Blade

Chapter Thirty-Five Ana

Chapter Thirty-Five

Ana

Before—One Year and Eleven Months at The Palace

After Sectionals, rumors swirled everywhere about Indy’s disqualification from competition that season—including Nationals and the Olympics.

Someone had reported her to the USFS for using unauthorized drugs.

The morphine in the DMSO. Dawn was appealing it but told Indy she couldn’t train at The Palace until it was sorted out.

Indy came to collect her things. Patrice was with her. Indy was crying so hard she could barely breathe as she carried her duffel bag down the stairs.

Ana tried to comfort her, whispering in her ear that this was all going to be okay—she would be able to train with Bobby Stark again, and they’d reverse the ruling in time for Nationals. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

Indy tried to smile when they held each other in the driveway, a last goodbye. Just like Jolene, chest to chest and cheek to cheek. When the car drove off, Ana ran to the basement closet, squeezed inside, and cried until she had no more tears.

Dawn seemed to know the extent of her loss. The dinners became more frequent. Ana had earned a spot at Nationals, and Dawn said they needed to evaluate her programs very carefully. “Meticulously,” she said. Make sure they were placing everything just right so she could get the most points.

“Come for dinner,” she would say, after a lesson. Then she’d pick her up along the access road. Put out the linen place mats and the fine crystal, and they’d eat stir-fry and drink orange soda.

They watched videos of her programs on the big blue sofa, and Dawn crept under her skin like never before.

The weed growing bigger, around every bone and ligament.

Every vital organ. Bigger and tighter, squeezing out Ana’s loneliness for her mother, and Indy.

Kayla and Jolene. And each day Ana would wonder if Dawn would invite her to dinner, praying she would, fearing she wouldn’t.

Day after day with the Orphans all gone, their dreams all dead, Ana tried to convince herself that sadness was just a feeling, like fear. She wondered if that, too, could be turned to rage.

Because the alternative was incomprehensible. The feeling unbearable.

At Thanksgiving, Ana went home for a visit.

And what was she thinking would happen there?

That her family, together for the first time since last Christmas, could turn back time?

Make her feel the way she did when her mother wafted through the door after showing a house?

Calling out, I’m home! The afternoon light streaming through her bedroom window somehow brighter when she heard her mother’s voice?

She would start cooking, her father setting the table.

Tim blaring his music. Then—Time for dinner!

The smallest things that—she now realized—had filled half of her up. A baseline of happiness that she could add to with her skating and her other dreams. Like a smile from the hockey player with the steady gaze. Her first kiss.

The things she needed were laid out before her—now that they were gone.

She crawled into her mother’s bed on the last night and sat close to her.

Connie was too tired to watch a movie, so Ana made up stories about The Palace, all of her wonderful friends there and the silly things they did.

She told Connie about Dawn’s praise for her, and how her triples were coming along.

How excited she was to compete at Nationals for the first time. The lies just flew from her mouth.

Then Connie started to cry. She took Ana’s hand and held it to her lips, and Ana looked at her mouth to see what words she might hear next. I love you, maybe. I’m so proud of you.

But that was not what she said, or tried to say.

“Who are you?” she demanded. Angry and scared. She pushed Ana off the bed.

“Mom?” Ana said—not just afraid. Terrified.

Her father raced into the room, past Ana, who was on the floor, and onto the bed, where he held his wife.

“Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s okay. You know her, Connie. She’s a lovely girl. You’re perfectly safe.”

Ana stared at her father’s back, while her mother glared at her from over his shoulder as he held her tight. Her arms were listless by her sides. Like those of a rag doll.

Carl let her go. He laid her back down and turned on the TV.

“Watch your show, honey,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

He walked to Ana and led her out of the room. He explained that the tumor in her mother’s brain had grown, in spite of all the trials and treatments. It had grown like a different kind of weed, stealing her memories. Taking her life before she was even dead.

Ana cried, and Carl cried. Holding her the way he’d held her mother.

“I’m going to take you back to Echo tomorrow,” he said. “You have to go live your life, Ana. That’s what she wanted. Not for you to see her like this.”

He pulled away just far enough for her to see his eyes.

“Promise me, okay.”

The following Saturday, she went to the rink for the eight a.m. session like she always did.

She didn’t have a lesson, but Dawn wanted her to run through her long program.

She said she’d be watching from the corner of her eye as soon as the music started.

Rhapsody in Blue, the first notes, pushing into a layback spin, the world a blur as she felt her right leg lift, a ninety-degree angle, her left blade on that spot right between the first spike of the toe pick and the last inch of the straight edge.

Arms overhead, a perfect arch. Ten rotations, then a release, backward onto a right outside edge.

Her mind was already ahead to the first jumping pass—the triple-triple combination—when she saw Dawn skating toward her, and behind that image, by the boards, her father, who hadn’t been to The Palace for months.

It didn’t register as she reached the bend that if he was here, something bad had happened.

“Ana!” Dawn called out, trailing behind her on her gold blades. “Stop.”

So she stopped and waited for Dawn to catch up, then take her in her arms, inside the blue puffer coat.

“You need to come with me,” she said. And then, “I’m so sorry.”

Ana followed Dawn off the ice. Grabbing her skate guards, slipping them on. Then up the stairs to her office. Her father was right behind them.

In Dawn’s office, she learned her mother had died the night before, in her bed.

Carl said those actual words. But he entrusted the rest of it to Dawn.

Who said things like she’s at peace now.

And she’s proud of you. Ana’s eyes darted between them, her father and Dawn.

For the first time since arriving at The Palace, she truly felt like an orphan.

Carl spent the day with her at Avery Hall.

In her empty room, sitting on her bed, talking about what had happened.

He repeated what Dawn had said. How Connie was at peace now.

In a better place. She’d said her goodbyes over Thanksgiving weekend, and didn’t Ana know that was what those moments had been? Wasn’t it obvious?

They called Tim and spoke to him together. He seemed to understand all these things about the end having been days away and the goodbyes having come and gone.

“She wrote you both letters, and I’ll share them with you next time we’re all together,” Carl said.

Ana couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even cry. Again, she was frozen. Not with fear but with something else. Something even worse.

Carl left and told her she should go back to the rink. “Live your life,” he said again. “It’s the best thing for you. I promise. I love you.”

So she went, because what else was she supposed to do?

She went to The Palace, where Dawn gave her a lesson and she was a good girl.

Falling, but making the rotations. Fighting the fear.

Folding into the puffer coat, extra long because her mother had just died.

Inhaling the smell, the makeup, hairspray, stale coffee on warm breath.

“Don’t go home. Come for dinner.”

She made the stir-fry.

She poured orange soda.

But tonight there were three place mats because “Emile is joining us for dinner. Won’t that be fun? Won’t that make you feel better?”

After the food and the soda, they watched Ana’s program, and then it was time to go and Emile said, “I can drive her home.”

To which Dawn said, “Great.”

But he didn’t bring her home. He turned left at the fork, down the dirt road.

Ana had been in the guest cottage just once before. When Kayla was assaulted.

She was here again, after losing all of them, the Orphans, and now her mother.

“Want a beer?” he asked.

Ana nodded.

Emile got up to grab a beer. As he passed by her, he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, and she felt a sudden release inside her. Tears began to fall.

“What do you need, Ana?” Emile asked her. Then he took her arm and pulled her to stand.

“I don’t know,” she cried. But this was a lie. In this moment, all she could think was that she needed someone to hold her.

She fell into his body, her head barely reaching the nape of his neck. Wrapped her arms around his waist. Showing him what she needed.

She didn’t care that it felt wrong. She was drowning, and he was there, offering a lifeboat. Just like he’d offered his hand as she lay on the ground outside the snack bar.

He moaned then. Made a sound like mmmmm. Like her body felt good to him.

“Ask me what I want,” he said. His voice was playful.

And she did. She asked, her voice trembling, “What do you want?”

“I want to be the first,” he said. “Do you know what I mean?”

It didn’t matter if she did or if she didn’t. The only thing she knew that mattered in that moment was that she would have sold her soul for the comfort of being held.

“Come on, then,” he said. “Take off your clothes . . . lie on the bed for me.”

She walked to the bed. Undressed. Hating herself more and more with each reveal of her body. And more when he climbed on top of her, his head above hers so she couldn’t see his face.

More, when he moved his knee between her thighs, pushing them apart.

More, when she felt him inside her.

Emile hardly noticed the tears that became a waterfall down her face and onto his sheets as her mind filled with thoughts of warm banana bread and colorful scarves. Of bubble gum lip gloss and red hair and Jack Daniel’s.

When it was over, he went to pee, grab a fresh beer, his body moving in the shadows. Ana sat up and wiped her face with the edge of a pillowcase.

“See—it’s no big deal,” he said as he walked back to the bathroom.

She gathered her clothes while he took a shower, then sneaked out the door in the dead of night, into the woods behind the cottage. The woods that led down the mountain.

Through the trees with their prickly branches, grabbing at her wool mittens. Her sleeves. The thick brush catching her boots. She didn’t stop until she got to the field, then made her way back up the access road to Avery Hall.

She took a shower, so hot her skin turned bright red.

The burning felt better than what was happening inside her.

Emile had betrayed her friends. She hated him.

But she also needed him. Just like Dawn, but maybe worse.

And the disgust this bred inside her was the very thing that led her back to his door whenever it was open.