“Oh, baby, you shouldn’t be doing that….” My mom trailed off as she shoved her stool backward, gave me a grin that must have hurt her face, and then headed out of the kitchen, to what I could only assume was the living room.
Anger flooded my veins as I sat there with a basically full plate of food below me, the sound of my mom’s low laugh just loud enough for me to hear. She was fine, and that’s what should matter.
But…
My mom really thought figure skating was more important to me than she was.
I loved it. Of course I loved it. I couldn’t breathe without it. I didn’t know who I was without it. I didn’t know who I would be in the future without it.
But I couldn’t breathe without my mom either. And if I’d ever have to choose between both, there wouldn’t have been any competition. Not even a little bit.
It was my fault for being a shitty daughter. A shitty person. For not opening my mouth and telling her the things she needed to hear. More I love yous and less sarcasm. For being so heartbroken over Paul leaving me that I didn’t appreciate enough her and my siblings trying to pull me back into a real life even when I was a moody, angry little bitch.
All they had ever wanted was for me to be happy. For me to win because that’s what I had wanted. Always.
And I hadn’t given them shit. I hadn’t made them proud no matter what. I had nothing to show in exchange.
It was my fault for choking. For overthinking. For being obsessive and a little difficult.
The knot in my body tripled, choking me, suffocating me.
God.
I couldn’t sit here and act like I was fine when I wasn’t. All I’d wanted was to sit at home and relax while eating before I started to wind down, but now… now there was no way I could do that. No fucking way in hell.
I was such an asshole.
God, I was such a fucking asshole, and it was all my fault. If I were a better person, a better athlete, maybe this would all be different. But it wasn’t.
I had to do something.
Sliding back my own stool, I almost headed straight toward the front door, ready to get out, but I paused for a second, wrapped my food in plastic and set it in the fridge.
And then I grabbed my keys, and I was fucking out of there, something that sure tasted like guilt and desperation filling my mouth, making me restless… making me feel like shit.
I didn’t know where I was going.
I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do.
But I had to do something, because this… shit… inside of me was growing and growing and growing.
My mom was my best friend, and she thought figure skating was more important to me than she was.
Did everyone I love think that way? Was that the impression I’d left on them?
Figure skating made me the happiest, but it wouldn’t mean anywhere near as much to me without my mom and siblings supporting me, giving me shit, caring and loving me even while I was at my worst. When I didn’t deserve it.
My throat and eyes burned as I drove, and my mouth went dry as I kept on driving. Before I knew it, before I let myself do more than have my throat ache and my eyes tighten, I pulled my car into the parking lot of the LC. I didn’t even realize it until I was there.
Of course I’d go back.
It was the only thing I had other than them. And I sure as hell didn’t want to talk to Ruby or Tali or Jojo or Sebastian about any of this. I wasn’t ready to feel worse, and that’s what would more than likely happen if they tried to console me or tell me it was okay.
Because it wasn’t.
I had to make all the sacrifices that had ever been taken for me worth it.
And this was the only way I knew how.
In no time at all, I was out and heading toward the front doors, on a mission to go to the changing room. I’d left my bag at home, but I always left my last pair of skates in my locker as backup. I wasn’t wearing my favorite clothes to train in either, but… I needed this. I needed this thing that had always taken my mind off everything… even if it was the one thing that destroyed my body and made my whole family think they were second best.
The realization that I shouldn’t have left my mom after she’d admitted something so big finally hung in my brain, but… I couldn’t go back. What the hell would I say to her? That I was sorry? That I didn’t mean to make her think she wasn’t important?
The changing room was almost empty by the time I made it inside; there were two girls that were younger than me, but not by much, talking, but I ignored them as I put in my combination and opened my locker. In record time, I’d taken my shoes off, grabbed the extra pair of socks I always left in there, and stuffed my feet into them and my skates, ignoring the fact that I might regret not putting on the bandages I usually wore that protected my skin from the top edge of the boot that was well broken in.
But I needed to burn some energy off. I needed to clear my head. I needed to make this better. Because if I didn’t… I didn’t know what I would do. Probably feel more of a piece of shit than I already did. If that were even possible.
Ignoring the other girls in the room who were looking in my direction in confusion because I was never at the facility this late, I made my way as fast as I could toward the rink. Luckily, there were only about five other people on the ice at eight in the evening. The younger kids were already home and in bed, and the teenagers were heading there.
But I didn’t give a fuck about any of them.
The second my blades touched the ice, I was off, skating so close to the walls, only millimeters separated me from them. I went faster and faster, needing to get this shit out. Out. Out, out, out. I needed to remember why this had been worth so much.
I don’t know how many times I circled my way around, taking on speed skater speed, and I wasn’t sure when I started going into jumps. Jumps I hadn’t warmed up for. Jumps that I had no business doing while my body had already gone through a tough practice and I hadn’t refueled since. I did a triple Salchow—what we called an edge jump because you didn’t have the assistance of your blade’s toe-pick, you took off from the back inside edge and landed on the opposite foot’s back outside edge—followed by another one. A quadruple toe loop that I stumbled out of, and then did over and over again until I landed it. And then I went for a triple Lutz I was too burned out and exhausted to do, busting my ass hard on each landing. Falling and falling, one time after another and then another, my ass cheek hurting somewhere in the back of my head, but I wasn’t focusing on it.
I had to land it.
I had to do it.
My hip ached. My wrist started hurting from trying to break my fall like a dumbass. The skin above my ankle began to chafe.
And I kept falling. Over and over again. I fell.
And the more I failed, the angrier I became with myself.
Fuck this. Fuck everything. Fuck me.
It was on another fall that went so bad, the back of my head grazed the ice that I finally lay there and closed my eyes, breathing hard, feeling like shit, anger burning through me so brightly I felt it everywhere. I made my hands into fists. And I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached.
I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry.
I loved my family. I loved figure skating.
And I sucked at loving both.
“Get up, Meatball.”
I didn’t think I’d ever opened my eyes faster than I did right then.
And when I did, a familiar face was there, hovering, staring down at me with two black eyebrows arched upward. In the time it took me to blink, there were fingers there too, halfway between the face and me, fingers wiggling in my direction. The eyebrows went up even further when I didn’t say anything or move.
What was he doing here?
“Let’s go,” Ivan said as he looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read on that face I had seen so much of already.
I didn’t get up.
Ivan blinked.
I did too, swallowing hard as I did it, fire filling my throat.