THE EDGE OF PRECISION || OP81

She didn't believe in fate.

Not on the ice, not in the world outside it.
Fate was just a word people used when they didn't want to admit how much things cost.

Her life was made of repetition, repetition, repetition
until it looked effortless.

But that night in Melbourne,
under lights too warm for winter people like her,
someone was watching her in a way no one ever had.

Not with admiration.
Not with awe.

But like he recognized something.

Like he knew the sound of quiet when it hurts.

And when her skate cut its first line across the ice,
his chest tightened like he'd just remembered something he never knew he'd lost.

They didn't speak.

Not yet.

But the world had already begun to tilt.