Chapter Twenty-Three Ana #2
“Jo,” Ana began, afraid to say it out loud. “Are you . . .”
Jolene nodded, then lurched back to her knees, grabbing the bowl. Vomiting this time with nothing but a dry heave.
Ana raced to the sink, pulled a wad of paper towels from the metal holder, ran them under the water.
“It’s so bad, Ana,” she said. “This can’t be happening.”
No—it can’t, Ana thought. It can’t!
Ana handed her the paper towels, then stroked the side of her face with one hand, and held her ponytail with the other.
“What can I do?” she asked. But it was a stupid question. Ana felt useless. Just like with Indy and Kayla.
“I need Hugo!” she said. “I know he’s back. He said he would be . . . He booked his return flight before he even left, and why would he change it?”
Jolene sat back down and stared at Ana with eyes so weary they looked like they wanted to die.
“I need to know what the fuck is going on!” Jolene pleaded.
“I can’t leave you here,” Ana said. Not with eyes that wanted to be dead.
Jolene took a deep breath and calmed herself.
“Please—this is what I need.”
So Ana agreed and hurried out of the bathroom, slipped on her boots, and wiped her skates and shoved them into the locker, her heart racing in her chest.
How had she not seen this earlier? It had been going on for weeks, but she’d been so preoccupied with Indy and the bruise and her family back home.
Poor Jo!
Outside the locker room, Ana stopped a new girl from Miami walking toward her, the girl who looked like she belonged on a beach, long blond hair, tan skin, Barbie body.
They’d decided to call her Florida because she was only here for the season, staying in the first floor wing with another short-term skater, so what would be the point of learning her name?
“Have you seen Ivan?” Ana asked.
Florida pointed toward the snack bar. “He was on his way out.”
“Thanks.” Ana started to walk away, but then turned around. “What about Hugo?”
Florida looked confused now. “Hugo? That dickwad from Spain?”
“Yes,” Ana answered, stepping closer. “Why?”
“He’s not coming back,” Florida said.
“What? How do you know that?”
Florida shrugged. “I heard he decided to quit and go to college—Ivan knows the whole story. He just left.”
Ana took off around the boards, inhaling the smell of ammonia and Zamboni exhaust and rubber mats and then the shitty coffee as she rounded the corner to the snack bar.
Hugo was never coming back, Ana suddenly understood, and he didn’t tell Jolene because he was a dickwad, or because Jolene never meant anything to him.
They’d been having sex and she needed the pill and now she was puking and crying.
And what would Ana do? Without Indy. Without Kayla.
The bleacher bees dying to see another one of them go because they were little sluts.
She ran outside, where the sleet had turned to snow and was now falling hard and fast, a frozen film covering the pavement. She had to find Ivan. Find out if this was true—about Hugo. And then what?
What did she think she could do?
The doctor would tell her to channel the fear that was now pulsing through her blood. Turn it to rage. Then fight. She’d tried to fight for Indy, and look what had happened.
Suddenly, she was slipping, her feet out from under her, body in the air, then crashing down. Onto her elbow and wrist, smacking her head.
She lay there, perfectly still, absorbing the shock of the fall, and the shock of what was happening to her friend, on top of everything else. Indy on the plane with the DMSO and hidden dresses she probably wouldn’t wear. Kayla gone forever. And Ana’s mother in that bed.
She started to cry from all of this, but also because she should be on the ice, circling the rink close to the boards, practicing the triple flip, just being a promising skater with a sixth-place junior finish at Sectionals.
Or maybe the girl back home with Connie and Carl and Tim, whatever was left of her.
She felt like leaving right now, walking through the front door of her old house, marching up the stairs to Connie’s room, climbing into her bed, and curling up next to her and never leaving. Telling her—This is still my home. My life is here. My life is with you.
She saw herself doing it—packing up her skates and dresses and medals and trophies and shoving them in the attic. She would forget about skating and never look back.
Because she was drowning here. They all were. In the middle of a lake, holding on to one another as they slowly sank, their heads tilting back to gasp in one last breath of air before the black water covered their mouths and noses and filled their lungs.
Fight the fear. But it was too big.
They were not enough. They were children playing grown-up, just like Mio had told her that day before they went to the field, and the game had taken a turn right off a cliff. Just like that, two months after Sectionals when she felt like this dream was slowly becoming real.
She lay there for a long time, until the tears started to freeze on her skin and the pain in her elbow and the back of her head demanded her attention. She began to gather herself, rolling to her side. Propping herself up on her forearm. That’s when she heard someone approaching.
Boots crunching snow, then two legs standing before her. And a hand reaching down.
“Are you all right?”
Ana wiped the tears and the snow from her eyes.
“Ana?” Coach Emile said. He was on his way inside, crossing the parking lot from his car. But now he was here, standing over her. Throwing her a lifeline.
“Take my hand,” he said.
Like hell. Emile couldn’t be trusted after what he did to Kayla.
Fight, Ana! she screamed at herself.
But her hand was already there, reaching for his.