1 - Living the Lie
Jordan POV
—
I have dreamed about this moment for as long as I can remember.
Long enough to survive becoming someone I was never meant to be.
Long enough that every sacrifice felt worth it….
The ice sang beneath my skates.
Cold air rushed against my face as I flew across the rink, my braid whipping behind me like a banner. The roar of the crowd thundered through the arena, shaking the glass and vibrating in my chest.
My heart hammered.
One defender left.
I shifted left.
He followed.
I cut right.
Too late.
The crowd gasped as I slipped past him.
The goal was wide open.
The puck danced on the edge of my stick.
Everything slowed.
The crowd.
The lights.
The pounding of my pulse.
This was freedom.
This was flying.
This was who I was supposed to be.
I snapped my wrist.
The puck rocketed forward.
The net exploded.
The buzzer sounded.
For a second there was silence.
Then the arena erupted.
Thousands of people leaped to their feet.
My teammates crashed into me before I could even stop.
Someone tackled me into the boards.
Someone else grabbed my helmet.
Hands pulled me upright.
Laughter echoed around me.
“Jordan!”
“Jordan!”
“Jordan!”
My name rolled through the crowd like thunder.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
Couldn’t stop laughing.
Couldn’t stop feeling alive.
We’d done it.
We’d won.
The championship trophy gleamed beneath the bright arena lights as the team gathered together for pictures.
I stood in the center.
The captain stood beside me.
One hand wrapped around the cup.
My hand wrapped around it too.
A camera flashed.
Another.
And another.
For that brief moment, everything felt perfect.
Like the world had finally become what it should have been.
The photographer lowered his camera.
My teammates drifted back into the celebration.
Still smiling, I skated toward the tunnel.
The cheers faded behind me.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The sound of my skates echoed as I stepped through the tunnel.
A grin still stretched across my face.
Then a small voice called out.
“Miss!”
I turned.
A little girl couldn’t have been older than seven stood near the tunnel entrance.
Dark curls framed her face.
Her eyes sparkled with excitement.
She looked at me like I was a superhero.
Like I was someone worth becoming.
“I can’t wait to be a hockey player like you one day.”
The words hit me harder than any body check ever could.
My smile softened.
Something warm spread through my chest.
Because that was the dream, wasn’t it?
Not the trophy.
Not the championship.
Not even the roar of the crowd.
The chance for girls like her to believe they belonged on the ice.
That they mattered.
That they could be anything.
I opened my mouth to answer.
Then something felt wrong.
The little girl froze.
My smile faltered.
Hold on, I told myself. Just a little longer this time.
The arena lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
The world stuttered.
Behind her, players stood motionless.
Others moved strangely.
One teammate skated backward.
Then forward.
Then backward again.
Repeating the same movement over and over.
Like a broken recording.
The crowd’s cheers twisted.
Stretched.
Warped.
The sound deepened into something unnatural.
Something monstrous.
My pulse quickened.
“What—”
The little girl’s face blurred.
The arena cracked.
Thin fractures spread across the air itself.
Like glass.
The championship trophy slipped from my hands.
It shattered before it hit the ground.
A jagged crack split across my wrist.
I stared.
Another appeared.
Then another.
Panic clawed through my chest.
The cracks spread across my skin.
Across my arms.
Across everything.
The arena fractured around me.
The crowd.
The lights.
The ice.
The sky beyond the glass.
Everything broke apart.
And suddenly I was falling.
The rush of terror slammed through me.
Wind screamed past my ears.
Darkness swallowed everything.
I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think.
Couldn’t stop falling.
Then—
I jerked awake.
My lungs burned.
My sheets tangled around my legs.
For several seconds I stared at the ceiling above my bed.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Praying.
But the roar of the crowd never came back.
Neither did the ice.
Or the trophy.
Or the little girl.
Reality settled over me like chains.
Right.
A dream.
One that was doomed from the moment I was born.
I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes.
The world I lived in wasn’t built for girls with hockey sticks.
It wasn’t built for girls at all.
Women weren’t citizens.
Not really.
We belonged to fathers.
Then husbands.
Then sons.
The lucky ones found decent men.
The unlucky ones disappeared.
Our purpose was simple: Birth men or give birth to the next generation of women who would do the same.
The system called it order.
I called it hell.
The worst part?
My father had tried to change it.
Before he died.
Before everything fell apart.
I still remembered that day.
Not clearly.
I’d been only four at the time.
But some memories never leave you.
Especially the ones that break your life into before and after.
The hospital room smelled sterile.
Bright lights hung overhead.
Machines beeped softly.
My father looked smaller than I remembered.
Weaker.
My mother sat beside his bed clutching his hand so tightly her knuckles had turned white.
I sat on the floor with a stuffed bear.
Confused.
Because nobody would tell me why Dad wasn’t getting better.
“I failed.”
His voice barely sounded like his own.
My mother’s head snapped up.
“Don’t.”
“I did.”
His gaze shifted toward me.
Something painful flashed through his eyes.
“My daughter.”
My mother squeezed his hand harder.
Tears streamed down her face.
“You fought.”
“It wasn’t enough.”
“It should have been.”
A bitter laugh escaped him.
“Should have been.”
Silence filled the room.
The machines continued their steady rhythm.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
My father looked at me for a long time.
Like he was trying to memorize every detail.
Then he looked back at my mother.
“When I’m gone…”
The words caught in his throat.
My mother’s face crumpled.
“No.”
“When I’m gone, they’ll assign a guardian.”
The room went still.
I remember putting my stuffed bear over my face so nobody could see me watching.
Even at my age I could feel something changing.
Something terrible.
My mother stared at him.
Neither spoke.
Neither needed to.
Everyone knew what male guardians were.
Government-approved caretakers.
Men trained to supervise women.
To guide them.
Protect them.
Control them.
Whatever word sounded best.
The result was always the same.
A grown man making decisions for a woman because society believed she couldn’t be trusted to make them herself.
My father’s eyes closed briefly.
“When he arrives…”
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
“He’ll have authority over both of you.”
“No.”
“He’ll decide where Jordan goes.”
“No.”
“He’ll decide who she marries.”
The glass shattered against the wall.
I screamed.
My mother stood trembling beside the hospital bed.
Fragments scattered across the floor.
For a moment nobody moved.
Not even the nurses passing outside.
My father simply watched her.
Pain filled his eyes.
Not fear.
Understanding.
Because suddenly my mother saw it.
The future.
Not her future.
Mine.
A little girl growing up in chains.
A little girl who would never have choices.
Never have freedom.
Never have a chance.
Just like millions of women before her.
I began crying.
The loud kind.
The ugly kind.
Because everyone else looked upset.
Because my mother was angry.
Because my father looked tired.
Because I didn’t understand why nobody would tell me what was happening.
My mother looked down at me.
Something changed in her expression.
The anger vanished.
The grief remained.
But beneath it came something else.
Something fierce.
Something desperate.
My father saw it too.
Their eyes met.
Neither spoke.
Yet somehow they understood each other perfectly.
A decision had been made.
The room blurred after that.
The memory always did.
But one image remained crystal clear.
A pair of scissors.
My mother knelt in front of me.
Tears streaked her cheeks.
Her smile looked broken.
Like she was holding herself together by sheer force of will.
“Mommy?”
My voice shook.
She brushed a hand through my hair.
Long strands slipped between her fingers.
Then she opened the scissors.
Snip.
A lock fell.
I stared.
Confused.
Snip.
More hair dropped onto the floor.
My father watched silently from the bed.
Tears glistened in his eyes.
Snip.
Snip.
Snip.
Dark strands surrounded me.
My mother set the scissors aside.
Her hands trembled as she cupped my face.
“From now on…”
Her voice cracked.
She swallowed hard.
And forced herself to finish.
“You’re my son.”
