Chapter 2

"Mindy's not like you," Grandma said one day when she came to visit, sitting on the couch peeling a tangerine. "She takes after her mom, hot-tempered, quick to snap. You're like your dad, the silent type, bottle everything up inside."

I took that as a compliment.

Grandma wasn't wrong. I grew up overseas, so I picked up some of that laid-back attitude and bluntness, but deep down, I never really opened up.

My stepdad once said I was like a still pond, calm on the surface, but full of hidden currents underneath.

After Grandma left, I sat alone in the living room for a while, thinking about one thing: when would Dad get remarried?

According to Mindy from my old life, Dad married someone when she was ten. So, that would be two years from now.

What was that woman's name again? Mindy had mentioned it, but I never really cared. Back then, I always kept my distance from Dad's new family, after all, I barely ever saw them.

The only thing I remembered was Mindy's take on her: pushy, cold, obsessed with control, and basically a total hellhound.

A total hellhound.

That was Mindy's exact wording.

In my mind, I slapped a label on this stepmom I'd never even met, but then I felt it wasn't really fair. Mindy was always hot-tempered, so maybe their clashes weren't that woman's fault, maybe it was a bit of both.

As the days went by, it was weird, living in an eight-year-old's body with the mind of an eighteen-year-old. Third-grade math was a joke for me, but language arts, especially writing, was a whole different story.

Sometimes I'd use words way too grown-up, and other times I'd mess up with all kinds of typos.

Bottom line, I was nothing like the other kids my age.

Now that I'd been handed a brand new script for this life, I had to seriously rethink what I wanted out of it.

I wanted to do figure skating.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling light, a blurry spot in the darkness. In my old life, I started skating when I was barely six, and by eight or nine, I was already training at a club.

Now, I was almost ten. If I wanted to chase that dream again, I was already late to the game.

And would Dad even support me?

My stepdad from before was crazy about winter sports, he was the one who noticed my talent. But Dad?

Dad barely had time to grab dinner with me on weekends. Would he really drive me to the rink every week, cover the pricey tuition and coaching fees?

I had no idea.

But I knew one thing for sure: Mindy was going to go down that road.

Sure enough, a few months later, Mom started posting pics of Mindy at the rink on her feed. The first one was Mindy standing on the ice in rental skates.

I stared at that photo for a long time.

Everything was like the post Mom shared years ago, exactly as I remembered.

The script hadn't changed, only the main character had.

I turned off my phone and closed my eyes. There was something in my chest I couldn't quite name, not jealousy, but more like staring into a mirror, only the reflection wasn't mine.

Over the next few years, Mom's feed became my main way to stay updated on Mindy. She posted constantly, almost every two or three days, there'd be a new video or photo of Mindy training.

When Mindy turned ten, she started training double jumps. That same year, Mom dropped a long post saying Mindy had caught the eye of a renowned coach, a former global medalist, who wanted to take her under his wing.

The photo showed Mindy and the coach standing by the rink, Mindy in her training gear, grinning from ear to ear.

I knew that coach.

Back then, he was my coach too.

That was when the last shred of hope I had disappeared. Mindy Fester wasn't just getting into figure skating, she was basically copying my old life step for step.

Same coach, same club, same training system, all leading to the same goal: world championship gold.

She was going to pull it off.

I was pretty convinced.