CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE | WHIP IT

2009 indie film starring elliot page, juliette lewis, and drew barrymore.

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          Against all odds, I didn't die.

          I thought I would, due to how violent my sobbing felt, how it threatened to shatter my ribs, how I was choking on them, but it never happened. Corinne was there, steadying me right outside the track, and that should have been comforting enough, but I could still hear everything that happened behind me.

          The bout went on without me, like everyone always told me would happen. Even though it stung, I wasn't irreplaceable, and we had talented skaters that could take my place, exactly like Marley had promised me, not to mention they were looking out for me.

          I still hated to admit that I'd gotten hooked on being a jammer, on being the one people depended on to lap the blockers and score points by completing the jams, of being needed and helpful. The instant gratification of being good at what I did for my team was highly addicting, better and stronger than any opioid, than any alcoholic beverage, and all I wanted to do was get back on the track to get my fix.

          No matter how hard I tried, Corinne wouldn't let me go. Even if she did, trying to set my left foot back on the ground proved to be one of the most painful experiences of my life, so I had to resort to pathetically standing there with my foot hovering a few inches over the floor tiles. Moments before, I had been crying from the pain, but the tears rolling down my face scorched with anger and frustration. I was supposed to be better than this, stronger than this—everyone kept telling me all I'd gone through had to make me stronger—and I didn't want this to be the end. I didn't want this to be yet another reminder of my failures.

          "You need to help me out here," Corinne told me, trying to pry my hands away from the railing surrounding the track. Besides the railing, she was the only pillar of support I had and, with me wearing skates, it was hard to keep my balance without said support. "You know I'm not opposed to dragging you by the hair to the nurse's office if that's what it comes down to, but things don't need to be that drastic. If you cooperate, you'll get that ankle checked out in no time and—"

          "I need to go back—"

          "I think maybe you should start by taking off your skates; if you don't want to walk barefoot, I can lend you my sneakers, no problem, but—"

          I shrugged off the hand she kept on my arm. "I'm going back. I'm telling Coach I'm fine and I'm taking back the lead jammer spot."

          "Don't be dense, Wren. There's no way in hell she's letting you back on the track with that ankle, and, to be frank, neither am I. Stop being so stubborn and let me help—"

          "I don't need help! I need to skate!"

          Her face hardened, dark eyes narrowed. "You know what? You're upset, so I'm going to excuse this snappy behavior and pretend you're not lashing out at me for no reason. I just wish you could tell me where that one version of you has gone, the one who kept telling me I needed to accept the help I was being given instead of pushing everyone away. I like that Wren. I still like this one, but you're really infuriating."

          I groaned, weakly falling onto a concrete bench nearby, and knew I needed to swallow this stupid pride of mine and admit defeat. She could very well pin me down to the bench to prevent me from leaving and, while that would be something I'd be interested in under different circumstances, I had no doubt in my mind she'd go to great lengths just to prove a point.

          So, instead of arguing with her, I stayed there to rest my muscles and began to untie my skates. With a small sigh, Corinne crouched in front of me to help, just so I wouldn't have to bend forward, and undid whatever was left of the knots without looking up at me.

          Warmth spilled across my chest with the gesture, so simple but with so many implications behind it, and maybe I was slightly delirious from the throbbing pain on my ankle, but it took every nerve in my body to go into short circuit so I wouldn't pull her up to kiss her.

          Once the skates were off, I didn't find the courage to look down and look at the potential wreckage. Corinne visibly winced when she looked at it over my socks, though, which was as good an indicator I needed, so the message was well registered. Don't look.

          "Is it too bad?" I tentatively asked, unsure whether I wanted to hear an honest answer or not. She grimaced, risking a look up through her lashes, and gave me a noncommittal shrug. "I'll need a verbal answer, babe."

          "It's not that bad." I scoffed. "What? It's true. If there's one thing I wouldn't lie to you about, it's the extent of an injury."

          "That suggests you'd lie."

          She scowled. "You know what I meant. It's swollen and looks a bit nasty under your sock, but I'm pretty sure it's not broken. Can you move it at all?" I reluctantly nodded. That was all the confirmation she'd be getting from me, as the mere thought of even attempting to do anything with my foot made me want to puke. "See, that's good. If all goes well, if it's just a minor strain, you won't be out of commission for too long. Four, five weeks max." She leaned forward, arms crossed over my knees, the very second my bottom lip quivered. Like she'd read my mind, she said exactly what I was worried about. "You'll probably miss the semi-finals. I'm sorry. If you don't make any unnecessary efforts, maybe you'll be able to make it to the finals. That's the best-case scenario, but you need to go see the nurse now. The longer you stay here with an untreated sprained ankle, the worse."

          I exhaled, a pathetic excuse at an attempt to take a deep breath, but it came out so shaky I was mortified with myself. I wasn't a pretty crier—Corinne was the only one I knew, really—and I hated that a simple injury, a mere sprained ankle that didn't look as bad as I thought, was bringing me to tears. My thoughts were so repetitive, so annoying, and I didn't want to bother her with them, but it wouldn't do me any good to keep them inside.

          She knew what it was like, after having gotten injured all those years prior, and there was a moment when she thought she wouldn't get to skate again. She'd been momentarily relieved, but she ended up not stopping—not voluntarily, at least—and, though she wasn't playing anymore, she'd survived.

          Jordan was the only person who'd get it, at least out of everyone I was close enough to, but I couldn't reach out to him and I wouldn't do it, not with a discharge right around the corner. I wouldn't be the one to put him under unnecessary stress when he had more important things to worry about besides a stupid injury that didn't concern him in any way.

          Certainly, the other girls from the team had gotten injured before—sprained ankles were common—but I wasn't particularly close to any of them besides Kat and Marley, and I didn't want them to think of me as a cry baby or that I wasn't strong enough to hold my own. They'd probably think I was being dramatic over the smallest possible injury one could suffer while playing and other people had gone through worse, more traumatic incidents. I was lucky I'd still get to play; I was lucky I might have a chance of being a part of the roster for the championship finals.

          Before I could even get a chance to ask for her wise advice, my parents turned the corner, joined by, surprisingly, Drew. Corinne's face paled at the sight of him, and I doubted they'd had a conversation—a real conversation, not that small-talk bullshit exes have to put themselves through—since they broke up, but now wasn't the best time for that, I thought. Even then, I was still making it all out to be about me.

          "What happened?" my father questioned. "Are you hurt? Why aren't you back on the track?"

          "Sprained ankle," Corinne rushed to explain, saving me from the embarrassment of having to relive the memories of the end of my life. She was still kneeling on the floor, but I assumed it helped her not be as visible to Drew as she would be while standing up or even sitting next to me. "I checked it, she'll be fine, but we need to get her to the nurse's office as soon as possible if we don't want it to get any worse. I can help her, but maybe it's best if I have some help—"

          "I can carry her," Drew suggested. Both my parents turned to him, while Corinne finally rose to her feet, though it didn't do much to help her assert her presence. Drew took a step back, suddenly overwhelmed by how many sets of eyes were locked in on him. "If that's okay, I mean. You can lead the way?"

          "I mean, yeah, if Wren's okay with it—"

          "Drew Sterling," I said to my parents, before the conversation could get any more awkward, and Corinne's fingers tightened the hold on my shoulder. "You've heard of him. He's the quarterback." My parents' faces lit up in recognition, while Drew threw me a confused look, wondering when they'd heard of him or why he'd even been mentioned in our household. "Drew, my parents, but I think you've already met them."

          Drew raised a small bucket of popcorn. "I left to get a refill, but . . ." He threw away the bucket. "Guess I won't be needing it anymore."

          I frowned. "I'm sorry. You can go back and watch the bout if—"

          "All good. I was here with the guys from the team because half of my team is dating half of your team, so . . ." He shrugged, in what I thought he thought was an unbothered gesture, but I saw right through him and, unfortunately, so did Corinne. She looked remorseful, as one would understandably be following the circumstances of their breakup, and I had yet to find a way to stop comparing myself to him.

          Realistically, I knew we were two completely different people and, if not even Corinne herself was trying to find any common ground besides treating her with decency, then neither should I, but it was stronger than me. They'd been together for so long, long enough for everyone to assume they'd end up getting married, and then I'd showed up and ruined everything for them—just like I'd ruined everything for the team.

          It always went back to that—my failures. I'd let the team down, I'd made a fool out of myself in front of Coach and the girls from the University of Florida, I hadn't been able to protect my brother, and I couldn't even measure up to my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend. I would never fit in with them, no matter how hard I tried, and everything I did never felt enough. In fact, I was doing too much.

          No one liked a person that did too much and too little at the same time.

          "Come on now," Drew continued, bending down so I'd have an easier time sliding an arm around his shoulders. Once I did, he quickly picked me up from the bench, bridal style, and I couldn't help but think about how simultaneously inappropriate and ironic all of this was. It should have been Corinne, not me, but even she was finding this entertaining, lips trembling with laughter in spite of the seriousness of the situation—my inner torturous monologue included. "I promise I won't drop you."

          "You're very tall," I stupidly commented. Even with both my arms tightly secured around him, I didn't dare, once again, to look down at the ground beneath me—and the distance that separated me from it. "I've never been this high before."

          "I sure hope you've never been high to any degree, young lady," my mother muttered, through gritted teeth, and I shot her a panicked look. Corinne cackled. "What? It was a joke. I'm capable of being very humorous, you know—"

          "Not the time, honey," my father whispered.

          My mother huffed. "I can never win around you guys, can I? It's either you're too serious and cold or now's not the time to try and lighten the mood."

          "Why don't we get going?" Corinne asked, gesturing towards the exit. Like me, she'd had enough awkward conversations to last her for the rest of the month, and the pain in my ankle was quickly becoming unbearable. Against all my better judgment, I rested my forehead on the curve of Drew's neck, a gesture far more intimate than any of us would have hoped it would be, but it was an emergency, and I was a lot more into his ex-girlfriend than I could ever be into him, with all due respect. "Let's go, gang. The nurse awaits."

          The nurse, bless her soul, had seen her fair share of sports-related injuries and my ankle wouldn't be something she wouldn't be able to fix—to the best of her ability, obviously. There were no miracles, but things would look up. In the end, I would be okay.

          My ankle was, indeed, sprained, not broken, like Corinne had said. It seemed to be a minor sprain, too, and, though it wasn't harmless, it could have been a lot worse. I couldn't walk on it, running the risk of worsening the injury, and had to wear an ankle brace, which was the least of my problems; I had to walk on crutches for as long as my ankle hurt, until I could walk without them, and my coordination (or lack thereof) wasn't keen on the idea.

          "You'll need to ice it for fifteen to twenty minutes every two or three hours while you're awake, at least for a couple of days," she continued, fixing the ice pack covering my ankle, while I leaned back against the pillows on the bed. "Keep it elevated so it helps reduce the swelling. The ankle brace will help with that, too. I can lend you a pair of crutches if you need them."

          "Will I get to skate again?" I tentatively asked. My parents purposefully avoided my eyes, while Corinne shifted her weight from one leg to the other. "I think I'll be needed for the finals—"

          "If you don't do anything wrong, I don't see why not. Just focus on resting."

          Resting. Right.

          After the first twenty minutes of icing my ankle, I was finally given permission to leave and go to my room. I didn't need to be carried when I had the crutches to help me walk, even though Drew had offered his services once again, but I was starting to think that accepting the offer would have been less humiliating than looking like Bambi on ice while trying to use the crutches.

          My parents made me swear on everything I held sacred that I would keep them updated throughout the week when they dropped me and Corinne off by the front door of our dorm. We'd lost Drew halfway through our journey, after he remembered he needed to stop by the library, and Corinne seemed to be more at ease around him now that it was clear there was no bad blood between the two of them. Meanwhile, I desperately needed to lie down, still lightheaded from all the physical effort from earlier and the stress around my injury, but guilt settled in as soon as I realized I was trying to run away from my own parents.

          After my heel-face turn realization during that one family therapy session, I'd been trying to put myself in my parents' shoes. Everything they had been taught by their parents, everything they believed in had been repeatedly questioned and treated as 'toxic' and 'pathological', not to mention how easy it was to walk into therapy and put the blame on one's parents without thinking about how it would affect them.

          In spite of it all, my parents were good people, they were good parents, and I knew they loved Jordan and me more than life itself. Not everyone out there got to say the same and we were lucky that we got to do so, but I hadn't been fair to them during this process. I wasn't being fair to them now, running away from them and trying to avoid them so we wouldn't have to talk about painful comparisons and how history always repeated itself.

          And still, I went inside, wracked with remorse.

          "Do you want me to stay with you?" Corinne asked, closing my door behind me. Though I appreciated the concern, she didn't need to stay; she could go back to the track and watch the rest of the bout if she didn't feel like boring herself to death.

          "You don't have to."

          "I'd like to, though."

          "Oh. Oh, okay." I vaguely gestured towards my bed. "Make yourself at home. I just need to get out of these clothes—"

          "Should I turn around?"

          I looked back at her over my shoulder. "Really? You're asking me that now? Weren't you the one telling me not to worry about a towel in the locker room not that long ago?"

          She raised an eyebrow. "Would you like me to get you out of those clothes?"

          "Very funny."

          "It was a genuine question."

          "I know what you're hinting at." She threw me a smug grin. "Tempting offer, but I'd rather just . . . lie down. I'm not feeling too well. Can you help me find things to support my foot while I change?"

          Corinne hummed and started gathering a pile of towels, tall enough to keep my foot elevated above my heart, while I struggled with the simple task of taking my clothes off. My t-shirt was the easy part, even though I was shivering now that I was no longer skating around at the speed of sound, and I didn't run into any trouble while putting on a thermal sweater, but my shorts were another story.

          With a small sigh, Corinne set the towels on my bed, then patted an empty spot on it, beckoning me to join her. I hopped towards her, feeling miserable all the while, and fell to my mattress in defeat. For such a small injury, for something that shouldn't be that serious, it was making my life so much harder than it needed to be, and it was only day one.

          "This is ridiculous," I muttered, finally tossing my shorts to a corner, and slowly pulled my leggings up, careful not to disturb the ankle brace. "I'm sorry you have to be here to witness this."

          "I wanted to help."

          "Did anyone help you when you got injured all those years ago?"

          Her face darkened. "No."

          I figured as much.

          I leaned back, trying to find a comfortable position, which was hard to do when I was so cold and had to keep my left leg over the sheets and the blankets. Corinne quickly followed, curling next to me like a cat, and, soon, her arm was loosely swung around my waist and her head rested on my shoulder. She stayed quiet for so long, breathing steadying, that I thought she'd fallen asleep within minutes.

          "Your thoughts are very loud," she murmured. "What's on your mind?"

          "I can't do anything right." I huffed, unable to stop my hands from shaking until she curled her fingers around one of my wrists. When I looked at her, finding her even in the darkness of my room, she was already looking up at me. "I feel like I'm disappointing everyone. I'm making one mistake after the other and I'm just so sick of it."

          "You're not a disappointment," she whispered. Her eyes, usually dark, were lighter and warmer now. "You got injured. It happens. No one is holding it against you."

          "Well, I am. I had one job, and I couldn't even do it right. I lost the lead jammer position in the blink of an eye and, just when I had a chance to get it back, I screwed up. If we lose—"

          "We won't."

          "But in case we do, how am I supposed to look any of them in the eye? How am I supposed to look Coach in the eye?" Her jaw was clenched tight. "It's not even just that. It hurt so much. It did. I was sitting there, going through the worst pain I'd ever felt in my entire life, terrified it was serious. I was terrified that would be the end." I raised my free hand to brush my hair away from my face, drenched in cold sweat, but not even that made her step away. "What would I even do? What would I tell my parents? What would I tell Jordan? I couldn't do that to him, especially not now. He's about to get discharged, and if I had to tell him I'd gotten injured the same way he had and—"

          "It wouldn't be the same thing. You're different people living and skating under different conditions. You didn't end your skating career."

          "But if I had—"

          "Wren, look at me." She propped herself up on an elbow, cradling my cheek with her free hand. She was so warm, so radiant, burning with the intensity of a thousand suns. "You're okay. I promise you didn't screw things up for anyone, not even for yourself. Have some faith—in the team, in my mom, in yourself. In me, when I tell you all these things, even if you don't want to hear them. I'm on your side. I've always been." I exhaled, fingers brushing timidly against her wrist bone. "We would have found a way out. You'd still have so much to chase after, so many dreams to follow; skating isn't the only thing you have. You're good at so many other things. You're smart. You're kind. You're beautiful. I just know one day you'll be out there, winning a Fields Medal. This isn't everything you are. You're so much more than just a stupid college sport."

          "Why won't you believe me when I tell you the exact same thing?"

          "Because it's different. You know it is. I'm just winging it at this point, but you had plans. You've always managed to figure things out, right?"

          "And when I don't?"

          "You don't have to have everything figured out all the time. Sometimes you'll feel lost, sometimes you won't know where to turn, but that's life. It happens. It's impossible to predict what is to come, and maybe it's better that way. It leaves room for surprises. Good surprises."

          Overwhelmed by emotion, and maybe a little bit delirious and out of it from the painkillers I'd taken, I knew I was bound to do or say something stupid, but I was way past the point of caring.

          Corinne, my Corinne.

          "I love you," I blurted out, before I could stop myself.

          She blinked. "What?"

          "I love you. This is the worst timing ever, and I hate that I'm always running my mouth, but I had to say it. You had to hear it." I gulped. Her eyes were still scanning my face, her thumb drawing small lines along my cheekbone. "I don't think you hear it enough, but you should."

          Her lips slowly stretched into a shy smile. "Ah. Well. Now you're probably wanting me to take my clothes off."

          I laughed. "I take all of it back."

          "No. Don't." She tilted her head down, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "I love you. I love you. I have to be the last one to say it. God forbid there's yet another thing you beat me at."

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