My only goal is scoring your heart

Chapter 1

Thump.

Fuck, George had missed his stupid jump AGAIN. It was safe to say, he was getting super frustrated with himself. Especially with the stupid hockey players watching him from behind the foggy windows and laughing at his failures. It wasn't that he was a bad skater, far from it actually, but the jump he was attempting to master proved to be slightly more difficult than he had originally anticipated.

The embarrassment of missing it yet again made his cheeks burn, bringing in an even deeper colour to his rosy cheeks that were already tinged from the cold.

"Did the little princess have a fall?" His personal least favourite hockey player yelled, his face contorting into fake pout.

George resisted the urge to go punch the cocky smirk that adorned his enemy's face when he finished delivering his line, and instead opted to try one last time.

Gain speed, suck in air, lift off your toes, let the air control you.

He repeated the mantra over and over again in his mind, solidifying the concept completely before letting himself go freely into his next attempt. Pushing himself forward, he allowed himself to gain speed before retracting his skates from the ice and inhaling the cool air around him. It was a ritual for him, to suck in a bit of air before his spins, to make himself appear thinner and more pleasing to the eye.

That was the end goal anyway, to make yourself look like an angel that had fallen from Heaven and to lure the audience into thinking it was all easy, that it didn't take hours and hours of repetition on and off the ice.

His form thinned, he pulled in his arms to cross over his chest, and pulled himself together in one fluid motion.

Nobody was ever allowed to see flaws in figure skating, only perfection and curved arms and sharpened turns that made them gasp with incredulity.

George closed his eyes and let his body take him away. He knew how to do the move in his heart, he knew he did, all that there was left for him to do was to execute it when the pressure was on.

Distantly, he could hear boos in the background from the hockey team, but none of it mattered. He was in his zen zone, he was at peace with the world.

His hips turned and twisted twice, and he opened his eyes. All that was left was the landing, where he had been falling short every try. It was supposed to be easy, just let your skates gently graze the ice and lower your body so you could continue the mesmerizing twirl a little longer, but it wasn't.

Nothing anyone ever thought was going to be easy or should be easy actually is. That's just the world making you work, telling you not to be lazy.

George felt the bottom of his skate touch the ice, and immediately began to panic. The recent falls had hurt, and now he was a little paranoid. He needed to trust himself, to let years of experience overthrow the few mistakes.

There are 200 misses for every make. George could fail 200 times at that jump, but the moment he made it all of those memories would fade into the distance and turn into a learning experience instead. They weren't mistakes at all, they were teachers. One by one, they taught him that he needed to twist his hips more to the right, not the left, to swing his leg out sooner, to pull his arms in tighter, or even to stop overthinking.

He landed it. The moment his feet tapped onto the ground and started to actually slide around into the circle, he knew he had done it. It took a second longer than it should have for the rest of his body to react (Point deduction George, do better), but it did and suddenly he was spinning around and around with his arms out in front of him.

Expertly, he kept the form and let himself be soaked away into his favourite sport again, the tension flowing out of him like steam. The background noise and fake cheering didn't matter, all that mattered was he felt at peace with himself again, he had achieved his goal. He had finally found the light at the end of the tunnel, and boy was it bright. It shone like a new trophy, like the stars back in his hometown, and like the stupid golden eyes that he kept sneaking glances at.