Chapter 42
aimee
Day of the Fall
Asher grabbed my hand and we skated out into the middle of the ice, smiling and waving.
His hand was warm in mine, and as we looped around to get into position, I let him bring mine up to his lips and he pressed a kiss into the back of it.
Warmth and confidence bloomed in my chest, and this time when I smiled at him, and he smiled back, his eyes shone.
The crowd cheered at the display—Brennan really understood what made spectators fawn, and that was romance.
We came to a halt in the center of the ice. Six feet separated us—not the furthest apart we’d be during this routine, but it may as well have been. It felt like miles.
Asher and I breathed in unison and went still, waiting for the music to start.
Like the song, I felt like it had been a thousand years waiting for this moment.
I pushed back my shoulders, straightened my posture, and raised my right hand in front of me, reaching for Asher—he mimicked my pose.
We stared at each other with open longing, the emotions of wanting and waiting clear in our faces, in the way we held each other’s gazes, and in the lines of our bodies.
The music started over the speakers, a piano softly queued us in and Asher and I fell into the rhythm. We circled around each other clockwise and then counterclockwise, moving closer so our fingers touched, and then pushed back from each other.
We were mirrors of each other as we looped towards opposite ends of the rink—every press of our skates, flourishes of our hands and yearning of emotions in sync.
It was a risk—to not actually be touching in tandem, but perfectly in sync on separate sides of the rink.
Brennan didn’t think the judges would dock us points—and while it wasn’t a hard rule Pairs skaters had to follow, it was sometimes enforced.
It had taken some convincing to get me to agree to a minor rule break.
A violin and guitar joined the piano as we flew, and as we came back towards the center, where we’d meet, we both took three running steps on the points of our skates before gliding into each other’s arms. We met in a spinning collision.
His arms wrapped around my waist, and we spun.
My hands were braced on his upper thigh, and I’m balanced there as we spin, my feet leaving the ice.
We spun and glided over the ice. It’s a game of cat and mouse—he chases me around the ice, catching and throwing me, spinning me out and around.
He pulled me close and pushed me away We were telling the story of waiting for years for the perfect person, of falling in love—of overcoming obstacles and somehow always finding our way back to each other.
We danced like magic, letting the music and endless hours of practice carry us. We acted out the love story Brennan choreographed.
I set up for my quad and landed it perfectly—right as the music crescendos for the second time and then fell back into Asher’s embrace.
We fell into twizzles and spins, and he chased me around again, picking up speed as we moved in complete unison.
He pulled me into a death spiral, and it’s perfect.
We painted the story, ignited the sparks, the emotion.
It was easy as breathing, we didn’t really have to act, it’s natural because it’s us.
Asher played the part of the guy who’d waited a thousand years for his true love to appear, and he had me believing every hope filled, glorious expression that crossed his face. His hands landed on my hips and just before the music rose into crescendo, he lifted and threw me.
I landed with the clash of symbols and we skated off, spinning and twirling and clinging to each other. He spun me out and caught me. We looped the rink again, and I fell into him as he dropped me into a death spiral—we had two of them in this program.
He was about to lift me—our last big skill before the end of the dance.
It was an intricate aerobatic move, another risk, but the perfect finale for this program.
The music rose as he lifted me, the piano, violin, guitar and drums building, and if we timed it right, I’d be in the air and we’d be spinning right as it peaked.
I was in the air with Asher having to lift and flip me, so that my feet pointed away from the ice. I’d come down from the lift with him flipping me back around as the song plays its last notes, and I’d slide down the length of his body, him holding me close.
We spun over the ice. The lights were bright, the end so close, the applause amplified in the rink. I was at home, Asher was with me, he had me.
Then, I felt it.
The catch in the ice.
The loss of balance.
His attempt to overcorrect.
The world was dropping out from underneath me.
We crashed.
For a moment, the world was black and there was nothing.
Then I moved.
Tears streamed.
A whimper tore from me.
The ice was freezing against all the places that it touched my body. I shifted again, and bit back a sob. My heart was beating wildly in my chest. I looked down and my knee was probably dislocated and already starting to swell—I must’ve hit it first.
Career ending.
My brain was having a hard time understand, registering what had happened. One minute we were performing, and the next…
I tried to move my wrist and cried out.
Broken.
I whimpered and felt Asher’s arms still wrapped around me. I bit back a sob of excruciating pain as I worked on shifting out of his arms.
Every part of me hurt, and he’d taken the brunt of the fall. I needed to make sure he was okay, regardless of the way my wrist and knee screamed at every slight movement.
“Asher,” I croaked.
No response. No tightening of his arms.
“Asher?”
My voice sounded muffled to my own ears, a ringing had started and my head was aching.
I could feel my racing heartbeat in every part of my body, the thudding echoing.
Something inside me was screaming, some intuitive knowing that something was terribly wrong.
I shifted more, his arms falling away from my body and I bit back the cry building in my throat.
I pushed away from him, and was vaguely aware of the hush that had fallen over the rink—the jarring dissonance of our program music playing on a loop. The lovely music sounded ominous now.
I flinched as it stopped and the only noises were my erratic pained breaths and the thundering of my heartbeat. But outside of the pain, there was something else. Something I couldn’t figure out. Something that was missing, but my head hurt and my brain wouldn’t land on it.
Asher.
I needed to check on Asher.
He was the priority.
Yes.
That’s what my brain was being fuzzy about.
That’s what I was missing.
I pressed my hand down to move myself away, and that’s when I felt the warmth over the cold. I brought my hand that had been trapped between our bodies up to my face and saw the red. My body started to shake from shock, cold, fear—I didn’t know.
Drops of red shook from my hand as I held it up in front of my face. My brain went back to being fuzzy, back to not understanding what was in front of me. Maybe someone screamed, the sound tearing from their throat in raw agony. I couldn’t be sure.
A million things were trying to piece themselves together in my head.
I could hear people calling for medical, for the EMT on standby.
Their voices were a distant echo. Then came this sudden realization that had dread forming a lead ball in the pit of my stomach.
I didn’t care about the pain in my own body, I moved, and scrambled and froze.
I couldn’t tell if my heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to escape from my chest, or if it had stopped all together. My breaths sawed in and out, ragged gasps that made me lightheaded.
Like a gory perverse halo, blood pooled behind his head. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
“Asher?” my voice didn’t even sound like my own.
It was small, shaking…quiet.
Verging on broken.
I pressed my trembling red covered hand to his cheek…nothing. I moved closer, not caring about the bright read staining the pale pink. Not caring about the physical pain.
“Asher?” My voice was ragged now, loud, and panicked.
Tears were falling in earnest. The back of my throat burned, and I just needed him to respond. I wanted him to wake up, look at me, smile, and tell me we got this. This was just a small bump, and we’d be fine.
“Asher, please,” my voice caught.
My hands moved to his chest and I shook him roughly, and the way his head lolled, I nearly threw up. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, not seeing, not sparkling—just empty. Frozen and unseeing.
“Asher,” my voice was caught between a command and a sob.
His body was limp. His limbs were slack and shifted with every shake I forced onto his body. His blood continued to empty from him—coating both of us and staining the ice. They’d have to redo the rink after this. Tears poured from my eyes. I wiped them away with the back of my blood-covered hand.
His blood.
It covered everything.
Tears kept falling.
“Asher,” I sobbed, the sound of his name garbled by snot, spit and trauma.
It was a broken word, barely audible as it kept repeating from my lips. Then the first hands touched my body. They tried to pull me away. I struggled. I didn’t care about my own pain.
I broke.
More people.
More hands.
I was gently moved.
I kept reaching for him, begged and pleaded with anyone to save him. To just save him. Arms held me against a firm chest, a hand tucking my head under a chin. Voices saying I needed to be checked out, but a different voice said I just needed to be held.
Then, I saw them touch Asher.
The world got quiet.
My pain was the loudest thing in the room.
I couldn’t really hear them over my own hysteria. The pain erupted in me, building and exploding in waves. There was one word that cut through it all.
One word that utterly shattered me.
Dead.
I swore the world stopped at that moment. Something irrevocably shattered.
The word echoed.
In my head.
In the air around us.
It settled like a heavy, wet, suffocating blanket.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
I felt it then. The world snapping back to life.
The panic. My already too fast breaths turned into pants and quickly grew worse.
Darkness edged my vision. I was not calm.
There was no calm. There could never be calm again.
I clawed at the person holding me. More hands—all over my body.
The shock of cold as I was laid flat. A face going in and out of focus over mine as the pain and panic actively stole my breath and consciousness.
On impact.
I stopped then.
Everything just stopped.
I sucked in a deep breath.
My body went rigid.
It was painless.
It tore from me. Desperate and broken. Keening. It was a terrible sound. And it echoed throughout the rink.
He’s dead.
And I was dying.
24 HOURS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
“Fractured Femur.”
Dead.
“Fractured knee.”
On Impact.
“Compression fracture in her wrist.”
It was painless.
“Whiplash.”
He’s dead.
I blinked groggily, listened to the steady beeping of the heart rate monitor. I inhaled stale oxygen that was fitted under my nose and partially listened to the doctor.
“She’ll need six to 12 months for the knee and femur with physical therapy. And at least eight weeks for the wrist.”
The voices were muffled, distant. I clicked the button for more morphine. My mother must’ve seen my eyes open. She brushed hair off my forehead and squeezed my arm in comfort. Orion and dad stood at the foot of the bed, a mix of so many emotions on their faces.
“Whiplash can be a week to four weeks. We’ll have to monitor. And there’s the issue with the slight concussion.”
My blinks became heavy, and I let the meds take me under. The world turned blissfully dark.