I’d feel it by tonight. I might not be able to walk by morning.
And still I pushed faster.
I didn’t look at the corner. Couldn’t look at the corner. My demons lurked there, waiting for me to falter. Waiting for me to succumb.
I kicked harder, my slides longer and on my heels now, as jam skating mixed with skate park moves. My momentum careened me dangerously close to the wall, but I didn’t care.
I stopped or I didn’t.
I’d break or I wouldn’t.
And if my recklessness brought me pain, I welcomed it.
The laser lights blurred, the music grew muffled, and the shouts from Mayhem’s bout crept into my head. The hungry look in her eyes. The quick shift of her gaze finding tiny gaps. Her body low, tight, and powerful as she exploded through barriers with unrelenting force beyond the physical propelling her.
The air tore from my lungs. I lunged harder, faster, memories taunting me.
Tempting me.
A memory—fuzzy at the edges—but the central scene unfolding with devastating clarity scrubbed Mayhem away and now Lana burst around a corner, heading to the outside to zip past the pack as lead jammer. One point, two points, then a third. A shoulder from out of nowhere lifting her clean off the floor, suspending her in air, before sending her sliding into the wall.
The impossible angle of her head as she took the brunt of the collision at the base of her neck.
Her still body in a heap. Gasps of onlookers filling the air.
My own whispered prayer when I didn’t even realize I knew how to pray anymore.
When I was sure because of my past sins, God had stopped listening.
Another slide, the drag of my wheels and the force of my body putting impossible pressure on my ankles. Sweat running down my forehead into my eyes.
My brother’s angry voice, the word traitor on the tip of his tongue before he slammed the door and went with our father.
Barreling across the floor again, my vision blurring, my gut squeezing bile into my throat, the screams of my sister when the police showed up at our apartment and told us our father and brother were gone.
You’re the oldest, son. It’s your job to protect them when you go.
He’s our father and you’re a traitor.
Our daughter will never walk again and it’s all your fault.
Voices filled with venom and despair reverberating through my skull snatching the thread of peace I’d struggled so hard to hold on to.
I can’t protect anyone.
“Hey, watch out!”
The crack of wood echoed through the air. My thighs burned with the force stopping my lower body dead. My upper body kept going, the benches on the other side of the wall a flash of color as I flipped over the side and landed flat on my back on an unforgiving commercial carpet, the only thing between me and the concrete underneath. My teeth rattled in my skull. A pulsating throb took root inside me as I struggled to suck air into my lungs.
“Fuckin’ A, dude. Are you okay?”
I grabbed my chest, still working on moving air. “Shit, that hurt a lot less when we were sixteen,” I gasped out.
Jackson barked out a laugh as he yanked the frame of the wall back and forth. “Everything hurt less when we were sixteen.”
I craned my neck to look up at him, grateful that I could still move it. “I’ll cover the damage. Is it bad?”
“Nah, you’re probably lucky it was already loose after some troublemakers rammed one of their buddies into it last week. Already have it scheduled to get fixed after Christmas.”
“So you’re saying the leeway softened the blow?” Because it sure as hell felt like I hit concrete before I definitely landed on concrete.
“Something like that.”
I pushed up onto my elbows and took a deep breath of commercial carpet that no longer smelled like shampoo now that I’d decided to bump and grind against it. “Doesn't feel like it.”
Jackson reached out a hand and helped hoist me up. “Dude, whatever you were outrunning, did you win?”
“I never do.”
8
“I don’t wanna roller-skate,” Leo said as he dragged his feet from the van all the way to the door of Rockabilly’s. I had to give it to the little dude, his defiance game was strong.
“You know the deal. You and Noah picked last week, now the girls get to pick this week. And they picked skating.”
I’d only said this about five times so far on the six-mile drive here. Each time I managed to keep my voice upbeat while I explained it again, Wes winked at me in the rearview. The father of three’s version of, “Stay strong, kid” thus indoctrinating me into an honorary responsible adult club where it was us against them, we were outnumbered, and the power could shift at any minute.
Two against five and if the boys had their way, they’d revolt and get all Lord of the Flies up in this shit.
Over roller skates.
Roller skates, for fuck’s sake.
But if I handed them skateboards, they’d be all over that shit. I couldn’t roll my eyes hard enough at the irony.
I probably owed Milton and Gerald thank-yous for all the involuntary training. They’d been preparing me for this day for six years.
Tonight, I’d reward myself with peppermint schnapps, a deep, warm bath, and a dark and dirty romance. The kind of book you needed to be in the mood to read if you know what I mean.
“So they picked, doesn’t mean we have to get on skates though,” Noah chimed in, his voice starting out strong and full of conviction, until he saw the look in my eye. Like a week-old balloon finally being shown mercy with a needle, his attitude deflated, his words sliding from defiance to a dull whine.
“And how fun would it have been to play laser tag if the girls sat out last week?” I asked, hoping
