I was supposed to go out on a high this year. This fall I would enter my senior year of high school and compete at regionals for my final time. It was my last chance to make it anywhere. It was my last chance at a title.
Some skaters were starting to delay college to be able to compete more years, but that would never fly with my parents. Figure skating was an expensive full-time job. I couldn’t expect my parents to help me with both skating and college, and on top of that, I couldn’t expect my body to hold up much longer anyway. My ankle kind of proved my body was done taking the beating that figure skating caused… and I couldn’t wait to stop dieting and constantly worrying about every single thing I ate.
But sitting here staring at the ceiling, I couldn’t help but think of the irony. For so many years, I contemplated quitting, but could never do it. Now that skating was ripped away from me, I realized how much I’d miss it and I desperately wanted to be back at practice.
Hell, I wanted tocompete- something I never thought I’d say.
But trying to make a comeback for regionals would never happen. I thought it through about a million different ways. It was already July 1st. I’d be in a cast for four weeks, maybe longer, if need be, then a walking boot for the next four. They gave me an eight-week sentence at the least. By the time I was cleared to skate, it’d be the very end of August. Regionals was in October. I would never be ready to compete one freaking month after this. I might not even be walking normal come October.
But without skating competitively… What would I even do?… What did I even care about? I mean, sure I could still skate next year… but for what? To what end? Any chance at a title would be long gone.
I didn’t want to have to think about any of this. I was supposed to skate my senior year and then have an easy out when I left for college. I threw a pillow next to me at my stupid casted foot, then immediately let out a cry from the pain. While it hurt a lot less ever since they casted it, making sudden movements still killed. Actually, the worst pain wasn’t even from breaking it. The worst pain came when the doctor moved my foot to a 90-degree angle before casting it. I screamed and squeezed Nick’s hand, and he just looked down at me with sorry eyes.
I heard the usual sign from Nick then. He always tapped on my window in the same rhythm to let me know that he was there on the roof and coming in.
But I didn’t want to see him.
Not now.
Not after crying all night. I was sure my eyes were so puffy I looked like a blowfish.
And I was jealous. They were all going on with the usual summer routine without me. They wouldn’t be considered old in their sport for about a decade. But here I was, damaged goods, completely wasted and done at seventeen.
I turned over in my bed, annoyed that I still had to leave my left leg laying straight up on a couple pillows for elevation.
I heard my window slide open.
I took in a shaky breath and willed my voice not to crack as I said, “Please just go, Nick.”
I heard him jump to the ground and slide my window closed, clearly not listening to me, and that just made memad.
I turned in my bed to stare at him. “Leave! I told you to go,” I yelled angrily.
He just crossed his arms in front of him and stood his ground. We stared at each other for what felt like a whole minute. He had bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept all night. He finally broke eye contact to look at my fucking foot.
I turned away from him and hugged my pillow. “You’re going to be late,” I mumbled.
“I wanted to check in on you,” he said quietly.
I ignored him, but a couple seconds later, I felt my mattress creak under his weight, and then he was right behind me, curling his arm around mywaist.
I felt a tear drop down and quickly wiped it away. I didn’t want him to see me cry anymore. I could hear Victoria snarling in my mind saying that crying was pathetic. That’s what you did in the privacy of the bathroom at the rink. Not in front of people.
He leaned over my body to look at myface.
“Hey, it’s ok,” he said soothingly and brushed my hair back.
And that broke me. That made me cry harder. I felt my whole body tremble with tears. I held it in so long that now I couldn’t stop it. And I wished he would just go the hell away.
I used my arm to cover my face from him. “Go!” I yelled again in a last-ditch effort.
“Why?” he asked me, rubbing circles on my back instead of leaving. “If you give me a good reason, then I will.”
“Because…” I felt my body shudder from crying. “Because I don’t want you to see me cry. And I’ll probably just be crying for the next eight weeks. Maybe more.”
“So you’re saying I can’t see you foreightweeks?”
“Mmhmm.” I didn’t trust myself to talkanymore.
