15. Hurt with me
15
Hurt with me
Exton
“I’m off to bed,” Electra says as soon as we come inside the house and before I can say good night, she shuts the door and I slump to the couch with a tired sigh slipping from my lips.
She was mute the whole way back home, and to be honest, I wasn’t much better. I needed to be quiet on the outside because on the inside my thoughts were too loud, too confusing, too…everything.
Where did I take the wrong turn here? When did it go from doing the bare minimum to get back on the ice to needing to know every little detail about her.
It’s almost manic, as if I will die if I don’t crawl into every crevice of her life. I don’t fucking understand it, don’t have a single clue how she managed to crawl under my skin in such a short time and make herself a nice home in there, invading my every thought. Becoming a permanent fixture in my days, and, based on the dreams I had last night, nights as well.
I need to know what hides behind those icy eyes. What caused her to end up in this prison of hers, and I’m not talking about the wheelchair. At least, not the physical version of it. I need to know why she snuffs out the flicker of light that lights up in her eyes from time to time. I catch it, I do, but before I can bathe in its light, it’s out.
Why?
Who did that to you, Electra?
That partner of yours?
Your family?
What happened?
The questions roaming my head are endless and before I can think some more about it, I power on my laptop and open the search window when the news page pops up with Outlaws on the very front and center of it, boasting about their recent win and how they are ready to flip the page and move onto the new, great things for the team.
My already conflicting mood sours like a rotten apple. So I was the problem. I was holding them back.
They don’t need you, Exton. No one needs you .
Ever since I came here, I haven’t watched a single game. Not theirs or anyone else’s. I didn’t check the stats and the only time I saw anything was the other night when it popped up on the TV.
I didn’t want to know how they were doing. Didn’t want confirmation that I was holding them back this whole season. That those were my issues that cost us goals. I was playing the ignorance game, pretending I didn’t already know it.
Yet here it is. Clear as a day.
I’m the problem. I’m always the problem.
As if summoned by my dark energy, my phone rings with that unknown number to add to my misery and grip the small device tightly.
Answer it. Just answer it, tell him to go to hell along with his client and that’s it.
But I don’t.
I never do.
Because it’s yet another reminder of all that is wrong in my life, another chapter I can’t seem to close.
Why the fuck does he get to make me feel this guilt? Why? Hasn’t he done enough?
I send the phone into the cushion of the couch and force my fingers to stab the keyboard. This is what's on the agenda tonight, not my own issues.
Somehow, typing in her name into the search bar feels like I’m betraying her. It feels like I’m violating her in a way, but the good thing is she already thinks I’m an asshole, and I hate myself enough for the both of us, so how much worse can it get?
I don’t know what I expected to find when I set out to do this. But it wasn’t this.
It wasn’t thousands upon thousands of articles, interviews, reports, pictures and videos. So many goddamn videos. And before I can think about it, I’m clicking on the first one that pops up and feel all the air whoosh out of my body.
What the fucking fuck…
How…how is that possible? How is it real to skate like that? To do all that? To be so perfect.
Perfect is too simple of a word for her but no bigger, smarter words come to my poorly educated brain right now. But damn it, she is perfect .
Her body…it’s a work of art. Her legs are just extensions of the ice she’s on as if she was born of it. She is part of it, fluid like the water, sharp like the ice, soft like the air around her.
I’m aware that she’s not skating alone. I see the dark-haired, skinny asshole and his hands on her. Oh, I fucking see it, but I only see her.
Perfect. That’s the only word that comes to mind when I watch them. That and graceful, stunning, spectacular, beautiful, alluring and all other adjectives that simply escape me after watching Electra Monroe on the ice. I didn’t even know figure skating could be like that. That it could make you feel .
But maybe it’s not the sport, maybe it’s just her. My fallen star. Who is not so fallen in those videos. Not at all. In fact, I’ve never seen her eyes shine like they do when she was performing, neither have I see her as relaxed and at ease.
But…she’s not free. Not the way she was today on that lake with me as emotions poured out of her with each circle. It was just a glimpse, a small crack, but she was free. And in these videos, she’s as perfect as ever but she’s not free.
As I flip through the videos, watching clip after clip of their performances over the years, I stumble upon the last one. And I know it’s the last one because the captions read, Is this the end of Elle Monroe? Tragedy on the ice, and more along the lines of those, but I don’t click on those.
Not yet, not before I know more.
Words on my screen start blurring. I’ve been at it for—I glance at the time—well, hell, I’ve been at it for over two hours already. After watching God knows how many videos, I ventured into the dark web of articles and interviews, learning every bit of information I could about her.
I kept telling myself that I’m doing this because I need to know more about her injury, how she got it, how severe is it. I kept lying to myself that the sole reason for my obsession is that I want to be free of her as soon as I can be.
But even I can’t keep up with those lies, because I’m not reading about the accident. No, I’m stuck learning every bit about Electra that I can get my hands on, as if it’s the sustenance I need to survive.
I learn that she started skating at the age of six, but professionally around seven—pretty late for professional skaters—on the very same lake that is blanketed in the dark, moonless night outside that huge window. I learn that it was her mother who took her out there. The same mom who owned Blade’s. Although, that part is not mentioned anywhere here and it makes me wonder why? And where is she now?
With every new piece of information I uncover, a million new questions pop up in my head, creating that same manic need to have all the answers to them.
I read about the part where Stella trained her from about eight years old and until her new trainer, Filip Masso, who is as big a deal as it gets, recruited her into his special team, partnering her up with Erik Shishov immediately because—and I quote—“ the chemistry between these two was unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like that. It’s as if they were meant for each other and the ice brought them together.”
I’d like some credit for not smashing my computer upon reading that, thank you very much.
But it didn’t stop there.
After she made the move to Masso’s team, her life did a one-eighty and then there was double or even triple the number of interviews and news about them. But always them as a couple. As a brand, because I smell the stench of a PR stunt right away, only there is more to it. It’s as if Electra ceased to exist on her own and she and Erik were attached at the hip.
They did nothing to deny their relationship from the get-go. No, they flaunted it all over, starting in hundreds of commercials and ads together. Giving interviews about their future and how they couldn’t imagine it without each other.
Fucking hell, they were more than just athletes, they were fucking celebrities where their love got turned into some kind of religion. People were following their love story as they do of those in the Hollywood.
Jesus Christ, where the hell is this Prince Charming now? Why isn’t he looking after her with that sickeningly sweet gaze that he wears in these pictures. Where is his tender touch now as it was at the end of their routines on the ice?
And she’s no better. She’s gazing lovingly at that fucker with so much emotion, it makes me sick, or maybe it’s not so much sick as filled with enough rage to wreck everything in my way. Starting with my own laptop that's already crunching under my touch from the force I’m gripping it with.
This is not my Electra. This is Elle. Elle Monroe, the Juliet to his Romeo.
And the knot in my chest tightens with every new picture that pops up. I hate it, I realize. I hate seeing it. I hate knowing she gave herself, her heart, and that smile to someone else.
It’s completely irrational, ridiculous, and stupid to feel what I feel…yet I still do.
I almost slam my computer shut and go take a dip in that freezing lake until I can no longer see their happy faces in front of my eyes when another article catches my attention.
Elle Monroe and Erik Shishkov are to represent United States at the Olympics in Canada.
Holy fuck…
I click on it and the air around me freezes. She was going to go to the Olympics. Just a year from now, she was going to take on the biggest stage out there. Their happy faces staring at me through the screen as they give their interviews about how excited they are and what an amazing program they are developing for it. Electra is animated and so fucking happy, she talks about how this was all her mother wanted for her. To have a loving partner and for her dreams on the ice to come true.
I cast a look toward the closed bedroom door where those shattered dreams now reside. I stare at it with a new understanding until my eyes burn and I close them, taking a deep breath to steady my racing mind and heart and make my fingers finally look up the accident.
What was supposed to be a simple routine turned into a living nightmare for our very own, Electra Monroe and Erik Shishov. I think it’s safe to say the whole world held their trembling breath when we saw Erik’s blade slip right underneath him, bringing him to the ground all while Elle was doing the unspeakable in the air above him.
A twist lift with a triple revolt in the air from a horizontal split. It was something we hadn’t seen done in a while, and from what I gathered it was one they created special for the Olympics. And now they may never get the chance to perform it and earn that well-deserved gold as we all witnessed Elle fall to the ice.
But then our ice princess got up. She got up and the cheers and cries of the crowd could be heard for miles. She was walking, she was fine and running to the love of her life who was unconscious on that ice.
Forget all the romantic movies, that was the greatest testament of love I’ve ever witnessed. The sheer will to get to Erik made her get up, but our sources say that was ultimately Elle’s downfall.
According to the report we have from the doctors treating Electra Monroe, the impact of the fall fractured her sacral bone, but it was when she got up that it snapped in half, paralyzing our star from waist down.
Our sources also say she suffered internal bleeding, a fracture to her left arm and a severe concussion in addition to one of the worst sacral breaks one could get.
Electra was immediately rushed into surgery and is believed to make a full recovery, much to our happiness but are we going to see our favorite couple on the Olympic ice? That’s a question no one has an answer to, but their trainer Filip Masso is hopeful.
Erik Shishkov is said to have suffered minimally with minor bruising and scratching.
We wish our stars a fast recovery and despite the great loss they’ve suffered, at least they have each other.
It feels like I’ve opened the Pandora’s box with this one article because now they keep flooding me, each one screaming with speculations and new findings. And with each one I read, my blood boils more and more.
It goes from eyewitness recounts from that evening to hopeful prognosis articles to speculations about her mental state, their relationship, her sudden disappearance and the announcement of Erik’s new partner.
New. Fucking. Partner. The one he plans to go to Olympics with after all, simply erasing Electra from his perfect picture.
I dig deeper and find that fucker blaming everything and everyone under the sun for that accident—everyone but himself—and I may not be the expert in figure skating but even I can see that it was clearly his blade that slipped.
A few articles support him by saying Electra distributed her weight unevenly and it caused him to lose his balance. Some paint him the asshole he is, and some don’t care about the accident but want to know why he’s no longer seen with her.
A memory—conversation—from my first time at Blades blares through my mind.
"I have it from trusted sources that that bastard partner of hers talked her into doing a trick they weren't supposed to right before the dance. Can you guess what trick that was and what was the outcome of it?"
My fingers fly across the keyboard, and the leash I had on my temper snaps. The video of her ultimate fall and that agonizing cry of pain when she collapsed on the ice like a lifeless doll. Because he wasn't there to catch her. He let her down.
I watch it again and again, from different angles—zoomed in and out—and I see it. I see the confirmation in her eyes that she wasn’t ready for that trick. She was afraid of it and he was careless about it. That much is evident by the smirk he wears right before he slips.
I watch her face break out in blinding joy when she executed it flawlessly and then turn into a wild panic when she realizes what’s coming. What is waiting for her. The ice. The cold. The death.
And again, that cry.
That guttural sound…it was one I’ve heard before, on the ice the other day when I shot that puck into her lifeless legs, and I pat myself on the back for having the foresight to watch these videos in headphones. There is no need for her to hear this or relive this again.
What it must have felt like to wake up in the hospital and learn that your life has changed. It snapped in two, burning to the ground everything you worked so hard for. The fear in her eyes and the piercing hurt on her face this morning now make sense.
She doesn’t need a reminder of that pain, and I’m suspecting that her lack of emotions or desire to walk again is hindered on it. It feeds off it and I can’t blame her.
But I could lose her.
The sudden realization makes my head spin.
I can lose her to that pain when I just found her. When she’s the only thing in my life that confuses me and makes complete sense at the same time.
Fear pierces through my chest, sharper than any blade. Is this what it feels like? Is this what my dad felt when he lost my mother?
The sudden rush of emotions is overwhelming me. I want to scream. Send my laptop into the wall. Beat my head on anything that can crack it. I want to thrash around, smash everything in the vicinity. Because I'm hurting. Hurting for her. She lost so much.
She lost everything. And that’s without me knowing the full story because I’m sure there’s more to it. A hell of a lot more.
I feel my body flying off the couch, throwing the headphones off my head as I run into her room where she is sitting in her wheelchair, reading a book. Electra lifts her eyes when she sees me barreling in, silently asking me what do I want from her now, and I want to laugh at her ability to give off that “piss off” vibe without as much as making a single sound, but that laugh gets trapped in my throat when I see her.
See the beautiful, talented and broken person in front of me. I see a mirror of the shards that cover my own heart.
“You are amazing.” My words are breathless as if I ran a marathon before coming in here.
Electra just blinks. “Um…are you okay?” She frowns.
“You are amazing,” I repeat again, because all other words fail me.
Did she always look this graceful? Or is it the new knowledge I have of her that helps me see through the font she’s putting up.
“Are you drunk? What’s going on? Just a couple of hours ago I was the pain in your ass, cripple, and an angry elf.”
“Oh, you are still all three of those but”—I swallow—“on the ice. You are amazing on the ice.” All humor slips off her face, replaced by tension and lips set in a tight line when she realizes what I mean and looks past me as if she can see into the living room where my laptop is still on with the thousands of tabs open.
“Was. Past tense.” Electra shuts her book and makes the move to wheel around me, but I block her.
“Are. You are fucking amazing.” I watch as her chest rises rapidly with my words, and she fists her hands to hide the tremble that is now running through them. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” I continue without giving her the chance to talk because fear is choking me.
“I never even thought it could be done like that. And you dropped it all. You allowed it to crash and burn.” I watch her expression morphing with each word out of my mouth and then it’s straight down to anger and rage when I say, “You. Gave. Up.”
A better person—a smarter one would use kind—sweet words right now. They would be gentle with her when she is clearly waist deep in depression and denial, but the thing is, I’m not it. I’m neither nice nor gentle.
I’m an asshole and I’m not shy about it and the only way I know to get things done is to barrel through them. To break the walls of the obstacle course instead of skating around them.
Electra needs to come face-to-face with her new reality because she is suspended in that gray area between life and death and that’s no way to live. A mere existence is not good enough for me. Not when it comes to her.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she grits out, her knuckles white on those handles she’s gripping hard. “And I think you need to get out of my room.”
“Make me,” I taunt her. “No? Then sit there and listen.”
“I don’t have to do shit,” she spits out. “Now step away.”
“No.” Our eyes lock in a silent battle of wills, one I win. “It was his fault, wasn’t it? He crushed you and you gave up. Just like that. You gave him that win, taking all the hurt for yourself.”
“I don't know what you are talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb, Electra, or do you prefer Elle ?” As soon as that nickname leaves my mouth her lip curls. Good, angry is good. Angry is a hell of a lot better than apathy.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why? That was what you went by, no? What that fucker called you. Where is he by the way?”
“None of your fucking business.” Her jaw clenches and then my little star rams into my shins, using my surprise and yelp as her chance to get out of the room. Too bad she can’t get that far, and I catch her while limping when she suddenly stops in the living room, my still open computer on full display and her eyes catching the video of her last routine. Electra freezes. It’s not playing but I paused it the moment when she fell.
The temperature in the room drops and those tentacles of darkness and crippling chill wrap themselves around us.
Fuck. I’m losing her.
“No,” I snap, sidestepping in front of her and dragging her chair closer to me and giving it a good shake, hoping it’s enough to chase whatever crawled over her. “Don’t disappear on me. Don’t fall down that hole. Tell me. Tell me what you felt.”
Her chest rises rapidly, and I shout, “Look at me!”
“Leave me alone! Why won’t you leave me alone, Exton?” she screams, and I let go of the chair itself, grabbing her by her slender shoulders. Electra stiffens at the touch as if it's foreign, as if no one has touched her like that in a long time.
“Why?” Her voice is far weaker than it should be. “Why can’t you just let it go? Let me go?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, and her lost eyes find mine. “Tell me, talk to me. Hurt, Electra. Hurt!”
“I don’t want to,” she screams. “I’m tired of hurting. That’s all I’ve been doing since I woke up in that hospital. I don’t want to! I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
I fall to my knees in front of her, cupping her tiny face with both my hands. “Hurt with me.” I search her eyes for even a flicker of life but instead it’s her tears that soak my hands.
“You don’t have the first clue as to what it feels like to hurt.” Her voice is hoarse, almost bitter, and I want to laugh in her face; to tell her she has no fucking clue, but I keep it in.
“Try me.”
“Do you know what it’s like to die? And then as soon as you cling to the last thread of life, to have it cut off,” she asks, her eyes empty, that blue light snuffed out of them completely.
But it’s not her state that has me swallowing a thick lump. It’s her question.
“Do you know what’s it like to watch your own life pass in front of your eyes. To lose it all in one moment? Or what it feels like when you feel like nothing more than a failure…a disappointment…a disgrace? When you wake up in the morning and can’t bear to look at yourself in the mirror because if you do, you will claw out your own eyes?
“Do you know what it’s like to be afraid of the night. Because the night brings it all back. The ice. The loss. The pain. Do you know what it’s like to equally want and crave that night to come, and to finally take you forever? Do you know what it’s like to live with the knowledge that your mother died because of you?”
A chill far worse than the one I already felt, runs down my spine.
“That she sacrificed her own life so you can have yours and you wasted it…” There is so much self-hatred in that one sentence. So much pain. I doubt she realizes there are silent tears running down her blank face but I’m more than aware of the ones I’m holding at bay, feeling every ounce of her pain deep in my soul.
“Yes.” My voice is barely audible and gruff yet her empty eyes snap to mine. “I do.” I get up. “Come, let’s go to bed,” I tell her and without waiting for her to follow me, I go back to her room.
Screw me for wanting to help her. For making her talk. Screw me to the deepest pits of hell. I should have known she’d make it all come up. I should’ve known she was the one who could make me relive it all.
I tug almost every piece of clothing off my body, nearly ripping it in the process.
Do you know what it’s like to live with the knowledge that your mother died because of you? A violent shiver rakes through my body, but I won’t let it break me. I won’t let my own issues come out when I’m here to help her deal with hers.
The fucking irony. I was afraid of what the pain would do to her but never even considered what it might do to me because somewhere along the way, her pain hurt me more. It hurt me deeper because it shined light on mine. It reflected against it hiding in the dark corner, covered by my anger.
She is the one in the wheelchair, but I’m the real cripple here. I’m the disabled one.