Chapter 22
Lake George stretched out like a mirror someone forgot to hang up on a wall.
A frozen expanse of what had once been a beautiful lake before the temperatures had dropped, its surface glassy and pale beneath a sky that was so blue it caused everything to feel too bright.
It was the kind of blue that looked fake in pictures—cloudless and endless.
The mountains surrounding it stood like ancient sentinels, their peaks dusted with snow.
Trees lined the edge of the lake; bare branches bowed under the weight of winter and its never-ending snow.
Not a bird, not a ripple, not a single sound, but the quiet groan of the ice shifting could be heard through the stillness.
There was beauty here—yes—but not the comforting kind. It was the beauty of solitude. The kind that doesn’t invite you in so much as dared you to stay. And I stayed.
When I sat down on the ground to put on my ice skates, the cold was more uncomfortable than I expected.
I wasn’t new to pain. But this was different—sharp and crystalline.
The kind of pain that crept in with the wind, and pretended to be clarity yet ended up biting at your skin.
My fingers went stiff as I laced up the skates, the material ached against my foot.
The chill gnawed at my ankles, at the thin bit of skin where my socks and pants didn’t overlap.
For a second, the absurdity of the moment had my stomach tightening.
I was sitting half frozen by the edge of a lake because I couldn’t figure out a better way to stop existing.
My breath fogged out in front of me and then drifted sideways, taken by the breeze.
When I finally looked up, I had to squint my eyes for a moment; the sun was so bright as it reflected off the sheen of the ice.
The lake spread out in front of me, wide and patient.
It was deceptively solid, but I was sure that it was beginning to thaw.
I’d done enough research to know when the water below the surface would wake up after its long winter slumber.
Not all at once—but just enough to whisper promises of hairline fractures spiderwebbing across the surface like veins under translucent skin, each one a slow exhale from beneath the ice.
The kind of thaw that didn’t scream danger, just murmured it—soft, seductive, patient.
The ache of shifting ice sounded like bones cracking after sitting too long, almost like they had grown bored.
Water moved beneath—just barely—but I could feel it, see it.
Lurking and waiting. I’d imagined this moment.
The quiet surrender; it would happen without a splash, with no scream—just the ice giving way, opening its arms, and me slipping through.
I wouldn’t fight it; I wouldn’t call out a farewell.
I would just let the cold take me whole.
I’d float down into the silence where no one could reach me. Where nothing could hurt.
The lake didn’t care about cameras. It didn’t care about followers or sponsors or the lie of forced bravery.
It only offered one thing: danger disguised as peace.
Or maybe it was the other way around. And I wanted it.
God, I wanted it. It would have been poetically beautiful here today, if I wasn’t planning on potentially dying.
I adjusted my GoPro and stepped onto the ice. The first crack sounded like a gunshot beneath my skates. Good. That meant I was doing it right.
I didn’t want easy. I didn’t want safety.
I wanted that line—that razor’s edge where life ended, and something else began.
I skated slowly, pushing forward as the wind slapped my face, and my breath curled around me in puffs of smoke.
The ice groaned in protest, low and guttural like it knew what I was planning.
For a while, it was just me and the ice.
My blades sliced into the frozen lake like I’d done this a thousand times before.
My breath came out again in more steam trailing behind me as I gathered speed.
The air bit at my cheeks, but I welcomed it.
It made everything sharper. Realer. The blades hissed across the surface, carving long silver scars into the ice.
My lungs burned from the cold; my thighs ached from the movement.
It was ironic how alive I always felt right before I tried to tease death into taking me.
There was something reckless about skating on wild ice. Not the smooth, curated kind where you rent skates at a city rink. No, this rink came with no crowds, no railings, no fees; this was just a wide, endless sheet of unpredictable terrain stretched beneath the sky. And it was perfect.
I found myself almost flying across the ice, then skating in circles, then attempting to do a figure eight, then I switched to spirals that made me laugh out loud.
Real laughter, the kind that startled me.
I twirled until I got dizzy, let my arms fly out like wings; the wind got caught in my coat as if even it wanted to lift me off the surface and hold me in its embrace.
For once, I wasn’t staging anything. I had no props, no planned storms or chaos.
It was just graceful movement with no destination.
I chased my reflection on the ice and for a heartbeat, I forgot.
I forgot I was broken. I forgot I had a list. I forgot about the ending I thought I wanted.
I was just a man skating across a half-frozen lake, grinning like an idiot, pretending I had nowhere else to be.
If this weren’t a ride to my death, I’d have admitted I was having fun.
I let myself have a few more twirls before I forced myself to focus.
Some spots were thick and solid. Others glittered with thin fractures, fissuring out like they were daring me to test them.
So I did. Each push of my skate was a question.
Will it hold? Or will it break? I’d researched the weather patterns, the depth, the risks.
I knew the weak zones, and I aimed for them anyway.
About twenty feet from the shore, I hit one.
The crack was instant, like a whip that echoed against the mountains surrounding me.
My leg plunged through the ice, and in a breath, everything changed.
The water was hell—pure arctic agony. It clawed at my skin like a thousand needles.
I screamed without realizing it. The sound reverberated around me, swallowed by the vastness of nature that didn’t care.
I didn’t move right away. At first, I couldn’t.
The cold had stolen my ability to think.
But then I realized how easy it would be to just let go.
To kick out the rest of the ice and slide the other leg in.
I’d quickly disappear beneath the surface.
I hoped I’d pass out before losing all my air.
The idea of knowing I was drowning beneath the prison of ice had my heart hammering against my ribs.
My fingers dug into the frozen surface, and my nails scratched at the ice, leaving little half-moons; evidence that I had been here.
My heart continued to slam inside of me.
I was existing between two realities—above and below.
Air and water. Wanting to live and wanting not to.
A voice in my head whispered, finally, and another, older, and louder voice pushed back, not yet.
That muscle memory of survival that hadn’t completely decayed within me, twitched.
Just like it had when I held on in the treehouse and when I had swum back to the dock with the jellyfish.
My body refused to give in without a fight. Even if that meant fighting me.
I planted my hands onto the freezing cold ice, and with every bit of strength that I had in me, I heaved, forcing my body up and out even as I stopped feeling my leg.
The water grew so cold it made my limb fall numb.
The broken edges of the ice scraped across my shin as I pulled myself out.
I almost lost my grip and slipped but at the last second I heaved again and got my leg out of the water.
Like a baby learning to move, I crawled back.
Soaking, freezing, my pants started to solidify with ice to my skin.
After what felt like a torturous eternity, I made it to the lake shore and lay flat on the ice where it was still thick and unmoving until the burning in my body dulled to a numb ache. Above me, the sky stayed blue. As if it couldn’t give two shits at what had transpired below it.
When I got back to the cabin I’d rented, I took a one-hour shower, scalding hot, as if I could rid myself of what a loser I was that I hadn’t just let go.
But that voice in the back of my head reminded me that it had to fully be an accident, or as accidental as skating out on literal thin ice could be.
If I were going to help nature along, I could just as easily stick a gun in my mouth.
I pretended that my logic made sense and that I wasn’t just skirting around the obvious, that maybe I wasn’t as brave as I thought.
Or maybe I didn’t want to die. That last thought scrambled my brain more than I cared to admit.
Begrudgingly, I sent the footage off to Carter. I was almost embarrassed to keep sending these to him. How many fucking times could one man do so many stupid things and still survive? His email pinged back almost immediately.
I laughed even as my leg throbbed. I didn’t care about my dick, but he didn’t need to know that. I just emailed back.
Despite me beating myself up, I uploaded the video. I later found that everyone in the comments was enthralled by my latest episode of stupidity. So much so that I found myself squirming at the extreme fan fair.
“The sound he made when he fell in. Someone auto tune it and tag me.”
“I swear that man’s nipples could cut glass after that.”
“Is it bad of me that I got horny watching him crawl out of the hole like that?”
“At this point I think death is ghosting him. #sad.”
“This is what bravery looks like. I said what I said.”