Her brows furrow, and her frown deepens more than it was moments prior. “That’s a sad thing for a boy to concern himself with.”
I don’t deny it. “Oddly, it gave me something to work toward and look forward to. Especially when I was sent back home. Apparently, there was some error, and the case against my parents was dropped. I went home and watched them fade away, drowning in liquor bottles and taking pills. There were some days they didn’t even know I was there. There were some days I didn’t eat unless I had school. And when my mother found the food I’d snuck into my room and hid under the bed after some of it went bad and started rotting and smelling, she took it all away and locked the cabinets and the fridge, so I didn’t wasteanything. They spent most of their money on drugs, so they couldn’t afford to have me wasting what little food we did have.”
I’d lost so much weight that I looked skeletal from the time I was ten until I was thirteen. Puberty hit, I grew at least a foot and a half, and you could count each one of my ribs. Teachers would ask me if I wanted to speak to them about anything, and counselors would try getting me to talk about my home life, but I never would. What was the point? I knew by then that the foster system was flawed, and even if I were taken away, I’d be back again soon enough.
I wet my lips and lean back in the chair stiffly. “The last time I was taken from my shitty childhood home was when my mother overdosed on the front lawn. Our neighbor called because he thought she was dead. There was still a needle hanging out of her arm. The medics revived her, sent her to the hospital, and sent me to a new home in a better part of town. I was almost fourteen.”
Sometimes, I’m sad that the paramedics gave her Narcan. What kind of fucked-up thing does that say about me? But it’s true. Both of my parents would overdose so much that they had their own Narcan kits at home. Once, my mother made me use it on my father after he’d taken too much fentanyl. And for the briefest moment, I hesitated to administer it. I kneeled there over my father’s body across the kitchen floor, wondering what it would be like if he weren’t there. Then my mother started screaming and crying andbeggingme to help him, so like an idiot, I did.
Shortly after, CPS came for the final time and took me to the house that would be the beginning of a fresh new start I didn’t think I’d ever get.
“The woman who took me in lived in a huge house in a nice community. Apparently, she couldn’t have children of her own. So, she and her husband used to foster them. Before me,they’d only taken in babies and toddlers. Then the husband, who was a well-known cardiologist, passed away. From a heart attack, ironically. And the wife continued to take kids in need because she had the money, time, and space. She wasn’t the nicest person, but she was nice enough. She didn’t lock me in my room, limit my food, or give me strict rules. I think her heart was broken after losing her husband, and she wanted company in the house that was far too big for one person. All she asked was that I stay out of trouble, so I did my best to do that.
“I soon learned that the house next door belonged to a very wealthy family who split their time between the United States and Russia. I’d seen a girl around my age coming and going with ice skates hanging from her arm, so I followed her down to a pond behind our houses one day. It was the middle of winter, so the water was frozen over. I kept my distance as I saw her skate and spin and fall and get back up again. Over and over and over. She’d go every single day, so I watched her whenever I was home. Then, one day months later, she called me out on it.”
I smile to myself, thinking about the dark-haired girl looking directly at me from where I stayed on the hill. She’d yelled,“Aren’t you finally going to come down and join me?”
At first, I thought she’d been talking to somebody else. Maybe a friend. A family member. There was a boy who I’d seen at their house too, but he never joined her on the pond. He usually went with one of the adults somewhere else, typically for hours at a time, while the girl stayed home.
But she wasn’t talking to anybody else.
“Yeah. You! Come on.”
It’d taken me a long time before I eventually slid down the hill and walked over to her. There was a second pair of skates beside hers that looked much bigger than hers.
“They’re my brother’s old skates,” she tells me when she sees what I’m staring at. “But don’t worry. He has new ones, so he won’t miss these. Put them on.”
I stare at her dubiously. “What?”
She points to the skates, like I’m dumb. “The skates. Put them on your feet. Like shoes. All you have to do is lace them up. I’m pretty sure you’re the same size.”
Shaking my head, I swallow. “I don’t know how to skate.”
She blinks at me. “Really?”
Sheepishly, I shrug. I’ve never thought much about skating, but it does look freeing whenever I see her on the ice. It’s like she’s flying. Free.
She watches me for a minute before nodding to herself. “Okay. I’ll teach you. I’ve been taking lessons since I was four. I’m not the best, but I’m okay. You’ll learn the basics at the very least.”
Why is this stranger being so nice to me? She doesn’t call me out for watching her for months like some weirdo. She’s friendly. Welcoming. A little bossy.
“Why?” I ask with a frown.
She looks up at me because she’s much shorter than I originally expected. “Because you look like you need a friend. And so do I.”
As I retell the story of Emaly and my first meeting, Winter gets a small smile on her face that matches my own. “We became fast friends after that,” I recount thoughtfully. “We spent a lot of time together. As much as we could. And when I learned I wasn’t going to be sent back to my parents’ home, it gave Emaly and me even more time to bond. We grew close. Closer than I thought I’d ever be to someone. She taught me how to skate and suggested I join the hockey team at my school. Turns out, her father sponsored the athletic departments at a lot of the localschools, so his money was what afforded me equipment and jerseys. When I wasn’t at practice with my team, I was on the pond with her.”
“That’s sweet,” Winter says softly, still petting Oreo, who’s fallen asleep on her new favorite human. “It sounds like you needed her.”
I dip my chin in acknowledgment. “We needed each other. Her parents were very strict and had expectations of her future that she didn’t fit into. She wasn’t as strong an athlete as her brother, but they pushed her to be. Her aspirations were never to follow in her mother’s Olympian footsteps or her father’s business-oriented mind. She enjoyed the idea of helping people and would often talk to my foster mother’s late husband before he passed about the medical field. The older she got, the more she realized she wanted to go to school for that.”
“And her family didn’t agree,” Winter guesses, sounding sad for the girl who got me through so much growing up.
I nod. “Her father is a very tough man to please. He has plans for everyone and expects the people in his life to follow his orders and do as he says without complaint. But Emaly isn’t like her family. She’s full of love and loyalty, but she isn’t the type to bend at will. She’s always supported her brother’s love for skating and his success, but never received the same in return. To her father, going to college and med school was an act of treason against the Yokav name. He disapproved of the path she was taking, so he told her he wouldn’t pay for any of it. Not school. Not housing. Nothing. He thought that would stop her, but it didn’t.”
Winter’s lips twitch up higher, and mine do the same. Emaly has always been strong-headed. She’s hardly the type of person you can boss around. If anything, she’s the one doing the bossing. In a loving way, but still.
My smile slips. “One of the reasons that Emaly couldn’t become a professional figure skater is that she’s always been sick. As a kid, she’d constantly get colds. Her immune system wasn’t strong enough to fend off viruses. Then she started getting pains. Small ones at first. The doctors thought it was from all the exercise she did and suggested physical therapy and ice baths. But none of that helped. Her body wasn’t in any condition to train the way she was being forced to. It was draining her, and the doctors couldn’t figure out why.”
