Before the rivalries. Before the medals. Before the ghosts. There was Irina Ivanova and Isabelle Rossi. It begins in 1989, in a town where winter lingers and silence says more than words ever could. Irina Ivanova is the new girl. Quiet. Observant. Always arriving, never staying long enough to feel settled. She's spent her life moving between places, learning how to stay small, how to disappear when the world feels too loud. Isabelle Rossi is impossible to ignore. Popular. Reckless. Untouchable in the way only certain people are. Everyone knows her name. Everyone thinks they know who she is. But no one sees her the way Irina does. No one expects Isabelle to notice the new girl. But she does. And once she does, Irina is pulled into a world she never imagined for herself. What begins as friendship turns into something deeper. First love. First tears. A private universe made of windy drives, hair flying through open windows, cigarettes shared between laughs, rooftops, and summers that feel like they last longer than winter ever does. Songs Isabelle only ever sings for Irina. Things she never lets the world hear. They become each other's firsts. And in many ways, each other's center. Above Zero is a story about love before everything collapsed. About remembering a time before grief shaped generations. About how one connection can echo through years, through daughters, through legacies, long after it's gone. Because some loves don't disappear. They simply become the reason everything else exists.