One minute I am acceptable.

One minute I blend in.

And then I am flying, but not the way you’re supposed to fly in figure skating. I am plummeting toward the ice and then I am on my knees and then my butt.

The ribbon in my hair tickles my neck – the ribbon that matches the ones in my teammates’ hair, because we are in a synchro competition and I just messed it up for everyone.

There is a hand in mine all of a sudden and it is pulling and I scramble up as the person attached to it whispers, “It’s okay, you’re okay,” and we keep performing like nothing happened.

I am not hurt. But I messed up.

•••

Hair.

Blood, laced with glass.

A car seat?

I am underneath something.

I can’t breathe-

•••

Leaves. That is all that is on top of me. Things aren’t black anymore. Nothing hurts. The leaves are red and orange. I push through and through and up and up and then I see the sky. Gray and blue at the same time. Beautiful.

I push the leaves aside and see more sky underneath me.

That’s not right.

Yes it is. It isn’t sky. It’s a reflection. It is ice. I am not wearing shoes. I am wearing skates.

I stand up and go.

Waltz jumps.

I think you’re supposed to warm up before you do jumps. Something is off. It is longer than I expect. Higher than I expect.

It is a double Axel …

I can do anything. I can do triples all of a sudden.

My spin lasts one minute, two minutes, maybe an hour, maybe a lifetime – am I supposed to be able to tell time? I don’t have any sense of it.

I can do a scorpion. A Biellmann. Everything.

Something is missing and I realize that there is something I have not done yet – what’s it called, when you don’t land a jump, when a spin tips over – a fall.

If not falling, then … being perfect, right? I have heard that somewhere before … what is before? I know it is there in my head but something is stopping me from thinking about it.

The ice is clear, cursive, smooth, pure, perfect. There are no clouds. I am not cold. Breathing doesn’t hurt. I feel nothing.

I think I am perfect all of a sudden.

•••

Shadows.

The first time I see them I think I am imagining but then I am sure.

The ice used to reflect the sky. But dark things are streaking across it. Like they’re underneath almost … but they’re not fish or anything … just shadows.

Wind blows.

My hair stands still in it and that gives me goosebumps. Hair is supposed to blow in the wind, this much I remember.

All of a sudden something seems to open up on the sides of my head and something happens. What is this called? I am … I can … hearing, that’s it. Sound, music … in lots of little pieces.

The shadows are breathing.

There is a world down there.

I get on one knee and knock on the ice. Nothing answers. The world keeps going.

Ignore us. Go be perfect.

I stand and a triple Lutz happens. I am not supposed to be able to do this.

You wanted it though …

I lie down and try to see through the ice, but it is just icy enough to block out the world.

I feel something. Cold?

No, it’s the one worse than that … wet. My knees are on the ice and through it something is seeping into me. It makes me have feeling again.

I don’t know what you call this. I am just contaminated by the world down there.

I leap up to hide from it (scary, no, scared, that’s what it’s called) but the water is still on me, and for one moment, I remember what isn’t perfect. I remember what it is like not to be. I remember why I wanted triples and what happened before this, but the mental block goes up and it is all gone-

Breaths-

Heartbeats-

Human-

There is someone behind me, so I whirl around. “Ellery!” I exclaim because know this person. I reach out for a hug but they must be further away than they seem because nothing happens and then I forget what a hug is.

I have something for this person. It is the first of the month; I have to pay them – her? What are pronouns? – but my jacket isn’t on me anymore. I am wearing a dress that’s colored like the sky, and there is no check in it.

“I had your check-”

“It’s okay.”

The words strike something in me because I have heard them, just that voice, just that tone, before. Something wet comes out of my eyes but it freezes on my face and it doesn’t feel cold because I don’t feel anything.

“What about our lesson?” Lesson? What is that? What am I saying?

She shakes her head with a crying smile. “Look at you, love. You don’t need me anymore.”

The air feels … creepy. Something is wrong. Of course I need Ellery.

“Why are you here?” I remember now what fear is because I am scared for her.

“I’m not here.”

An awful sound that isn’t the music breaks through the perfect air and the ice cracks and there’s a deep blue hole and Ellery disappears.

I skate away from the hole because somehow I still know that you are supposed to stay away from things you can fall into.

Triples are effortless but every stroke feels labored now.

I stop for relief … I’m tired. I don’t fall but I sink to the ground slow like a bed sheet caught in the wind.

I see my skates up close. Blades … were always silver before. Right? These blades are white … not quite white … ivory.

The wind stops.

The music stops.

Ivory is my name.

I have a life attached to me.

I am away from something.

I am supposed to be somewhere.

I have people …

There is a snow pile. Where did that come from? There are several, in the distance. The ice was empty, I thought …

A person is underneath it.

There is blood on their face.

“Do another double Axel,” they say, labor in every word.

“I haven’t landed those yet.”

“I just saw you do one! You can do anything right now. You’re better than you’ve ever been. Go do everything and never look back.”

As I skate away I hear a faint breath. “Wait.” I stop. From the snow pile, twenty feet away now, I hear the person say, “I changed my mind.”

About what?

There is so much blood.

And then I remember that people don’t stay around forever.

I race to the pile but she is not there anymore. All that is there is a jacket. My jacket.

I changed my mind …

•••

I race back to where Ellery left. I want to follow her. I want to go back.

I can’t find the hole she disappeared into. And then I realize I am on top of it, but it has frozen over enough to hold me, only a few shades darker indigo than the rest of the ice.

I kneel on it and knock nicely. Someone will open it. They will.

The shadows don’t change.

Nobody opens it.

The music is back. I know that music. I did a … a … program to it … when I could do singles … I fell and I cried, not because it hurt but because I felt awful for messing up … one of my teammates grabbed my hand, whispered, “It’s fine,” and we kept skating … there were a lot of us, matching dresses, matching hair, shared dreams.

I remember their names.

I remember everything.

I yell for them.

At one point, I think I see the shape of a hand below the ice, like someone is trying to reach me.

Once at a competition, I got scared. I ran and hid in the bathroom to calm down. Ellery came and got me. I felt bad because she had other students competing and what if she missed them for me? “You didn’t have to come get me. I was going to come out,” I said, and she replied, “Ivory, of course you can come out of the bathroom. You can deal with fear, but if I’m right here then I can hold your hand and be here for you, and because I can, I will, so let’s go.”

Ellery would have stayed if she could. She tried. It was the ice that broke; it wasn’t her. My whole team would come and get me if they could. The reason I can see them across a sheet of ice but can’t reach them is that they can’t … nobody can come. Nobody can get to me. They are in the world with the shadows. It isn’t a strange, monstrous place, it is where I came from. In that world, I have cried tears hot enough that each one melted a small dot of ice. In that world, I have never landed a double Axel. I have tried for years, and every time I fell. I have been labeled first, second, fourth, last. And somehow I have been sure for so much of the time that all of that made me less than good enough …

I pet the ice. I whisper to it, asking it to take me back or to send someone for me. I say please. The shadows are blacker now, wrong notes have seeped into the music, but it doesn’t scare me away.

I need in. But nobody comes.

I am my last hope.

I can do giant, perfect jumps.

I have got this.

I skate away from the hole, then toward it at full speed. I kick into the air, turn the two and a half rotations I have dreamed of for so long, because if this works, it might be a while before I can do it again, and I land on the darkest blue circle of ice.

Something breaks.

Everything breaks.

Shattering ice becomes shattering glass.

A final gust of wind turns into screams.

•••

“Your team was riding back from a competition, and there was an accident. We were so scared. Three of you were in the ICU – you and Lucy and Violet. But they’re doing really well now. You were the last one we were worried about losing. And you made it.”

•••

I feel everything. All of it hurts. I hear everything; it is all beeping slowly and I want it to shut up. I stir in my bed, but the light is too bright to open my eyes, so I don’t.

Breaths-

Heartbeats-

Human-

Multiple humans-

My own sounds of life are overwhelming as if they’re new. But I am still aware of the others, there are people here again.

I hear a person sit up next to my bed. “Ivory?”

The voice is familiar.

You don’t seem yourself lately.

It doesn’t matter what I can do or what they can do. Don’t compare yourself.

You’re holding back. What are you afraid of?

Take a deep breath.

Take a step back.

There’s nothing wrong with you.

It’s okay.

I miss you-

Ivory.

Ivory.

Ivory.

There is something on my hand and I automatically flinch but it isn’t something that hurts. It’s just a squeeze getting tighter and it is from … Ellery.

“Ivory, honey, are you there?”