Getting Back Up

Push your feet

And glide across the ice

Swish

Skate!

She was beautiful. With her white puffer jacket and pale pink angora sweater complimenting her lip gloss, my sister looked like she just stepped out of Teen magazine. I chugged along behind her on the ice, trying to keep up, but she was faster and more graceful. One long swan-like glide across the frozen pond was worth at least four of my short, choppy strides. But this was nothing new. I’d never been the one who could make movement look elegant and effortless. But Jessica had always tried to help. She taught me how to ride a bike after one harrowing experience where I almost ended up in the back of a trash truck caused our father to give up. After a brief interlude of ridicule from the neighborhood kids, she took it upon her herself to make sure I knew how to balance and brake on my yellow Schwinn. But that was years ago.

She wasn’t herself lately.

There on the ice, I tried to match Jessica’s pace, giving an extra flick of the toe at the end of each stroke, but was no match to her fluidity. And it didn’t look like she was going to slow down for me.

Keep Your Balance

Circle Around Twice

Swish

Skate!

“Jess, wait—” I called out to her as she traced an arc around the corner of the pond. But she didn’t even react. Her attention was on the figure that awkwardly ran down the snowbank, carrying a pair of black ice skates. Jessica’s mittened hand waved to him. Him. Her boyfriend Dustin.

I didn’t like Dustin. And it wasn’t just because he took my sister away from me, both physically and emotionally, like Jessica thought. Jessica believed that I was simply jealous, which was true, but I’d always been jealous of her. This was different. This was a feeling I couldn’t articulate but knew was real.

Watching Dustin make his way out to Jessica and embrace her, I decided to go home. There wasn’t a place for me in this picture. I skated off to the side of the pond and then shuffled through the snow to the dead tree that we used as a makeshift bench. I sat down on the knotted branch. My nose ran in the cold as I unlaced and removed my skates, tugging and pushing them off at the heel and the toe. That’s when I heard the high notes of Jessica’s voice. I looked up and watched her spin around to skate away from him. She’d only made it two short steps when Dustin grabbed her arm and wrenched her back.

“Stop…please…” she said, escaping his grip again. This time she got in a few rushed glides across a corrugated patch of ice as Dustin stood watching her, his jaw clenched.

When she came into focus, halfway back to the dead tree, I could see that she was crying. Noticing that I was watching her, she ran the back of her mitten across her face and smiled—I don’t know if it was more for my sake or for hers. I see it in my memory like the frozen frame of a film strip. Then everything accelerates. He is a blur on the ice, crashing into her. She is knocked into the air and lands with a violent, awful crack on her hands and knees.

“Oopsy Daisy,” Dustin said, his voice cruel and hard.

“Jessica,” I screamed, sliding on the ice in my wool socks.

Dustin, only then aware that he had an audience, circled back around to Jessica as she went from her hands and knees to a sitting position. “Oh my God…Jess…are you okay?” he asked, feigning concern.

I slid the last yard on my butt to get to her. She raised her head to look at me. Her eyes were a blend of emotions that I couldn’t name at the time.

“She’s fine, Libby,” Dustin said. “Right, Jess? Come on, get up.” His bare hand gripped her mittened one, as he heaved her back up to her feet. She stood stiffly, disembodied, for a few seconds.

Animation returned to her face as she looked first to him, then to me. She laughed in a way that I didn’t recognize. “Yeah…I’m okay…just must have caught a toe.”

“But I saw him…”

“No,” she said over me, a syllable spoken too harsh and too loud. Then, softer, “Dustin was just playing around…I’m fine, see?” She did a quick spin, her knees straight. “Go home, dork.”

“But…”

She slipped away holding on to Dustin’s hand. I stood on the ice in my socks. She turned to look at me one last time. I wanted to call out to her but didn’t. The sun was behind a cloud. The afternoon had turned pale.

If you take a fall

It’s no reason to bawl

Stand up tall and get back on the ice

Swish

Skate!