CHAPTER 97
Ana
THE GRAND PRIX Final is today, and I’m not checking my phone.
I’m not roaming around my room to convince myself that a quick peek won’t hurt.
I’m not pacing back and forth, hoping the outcome leads in my favor.
And I’m definitely not wishing failure upon my enemy, hoping she hurts as much as I do.
No, all of these things are unhealthy, my therapist told me. Things the old Ana found solace in, things she must let go of to be healthy again.
Reality is very straightforward, yet the mind and body, they’re very much complicated as fuck.
So when I feel my heartbeat quicken, my hands activate with jitters, and the breathing starts feeling out of reach again, I grab my phone—that’s blocked from receiving all social media notifications—zip up my sweater, grab my keys, and head for my car.
Driving several miles away from my street and up to the long strips of land on the outskirts of Lake Faerieladle, I park by the empty sidewalk before trailing along the ground that I haven’t been on since last winter.
A drop of rain falls over my cheeks, the cold relaxing every triggered nerve that comes with this day, still processing the idea of missing a competition that I’ve always attended since turning fifteen.
You have to be here.
Be present.
So I run. I run as fast as I ever have, little by little letting go, being here, erasing the weight of the skating world.
Heart thumping, mind racing free, I travel long past the pizzeria, past the coffee shops, past a whole bunch of town goers dressed in holiday clothing, while the music blasts from my AirPods, and I catch a glimpse of the Lake.
Young girls and boys ice skating on the crisp frozen ground, couples and families around them, the whole scene happy and joyful, and everything I don’t feel.
Everything I once felt.
It’s not fair.
Swaying my neck to brush off my bitter envy, I blink away a single tear, but it’s useless when two more drop, then a couple more, before realizing my entire face is wet.
The rain picks up, soaking the rest of my skin, testing if I’ll let this break me.
At this point, my feet are the only reason that I’m sprinting forward, dropping me off at a shopping center I don’t recognize.
I stride up to the coffee shop on the corner, moving toward the bench outside to catch my breath.
Sitting down, my head in my hands, I rest in the pain, going through the motions, reminding myself that all of this will pass. I didn’t need the tears that continue to flow down my cheeks to remind me that I don’t believe any of that shit. Not quite yet.
As I lift my head up slowly, I notice a face staring at me.
The infant in the arms of the lady who slides in next to me turns in my direction as her mom greets someone on the phone.
Wearing a gold dress and matching coat, the baby continues to stare, confused. Maybe by my wrinkled clothes, wet hair, pale face, or all of the above.
I’m about to get up when twinkling brown eyes squint down at me so peculiarly and tiny cheeks turn rosy, her whole face shaping into the brightest smile I think I’ve ever seen in my whole life.
It’s so joyful, so honest that it stings right into my eyes.
And somehow, somewhere in the watery burden, there’s a drop of happiness. I feel it.
You’re sad. That doesn’t make you a sad person.
A breath so comforting escapes me without even realizing it. My chest, my lungs, my mind, a clarity reaches them all.
Troy was right.
I might not know how, not quite yet, but I’m going to make this right.
_________
After rinsing my face in the coffee shop restroom, I ran back to my car and drove myself into the street I haven’t been on since the two of them left my life.
Since freshman year of college.
Just a few blocks away from my mom’s house, past our old elementary school, the Wisteria novelty shop glitters the entire block.
Rainbow Christmas lights, greeting cards, custom stationary and engraving, every inch of this store still looks like a replica of the North Pole.
And the staff is pretty much the same.
The classic jingle of the front door bell whistles as I walk in, the brunette with more facial hair than I remember flicking his gaze up at me.
He drops his pencil, and I can already feel him tease.
“Well, if it isn’t Ice Princess.”
I can’t help the smile I let out. And the eye-roll.
“We’re still doing that?” I say.
“He’s just jealous that he still can’t ice skate,” the other familiar voice says, leaping right into my arms for a hug.
“Katie,” I say, my shoulders relaxing around hers, embracing her tight before turning toward her husband Andrew and doing the same.
Katie leaves us, scrambling for her daughter—who I’ve only seen through their Christmas postcards as of yet—before returning with their three-year-old who definitely got her mom’s stunning blonde curls and her dad’s bright hazel eyes.
“Ana,” Katie says, her voice so proud, “this is our daughter Penelope.”
“Hi, I’m Ana,” I greet. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
The young girl reaches out her tiny palms, latching them onto the bottom edge of her mother’s emerald sweater dress. She moves around to hide behind her mom, darting her tiny face out to me shyly with a soft smile.
After we’ve caught up on the past five years in a matter of minutes, the two of them walk away when Penelope starts growing restless, Katie so not needing to apologize but does, mentioning how it’s past her bedtime.
“She’s growing fast,” I tell Andrew.
“It’s crazy,” he says, his brows raised high in disbelief. “And you, you’re good?” he asks. Somewhere in the question, it’s hard not to read into the words. Not when he used to know me so well.
Used to know the old me.
“I will be,” I say.
“If you need anything,” he adds, “we’re always here. I mean, we only have a shit ton of greeting cards and chocolate gold coins, but it’s something.”
I laugh. “It’s everything.”
When a few customers come pouring in, I take that as my sign to move on, remembering the rest of the trips I still need to make tonight.
“It was nice seeing you guys,” I tell him.
“Yeah, same here,” Andrew says, his voice warm. “Take care of yourself, Ana.”
A deep hug later, and approaching the exit feels like a bitter farewell, every corner of his mom’s greeting store just as vivid.
Reflective snow globes, heaps of multi-colored tinsel, the cozy scent of cocoa, it smells and feels like the life I could’ve had.
The life I gave away to her.
But I should be happy for them. I am happy for them.
Ana and Andrew, our friends used to tease us when we were little. At our four-year-long relationship in high school. At our silly situationship in middle school. At our pictures in the Wisteria yearbook Troy reminded me of a few months ago, where my face sits right between Andrew and Katie’s.
One glance back at the happy couple, my best friends from elementary school standing now alongside their bright toddler, seeing them all so content and moved on…for some strange reason, it no longer hurts.
_________
I stopped by Eloise’s house with a cake that spelled out, I’m the biggest fucking jerk on the planet, but will you please accept my apology and be my friend again even though I so don’t deserve it? Well, the cake itself didn’t quite say that but the card I got along with it did.
After that, I had to FaceTime Donya.
Who I was an even bigger jerk to.
Waiting for her to pick up, the nerves toss around in my stomach—the kind of anxiety you get while talking to a friend that you just met and hope you don’t scare off with all your weirdness—odd, when I’ve only ever felt relaxed during our calls.
She picks up, her face quickly filling the screen, and I almost pee with how stressed it makes me, unsure of where to even start.
So I immediately cut to the chase.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Donya. You were right, everything you said. I made it about me, I’ve been making everything about me lately, and I can’t believe how insensitive I’ve been to not see, to not even think about how you’ve felt trying to move up at your academy.”
“It’s alright,” she says abruptly.
“No, it’s not. I don’t want to put skating above everything else anymore. I thought if I did, I’d be happy, but I’m fucking miserable and I miss you.”
When a tear runs down her cheek, my own gets harder to contain.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeat. Even if the question feels selfish, it’s honest, and that helps me dig up the courage to ask it. “So are we still friends?”
God, please say yes.
“Best,” she says with a smile.
And I break down into a sob.
_________
Reaching the rink after hours, I slip the spare key into my jacket’s pocket as I knock against the plexiglass.
Naomi spins around, her entire face jumping in shock.
She keeps skating, and I knew going into it that apologizing to her would be the hardest because somehow this girl knows me the most, which means she also expects more.
The kind of tough love you show the ones who mean the most to you, not caring if your honesty hurts them if it will make them stronger in the end.
“Are you going to stay mad at me until the end of time?” I shout so she can hear me from off the ice.
“That depends,” she yells back, “how long would that be?”
I chuckle, her words signaling that there’s at least a chance that I haven’t lost her for good.
“I got us pepperoni pizza with artichokes and broccoli, a stupidly big pint of candy cane ice cream, and ugly Christmas sweaters that I might consider wearing if you still let me attend Winter Formal.”
I hate those fucking sweaters.
“And matching pants?” she asks, her voice testing.
I snort without warning. “Whatever. Fine.”
She rapidly skates toward me, stepping out the gate, joining me on the bleachers.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. When she stares at me, waiting for the rest, I sigh. “I shouldn’t have spoken to Eloise like that. I shouldn’t have ignored you the way I’ve been.”
“Why did you?”
There’s the tough love.
She knows I’ve been keeping shit to myself, wondering if I’m going to keep holding everything in and if I’ve changed at all.
“I’ve been, um, bullied for a while, uh,” I stutter, having never talked this openly about it, I realize.
I hate the way her eyes break seeing my mine weaken, the way I’d been hiding from her for so long to avoid that exact look.
“Mostly online,” I explain, “some in person with a few of the skaters.”
Naomi knows about the situation with Violet and her friends, but not the extent of it.
Not all the name-calling and hate that’s been thrown my way for years, except for the filtered down versions of it online.
The ones no one on the Internet ever took seriously.
By the time I’ve delved into it a bit more—explained why I thought by not sharing any of it, I was protecting her and maybe even myself, not wanting to admit that any of it was a big deal—we’ve moved to her house and are deep into the bin of her favorite holiday flavor of ice cream.
And at the very end, she simply turns to face me, licking the edge of her spoon, and says, “So whose ass are we going to kick on Monday first?”
While I laugh, she opens up her glittery mint binder as we finish the last bites of the frozen dessert and jot down the final notes for her dance that’s just around the corner.
_________
I had to cut the evening short to head back to the rink, a quarter to midnight when I realized my phone was missing, hoping it’s still on the bleachers by the time I could return.
Hurrying through the tunnel and to my seat, all the stands are empty. My nerves grow when I reach in my coat pocket for my device and uh, yeah, realize I can’t exactly call someone to find my phone when I don’t have the fucking phone with me.
In the dim walkway, only a few ceiling lights are turned on, and a guy pops out of nowhere in a mechanic’s outfit, and I flat out scream.
Like they taught you exactly not to do when running into a guy popping out of nowhere.
He strides toward me and my reflexes—and lack of any weapons—shoots an idea to my head to lift my leg and kick him hard in the groin.
And when I do, he’s close enough to recognize, and holy shit.
I just kicked the rink’s custodian, Todd, right in the penis.
When he screeches in pain, I fall to my knees, helping him, while apologizing in abandon.
“I’m so sorry,” I plead for the millionth time.
“It’s alright, Ana, here,” he says, gaining back his breath. “I found this on the bleachers.”
My chest relaxes when he hands me my phone, the wallpaper of me and my mom giving away the device’s owner.
“Thank you so much, Todd.”
“No problem, kid.”
Todd still calls all of us “kid” since he’s known most of us senior skaters since we were young teens.
“You should leave before Sylvie gets here,” he recommends as I stop to text someone.
I snap my gaze at him. “Why? I don’t usually see her here.”
“Yeah, that’s because she’s only here before the rink opens.”
The reveal chills my bones for some unknown reason.
“Why?” I ask.
“I’m not quite sure. She goes straight to Adrienne’s office, shuts her door, and leaves about half an hour before the rink opens.”
While processing this extremely bizarre piece of information about Violet’s mother and what she could possibly be doing hiding in the office of our academy’s board, Todd’s brows pull together as he dumps more details my way.
“Whatever it is, I don’t trust that lady,” he says. “Not after she broke Violet’s snow globe during Winterfest.”
What?
“Todd, what are you talking about?”
“You didn’t know?”
No. I repeat it aloud.
“After the holiday recital,” he explains, his voice heavy, “she and Sylvie were walking out of the rink while I was emptying the trash bin. Sylvie took the snow globe in Violet’s hands and she threw it onto the pavement.
The whole thing shattered. Violet started crying.
I think you girls were just 12 at the time.
Or maybe 13, something like that, she looked so small.
I tried to say something to Sylvie but she threatened to fire me and told me I’d better clean up the mess.
” His face twists like he still feels shame at the moment.
“I needed this job to keep the lights on at home. We were drowning at the time.”
“It’s not your fault—what Sylvie did,” I say, though I know from the look of regret on his face it doesn’t make the situation okay.
I know that it’s not okay.
And as I finally leave the rink, I try and convince myself that with everything Violet Dupont has done to me, to everyone, that because of all the vile words and schemes she’s continued to carry out to this day, that she somehow deserved what her mom did to her.
Then it sits with me, for deeper than I’d like, that she was just a child, and I start to feel a sliver of pain for the girl who’s done nothing but to inflict the very same on me.