision I apply to taping my stick before a game. My fingers move automatically while my brain spirals through possibilities and pitfalls at a speed that makes my temples throb.
"It is still a school specifically for Alphas and Omegas," I say, and I can hear the frown in my own voice before it fully forms on my face.
"A designated institution. Separate from the normal university system.
" I press my thumbnail into the crease of the fold, sharpening it until the paper protests.
"Because apparently we cannot even excel in a standard academic environment.
We need our own special little box with our own special little label so the rest of the world can point at it and say look, we gave the Omegas their own playground, are we not progressive? "
The bitterness surprises even me.
Not because I do not feel it. I feel it constantly, a low-grade acid that corrodes the lining of every hopeful thought before it has time to take root.
But I usually keep it leashed tighter than this.
Usually manage to sound more philosophical and less like a person who wants to set institutional structures on fire and warm her hands over the flames.
I put my head down, pressing my forehead against the folded letter in my hands. The thick paper is cool against my skin, carrying the faint scent of ink and formality.
"I am not sure, Dad."
The words come out quieter than I intended. Smaller. Carrying a weight that belongs to a girl who has been fighting the same battle for so long that she can no longer remember what it felt like before the war started.
He does not respond immediately.
I hear the squeak of his chair. The soft thud of his shoes on the hardwood as he stands. The creak of old leather as he crosses the room and settles onto the couch beside me, the cushions dipping under his weight until we are both sinking into that familiar, comfortable void.
His hand lands on my shoulder. Heavy. Warm. Grounding in the way that only a parent's touch can be when you are drowning in your own head and need someone to remind you which direction is up.
"Did your mother share the ride home?"
I lift my head just enough to meet his eyes.
"Is it that obvious?"
The smirk that crosses his face is rueful.
Knowing. The expression of a man who has spent twenty-six years navigating the emotional landscape of Eleanora Ashford-Holloway and has developed the navigational instincts of a sailor who knows exactly where the rocks are because he has hit every single one of them.
He sighs, the sound carrying the accumulated exhaustion of decades spent loving a woman who defines affection through achievement metrics and emotional connection through portfolio performance.
Then he leans closer, his voice dropping to a whisper that is meant only for me and the cracked leather cushions and the tarnished trophies gathering dust on every surface of this beautiful, cluttered, imperfect room.
"Your mother chose her life and status, Sage. She needs to find comfort in being in a world that glitters like gold, despite the hollowness in it. That is the path she decided on a long time ago, and she walks it with a conviction that I have never been able to match or change."
He squeezes my shoulder, and I can feel the calluses on his palm through the thin fabric of my compression shirt. The hands of a man who has spent decades gripping hockey sticks and shaking the hands of athletes and holding his daughter steady when the world tried to knock her sideways.
"You, on the other hand, get the choice to walk a path that defies you.
One that does not make you feel like a fake to the world.
One that hurts, yes. That exhausts you and breaks you and makes you question everything you thought you knew about yourself.
But a path that is real. That belongs to you and no one else. "
I hold his gaze, and the pressure behind my eyes intensifies to a dangerous degree.
Do not cry. Do not you dare cry. You are Sage Holloway. You do not cry in your father's office over a letter and a pep talk and the sound of someone believing in you when the rest of the world has made it abundantly clear that belief is a luxury you have not earned.
"Why do you still have hope in me?" The question escapes before I can cage it, raw and unguarded and carrying every ounce of the exhaustion I have been pretending does not exist. "Everyone keeps rejecting me, Dad.
Every tryout. Every scout. Every team. They watch me play and they tell me I am extraordinary and then they send me home because the biology printed on my ID matters more than anything I do on the ice. "
My voice cracks on the last word, and I hate it. Hate the vulnerability. Hate the way my throat betrays me at the exact moments I need it most.
"Why do you keep telling me I can do this when the entire world keeps telling me I cannot?"
He looks at me for a long, silent moment.
Then he smirks. That specific Rick Holloway smirk that precedes every ridiculous, corny, eye-roll-inducing statement he has ever made.
"Well, obviously because you are my daughter. And literally a prodigy. Because I raised you to be one."
I stare at him.
"Dad."
"What?"
"Only you could ruin a father-daughter moment like this."
He chuckles, the sound rumbling through his chest in a way that I can feel through the couch cushions.
It is such a familiar vibration. The laugh that used to shake the bleachers when he was coaching from the bench.
The laugh that filled the car on drives home from victories and defeats alike, because Rick Holloway believes that humor is the only appropriate response to a universe that takes itself too seriously.
"I am serious though, kid." He squeezes my shoulder again, his grip firm and his expression settling into a sincerity that strips away the joke.
"Your happiness shines so brightly when you are on the ice, Sage.
I have watched you skate since you were barely tall enough to see over the boards.
And every single time you step onto that surface, there is a light in you that I cannot find anywhere else in your life.
Not in this house. Not at your mother's dinners.
Not in any of the approved social functions or pack introductions or carefully curated experiences that she arranges for you. "