But not today. Today I shower in record time and am downstairs with wet hair and two different socks on by the time he’s mashing his eggs into his quinoa-spinach bowl and mixing it all together. He always does that. Mashes everything together.
“Hey,” I say and sit down across from him. I pour myself a coffee and add some milk.
Knox doesn’t answer. He shovels a mountain of quinoa onto his spoon and doesn’t look at me once.
I rub my feet across the parquet. “I love your heated floors.”
Knox takes his bowl and his coffee, pushes back his chair, and stands up. He sits down on the couch with his back to me. Quinoa drips onto the cushions.
I follow him. “Have you spoken to your father already?”
Knox fishes a tomato out of his bowl and shoves it into his mouth. Of course he hasn’t spoken with his father or else he wouldn’t head off for training so quickly and act like everything was normal. It’s not. He was doping, got tested—which is going to turn out positive, of course—and can forget all about the Snowboard World Cup now. He’ll be suspended for several months. The press will get wind of it. Knox will get taken apart as soon as the results come out, and from one day to the other will be seen in a completely different light. Of course he hasn’t told his father yet. Of course not.
“He’d rather hear it from you than from the press, Knox.”
“Tell him yourself.” These are the first words he’s said to me in four days, and I could puke.I could puke. “Tell him that you narced on me so that it’d be a lesson. Then you can tell me how he reacted. It interests meimmensely.”
“Knox, enough. It was your fault, you know it, but because you don’t want to accept it and feel like shit, you’re using me as a scapegoat.Cut the crap.”
Knox turns so red I’m afraid he’s going to explode like a piñata at any second and it’s going to snow quinoa all over the place but then he simply gets up and leaves. I can’t believe it. The jangle of keys. The front door closing. The sound of tires moving down the driveway.
My pulse starts to speed up.How could he?
I go into the kitchen, fish the hidden Cheerios out of the cupboard, and throw them into the trash. Then I take every single bag of chips, gummy bears, Pop-Tarts, and Twinkies out of the linen closet and throw them in, too. Knox loves junk food and sweets. I am so angry, so furiously angry—he can take his guilty pleasures and stick themwhere the sun doesn’t shine.
Gwen texts to tell me she can’t pick me up. Her mother has a doctor’s appointment, and she has to help out in the diner, so she’ll be late to training as well. I go downtown on foot to take the Highland Express to iSkate. I’m early, and close to the bus stop there’s a sports shop. Just two blocks away, I see the festively decorated shop window flanked by two field hockey sticks. A bell rings as I enter the store. It smells like sneakers fresh out of the box, just after you’ve pushed the wrapping paper aside.
A young woman with a long black bob is standing behind the counter, bent over some document or other. She looks up and smiles. “Can I help you?”
“Do you have any figure-skating things?”
She nods. “Over there in the corner, by the changing room.”
“Thanks.”
I look at two dresses that are so beautiful and so expensive that they will always be myI’m-just-going-to-look-at-youpieces. There are a couple of E-spinners with a forward-shifted pivot point and integrated rubber band for bounce safety on sale. E-spinners look like shoe soles and are made for practicing take-offs and spins when you’re away from the ice. I grab a basket and put them inside, shortly thereafter a pair of knee pads. Thanks to all the unsuccessful axels my legs are full of bruises. The pads are followed up by a pair of beige gloves and two new pairs of tights and leg warmers. It’s wonderful to be able to spend the money you’ve earned yourself. It makes me happy.
Just as I’m about to turn around and head to the register, I feel a hand on my bottom. It grips tight. Real tight. I freeze. Warm breath brushes my ear. It smells of licorice candy and herb-flavored booze. I know that smell. I know, Iknowwho’s behind me and die before I even hear his repellent voice.
“You’ve gained weight, Paisley.” More pressure on my bottom. “Do you think you can afford that?”
A tingling sensation in my hands causes me to drop the basket. The things spill out over the floor. I look for the saleswoman. She’s disappearing with her papers into the back room.No.
I don’t want to turn around. I don’t want to, if I do, it’ll all be real.Hewill be real. But when his hand begins to move upward, I have to. Turn around.
I knock his hand away and look into his face.Ivan Petrov.He laughs. Thin lips. Straight smoke-yellowed teeth. An unkempt beard and dark eyes where hate has made its home.
I don’t say anything. I’m paralyzed. All the thoughts I’ve been thinking over the last few weeks—I’d be stronger than Minneapolis Paisley—all of those thoughts were lies.
Hi, here I am: small.
Full of fear. With quaking legs and the terrified face of a doe.
Ivan takes a pair of skates off the shelf and runs a finger along theblade. “Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” He puts the skates back and laughs as he strokes a sequined dress. “Did you think you could hide behind that snowboarder? I’ll always find you, Paisley. Always.”
He lets go of the dress and takes a step toward me. I think I’m going to die. There’s no way I can stand this, standing here, right in front of him, listening to his voice. I thought I had left it all behind me, had lefthimbehind me, but when you realize that your throat is prickling and you want to cry, then you know it’s still an issue.
Ivan Petrov is an issue for me. He alwayswillbe, because I cannot forget what he did to me. The scars on my skin will always remind me of the pain. My life is not a piece of paper full of marks where you can just erase the terrible pictures. What happened, happened. And that remains.
