❄ — cold on the outside.

— Her parents met later in life than most. Her father was thirty-four and her mother twenty-nine. They go married in a rush claiming ‘true love’ and ‘soulmates’ and while it seemed to hold true for Elijah’s father, her mother had slowly began to feel otherwise. Two years after their marriage, Elijah’s birth became the glue to keep their little family together. A wide-eyed baby girl who nothing but love for the both of them-- until even she wasn’t enough. The Winters split little by little: her father’s new business took him away and her mother’s long lost dreams of becoming an ice dancer kept her and Elijah at the ice rinks. Lonely dinners, nights without getting tucked in and birthdays and holidays spent alone-- it took twelve years for it all to fall apart. 

—  Elijah’s mother introduced her to ice skating as soon as she possibly could. At the age of three, she started mini lessons which as time passed would become more and more serious and the nights spent dancing and skating grew longer-- especially since her mother had chose to homeschool her. Unlike her mother, Elijah had a natural talent for dancing, balance and being able to glide across the ice and it would set her on a path that she wouldn’t be able to deviate from until...she physically couldn’t do it. While her dream wasn’t the same as her mother’s, Elijah didn’t seem to mind. She felt at home on the ice, enjoyed the cold days spent spinning around the rink and most definitely didn’t mind the glittery dresses her mother would dress her in for competitions. She worked hard, probably harder than any child should have and had plenty of medals to show for it. Her mother tended to get greedy for her daughter’s victories and while living her dream through Elijah her eyes where more set on the winnings that her own child.  Eventually that greed-- those medals glimmering in her eyes and the money from sponsorships growing ever so steadily-- lead to divorce papers written up by Elijah’s silent father when Elijah turned ten.

—  All was well after the divorce was finalized. Everything shifted back into its place despite her father moving out of the old family home-- leaving it to his daughter and her mother though they seemed to spend more time in Quebec City for her lessons. Elijah began seeing him less and less with her mother finding multiple reasons to keep her away from her father ( lessons, homeschooling, dance practice, etc.). It went from seeing him everyday ( even if it was brief ) to seeing him once a week, to once every three weeks and eventually only facetime or a phone call every once in a while. Still, Elijah powered through the grueling practices and tough competitions keeping that hurt locked away so that she could focus on her mother’s goals. She became overworked and exhausted which would lead to the first disaster in her career. It was an easy move, one that she could do in her sleep but that day it sent her into the ice hard enough to turn the world black.

— Her first suspension was at a mere twelve years old and her mother grounded her to the Ellingham estate to wait out the after affects of the concussion. They still trained in ballet and drove up to the rinks every weekened, but those few months were the worst. Elijah sat silently, listened to the curses her mother yelled at her over the potential loss of their sponsors. Elijah knew she’d messed up and somehow she would just take it as it was and improve. Next time she wouldn’t make mistakes. Next time she wouldn’t be as tired. Next time she’d practice harder. Next time there wouldn’t be a next time.

— Over those three months that she was grounded, her mother grew close to a handsome man who’d approached them during one of the practices at the rinks. Coffee turned to dinner dates, dinner dates turned to ‘sleep overs’, ‘sleep overs’ turned to boyfriend and girlfriend and before the year was up her mother had decided to move them into his home. He was nice, sure, but Elijah didn’t care for him. He wasn’t her father but she wasn’t sure how she felt about him either. However, his arrival meant rest for Elijah. She could sleep in...she could be a normal teenager. Elijah, as per usual, kept quiet about her feelings. She used her nights alone to speak with her father and go out with what little friends she managed to keep from childhood. She even managed to get a few whole weeks with her father as long as she showed up an hour early for stretches and kept up with her school work. In a way, she was thankful for her future step-father but that’s as far as she extended her friendship to him. Within the next few years, she would take home two more championship gold medals and in the end her mother remarried.

— Winning the senior Canadian championship gold medal sent her straight to the international competitions. A lot of her time was spent on first class flights back and forth from the areas to home. After years of bronzes and silvers, at the age of seventeen ( 2015: two days before her birthday ) she finally won her first world championship gold. The attention she’d garnered for her skating only tripled after her gold medal. Elijah began refusing unnecessary interviews and photoshoots with magazines, her mother and father accepted all the offers. Her mother bathed in her spotlight while Elijah withdrew focusing on practicing for the next competition. She won gold at the world championships the following three years in a row. The season began again and her preparation for the 2018 Olympics started-- but this time her mother set her eyes on a new category: Pairs.

— In between her olympic training, Elijah began training for the pairs world championship in early april. Putting her trust fully into someone else wasn’t something that came easily to her. She had admired the skill it took to dance and skate as one person but...trusting them with her body, with her choreo, with herself wasn’t something she dealt with easily. She her partner was more than capable of the lifts and tosses but Elijah was fine on her own. She was reluctant in practicing the routines with her partner and often threw him the cold shoulder but as time would have it, she warmed up to him. After the initial adjustment and the whole ‘learn to move as one’, their practices went on smoother and they slowly mastered their moves. The Olympics put a hold on their progression but she came home holding a silver for singles and a gold for ice dance. However, her victory was shortly lived as when she got back home it was back to practicing between the parties her mother threw and the ones thrown for her. This carried on until they were finally ready for the first competition of the new season. The pair made it beautifully through the first half of the routine but a simple mistake, only a misstep caused by rough ice, forced her career to come to a crashing halt. Her partner lifted her into the air effortlessly but his skate caught and sent them both to the ice. Though he tried to avoid it, Elijah took the brunt of the fall injuring her knee, shoulder and head badly all at once. 

— The media, of course, blew up with words of foulplay or just how bad she--they were and that’s why she ended up in the hospital nursing the injuries. From the moment she opened her eyes, her mother berated her about the accident nonstop and her partner’s texts of apologies and worries only felt like he was taunting her. And Elijah just couldn’t take any more. So she ran. Right back home to her father’s abandoned home in Ellingham-- to the small little town who didn’t care who she was. She could hide from everyone and everything-- and recover.  She would recover right? 

— And now she’s spending her time pushing herself to hard, being a grinch with a knee brace--- and pushing her limits trying to practice her dance and perhaps she takes a trip to quebec city sometimes. She’s currently ignoring her family’s calls and her partners as well-- trying to get back to  how things were when she was younger ( though it wasn’t too much better than it is now ).

PLOTS:

FAMILY FRIENDS: Her mother is quite a social butterfly and would have networked really well in the neighborhood especially since Elijah made a name for herself. I could see her being a part of a like ‘mom friend group’ LOL and you know how kids always k now the other kids because ‘playdates’ or the like.

CHILDHOOD BESTFRIEND(S): I think it’d be fun if she had friends that started skating with her when she was younger and since their moms wasn’t intense like Elijahs, they kind of always tried to pull Eli out of that kind of ‘you always have to be practicing’ mindset and let it be okay that she wanted to do normal kid/teenager things. 

EX FRIENDS: Maybe they had a falling out, maybe Elijah didn’t have enough time for them or she wasn’t around enough and they fell out of touch. Maybe they are jealous of her success and she’s jealous of their normal life. 

EX BOYFRIENDS: Elijah would have definitely been the type to date behind her mother’s back ( oH YES she is one of THOSE moms because ‘YOU HAVE TO FOCUS’ ) but she’d be preoccupied with skating to really be emotionally involved. perhaps they could have had a causal relationship or they kind of caught feelings and she’d be the type to run from feelings-- or they both ran. Who knows but i think it’d be fun!