Icebreaker

Anastasia Allen—also called Stassie, Stas, or Annie—is a junior at the University of California, Maple Hills, where she majors in business. She has curly, light brown hair and blue eyes. She is the best figure skater at the school and has been training to be an Olympic pair skater since a young age. She was never successful in previous national skating competitions only because her former skating partner, James, could not match her skill. Now, she works extra hard to be as perfect as her current skating partner, Aaron Carlisle. Despite Aaron’s often abusive behavior, Anastasia is convinced that she will never achieve success in figure skating without him, and so she makes many sacrifices in her personal life to keep him happy. Anastasia’s relationship with Nathan provides her with the emotional support she needs to stand up to Aaron, and she eventually finds new success as a singles skater.

Anastasia is adopted and grew up in Seattle. Her parents love her, but as a child, Anastasia developed a complex in which she believes that her parents’ love is contingent on her success at figure skating. For that reason, she began therapy with Dr. Andrews at the age of nine and began using the therapy tool of the