Thin Ice (Beyond The Boards #2)

Prologue

The average human body has almost a gallon and a half of blood. I didn’t realize how much that was until I was staring at it pooling on the roof of my car.

I watch it drip down my arm —unable to tear my eyes away— it’s just so… red. I mean, I’ve seen blood before, but not like this. No, this is a deep, hellish colour that makes me want to puke at the mere sight of it.

Broken glass scattered across the ground mixes with the blood as it drips. It looks like a video game come to life. A messed-up, gore-filled, murderous video game.

My hair dangles in my face, obscuring most of my vision. The black strands are wet, caked in more of the hot liquid pouring out of my body. I watch helplessly, fear and confusion coating my throat.

My head throbs, like I hit it on something.

That’s because you did, a voice inside me whispers.

“Please, drive slower,” Jurian says sarcastically from the passenger seat. “It’s not like we’re in a rush or anything.”

I roll my eyes, “we’re going to the beach, not racing to save the world.”

He gasps, whipping his head around to look at Ian. “Can you believe her? Absolutely no sense of urgency.”

Ian chuckles, clapping a hand on my shoulder, and I smile because I know exactly what he’s about to say. “I have to side with Sash on this one, J. The team just got there, it’s not like they’re gonna leave any time soon.”

I smirk. Jurian can’t stand it when people side with me over him, and yet it happens more frequently than not. Unfortunately for him, I’m the rational thinker, and thus I am almost always right.

My brother slumps back in his seat, crossing his arms like the toddler he is, “neither of you understands the utter importance of this day.” He runs a hand through messy black hair and sighs, “we’re seniors for fucks sake, we’ve made it through four years of gruelling school work, we deserve to celebrate a little. ”

“Or,” I laugh, “you’re just itching to see Jessie in a tiny bathing suit, running across the beach like something straight out of Baywatch.”

I still can’t understand why my brother keeps hooking up with her, she’s the snobbiest girl I’ve ever met.

Sure, she’s hot, but god, that girl is such a bitch.

Luckily, I’ve never had the displeasure of actually talking to her.

I’m like fifty percent sure she doesn’t even know Jurian has a sister, and I’d like to keep it that way.

I feel a little bad that I’m basing my view of this girl solely on things I’ve heard through the rumour-mill, but to be fair, none of them are very good.

“Just let him have this one, Sash. It’ll run its course, and by the time hockey season is over, he’ll have found someone new to obsess over,” Ian chimes in, leaning into the trunk to grab a beer.

Jurian glares over his shoulder, “you stay out of this. She’s a decent girl, I don’t know why you guys hate her so much.”

Maybe cause you only ever go to her place, and keep putting in effort for a girl who has no interest in doing the same for you… but I don’t say that out loud.

“Can you just hurry it up?” My brother asks, “please.”

I glance at him, my shoulders dipping when I see the look in his eyes. He genuinely likes this girl. Despite not fully understanding why, I have to support him. “Fine,” I sigh, pressing on the gas.

“Thank you,” he grins, grabbing my phone at the same time.

I don’t need to ask what he’s about to put on, it’s our go-to whenever we’re in the car together. Wonderland by Taylor Swift comes blasting through the speakers as Ian groans from the back seat.

Only three people know about his obsession with her; me, Ian, and Nathan. It’s a whole thing, but the only one who can actually stand to listen to it —as well as enjoy it— is me. The other two are buzzkills.

There are very few interests that Jurian and I share, but listening to her music is one of them. I can understand that she’s not for everyone, but there’s just something about her music that makes me happy.

So I scream the lyrics at the top of my lungs with my brother, allowing myself to actually enjoy the day rather than dread spending it at the beach with a bunch of people who will barely look my way.

I turn my head to sing to Jurian, but the words die on my lips when I see a truck. A truck that smashes into the passenger side of our car. Glass shatters before I feel my world flip a hundred times, and everything goes black.

“J,” I croak, “are you okay?”

There’s no response.

“J, I need you to tell me if you’re okay.” I try to turn my head, but there’s something stopping me, something in the way. “Ian, can you see Jurian?”

Ian was in the back seat, he’ll be able to tell me if Jurian is alright. I just need to know he’s okay.

But Ian doesn’t answer.

The sound of sirens grows closer, and every second that it takes them to get here is another second I worry more because I don’t know what the hell is happening.

My heart beats harder, causing the blood to pulse out of me at a faster rate. I can’t do anything but watch helplessly as the literal life bleeds out of me.

A man’s face appears in the corner of my eye, crouched on the ground and staring through the broken windshield. “She’s awake,” he calls to someone before turning back to me, “I need you to try not to move.”

“Are they okay? I just need to know if they’re alive.” I choke on the words as I say them, tears start to fall as the panic threatens to rip me apart from the inside out.

He doesn’t answer me, instead, he stands up and walks away.

This can’t be how things end. I can’t die not knowing if my brother and his best friend are okay. I can’t die because the universe has decided to curse me with being completely invisible to everyone else around me.

Please, I beg whatever gods will listen, I just need to live long enough to see my brother. I’ll do anything. Name your price.

More voices say things, talking in hushed tones, so I can’t fully hear them.

There are lots of footsteps and more emergency vehicles pulling up to help.

Eventually, the man comes back, sliding in a little further than he was before with a neck brace in hand.

“Hi sweetheart, do you think you can put this on for me? I can’t quite reach you, and we need to make sure your neck doesn’t move. ”

I sigh in relief, he didn’t leave me.

I flex my fingers towards him and grab the brace. It hurts to move, but I do my best to secure it as tightly as possible.

“That’s really good,” he tells me. “My name is Mark.”

“I’m Sasha. Can you tell me if everyone’s okay?”

“Let’s focus on you first, okay?” The smile he gives me doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and I can’t tell whether it’s because he’s too scared to tell me that there’s no one left but me, or if it’s because he thinks I’m seconds away from death.

“There’s going to be a lot of scary noises, they have to cut into the car to get you out, but you’re going to be okay. I’ll be here the whole time.”

He backs away again, and just like he said, the scary noises start. It hurts my ears, the scraping against metal, and the loud sounds from the saw sound like a death sentence.

Every second that drags on is another second reality starts to creep in. I know what’s waiting for me out there, but I have to believe that everyone somehow made it anyway.

Moments later, the driver’s side door is being ripped open, and I’m pulled through it. Paramedics instantly rush to me, Mark included.

“She’s got a pretty bad contusion on her forehead, her arm too, gonna need a couple stitches,” a girl says.

“Her left ankle looks fine, probably just sprained,” another tells Mark as he slides a cardboard brace on it.

I turn my head to look at the car, hoping to see one of the guys, but what I see is earth-shattering. The car is destroyed, bent and misshapen, completely crushed.

A couple of other paramedics pull someone out the other side. They carry the limp body around towards me, and within seconds, I feel myself go completely numb.

I can’t hear anything over my own heartbeat, my body feels foreign, and the sting from the antiseptic they’re pouring on my wounds barely registers.

It’s Ian. The only recognizable thing about him is his sandy brown hair, the rest of him is… I don’t even know how to describe it. His face isn’t a face anymore, it’s a mess of crushed bone and cartilage. Blood drips down his entire body, skin torn so badly you can see the muscle underneath.

Ian was always kind to me, he was my friend, one of the only people who put in effort to get to know me.

He was one of the only people who knew I existed.

He was always so carefree, smiling and laughing like nothing could get to him.

I fucking killed him.

I watch as they walk past me with his broken body, staring even though I don’t want to. The two paramedics look like they want to puke, neither of them dares to look down at him because they know if they do, they’ll fall apart.

“Poor kid,” the female who’s wrapping a bandage around my head mumbles under her breath.

“His name is Ian,” I tell her, voice void of emotion. She nods, but doesn’t say anything else.

My gaze drifts around the scene, watching people run around and call orders to one another, when I catch three people standing over a body across the road.

The jeans, the black hair, the Eastwood hockey hoodie… Jurian.

I sit up, pushing Mark away from me in the process and try to stand. “What are they doing?” I ask.

They’re walking away from him.

“Sasha, you need to lie back down. We don’t know the extent of your injuries, you could-“

“Why aren’t they doing anything?” I cut him off. Panic grips me, and the need to run to him crawls under my skin, “m- make them do something. Please.”

No one says anything, they just hold onto my arms, trying to force me back to the ground. I don’t look at any of them. “Please, you have to make them do something. They can’t just leave him there, he’s hurt.”

“Honey.“ The female paramedic grabs my wrist, and I finally turn towards her. She wasn’t even over there, she has no idea if he’s alive or not… but the look in her eyes, it’s like a stab in the chest.

“No, they have to save him. That’s my brother, they can’t just stop. They have to do something.”

They try to fight me, hold me down, but I win.

“You can’t just walk away from him, you have to try!

” I scream at the backs of the paramedics walking away.

My left ankle throbs with pain as I sprint towards my brother.

People yell at me to stop, but I can’t stop. He’s my other half, my twin, my person.

My shins scrape against the pavement as I slide across it and grab Jurian’s hand. He’s still warm, but there’s no life in the grey-blue eyes that used to light up when he looked at me.

His hair falls messily around his face. I tried to convince him to cut it for so long, and now all I want is to see him run his fingers through it like he always did.

I want to hear him laugh and tell me that everything’s going to be fine.

I want him to poke fun at me. I want him to give me a hug and take me home.

Glass sticks out of his neck, dark red blood sitting still around him like his heart has stopped beating.

That’s because it has, the voice whispers again.

I killed both of them.

Whatever god answered my prayers has a sick sense of humour. I lived to see my brother… but we both know that’s not what I meant.

Everything hurts.

I feel like my heart’s been ripped out of my chest, like there’s a part of my soul missing.

My parents walk in front of me, heads down and holding onto each other for comfort. My mother’s black dress blows slightly in the wind, but she does nothing to fix it. My father, on the other hand, runs his fingers through his hair, the same way Jurian does— did.

The same way Jurian did.

He looks over his shoulder, greyish blue eyes staring into mine, and for a second, he’s Jurian. I blink, and he fades back into himself.

My father’s eyes drift to the bandages on my forehead, staring at them for a second before making eye contact again and quickly looking away, probably seeing just as much of my brother in me as I do in him.

We can’t escape it, we all look too much alike to look at one another anymore, and when we do…

it’s no longer than a second, anything more hurts too much.

It’s just the three of us here. No wake, no service, nothing. My parents didn’t want to make a spectacle of my brother’s death, they wanted to get it over with.

We all saw it at my grandparents’ funerals, the way people would come and make it all about themselves, or even worse, pretend to know them better than they did.

Jurian deserves better than that.

There are so many people who loved him, so many people who would want to say goodbye, but today is just for us. Everyone else will get their chance at the memorial game this Friday.

Nathan swore up and down that he wouldn’t resent me when I told him he couldn’t come, but part of me knows that he will. Even if it’s deep, deep down.

My mother holds her hand out to my father, gripping him tightly as they lower my brother into the ground.

Neither of them reaches for me.

So I hold onto myself, forcing back the tears because I don’t deserve to cry. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.

The funeral lady hands all of us flowers, allowing one final moment before they cover him up for good. I stare down at it as my parents say they’re goodbyes, inspecting the pretty white petals. They’re silky and smooth, the picture of perfection… Jurian would hate them.

He loves— loved the imperfections in life. Flowers with wonky petals and broken stems, when people’s smiles weren’t perfect but genuine, books that were cracked and browned from being read too many times. He thought imperfections were beautiful.

Maybe that’s why he loved me so much.

I step forward when my parents back away. Tears roll down their cheeks, unashamed of their grief. My hands shake as I bend down and throw the flower onto his casket, “you and me until the end,” I whisper.

His voice fills my head, almost like he’s by my side, ‘the end is you and me.’

What a load of bullshit.