I slowly rise from the dead and rub the sleep from my eyes. I squint at my father. He is serious as he looks me over, eyeing my clothes from the day before. Mascara is raccooned underneath my eyes, I’m sure. My vodka-laced sweat permeating the air is not helping either.
I used to be more embarrassed for my dad to see me like this. Now, I barely feel anything at all. I shove all those feelings of guilt and shame way deep down where they can’t bother me.
I spent four months recovering from surgery and the reconstruction of my ankle joint, going diligently to physical therapy appointments, taking my prescription pain meds only as directed—only to be told by a stuffy doctor in a too-bright hospital room that I’d never be able to skate at the same level again. The mobility in my ankle was just never going to be what it was, and the Olympics were off the table. Maybe I’d skate competitively again, but who could say for sure?
That was eight months ago. What was it all even for, nearly twenty years of skating, if I wasn’t going tocompete in the Olympics? What did I spend my entire life preparing for, if not to be the very best?
The drinking had started that night.
My attention returns to my father, where he’s waiting for me to say something. Was he talking to me? If he said something, I missed it.
“I’m sorry.”Lie.“Won’t happen again.”Lie.
“Do not lie to my face in my house.” His words land like weights on the floor. I flinch. He takes a very long time to reach the point of anger, and once he does, there is no going back.
It looks like I’ve finally pushed him past his breaking point.Go, Monroe!
“I have tried so hard to be patient with you, Mo. I know the injury set you back.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I know you’ve suffered an incredible amount of loss in the last year.” It’s bewildering how he can be both furious and still gentle with me. “But this,” he gestures to the mess of Monroe that is sitting on his couch, “this cannot go on. I’m not bankrolling your alcohol and drug consumption. I’m not going to support you throwing your entire life away. You’re only twenty-one. You have so much life ahead of you, and you’re wasting it.”
I stare at him, eyes blank. “Get to the point, Dad.” It’s not like I didn’t know this was coming. Eventually, the credit card was going to be taken away from me. I’ve played with Daddy’s money long enough. All of mine from the sponsors and skating competition wins was tied up in an account I couldn’t access until I turned twenty-five.
It was meant to be my nest egg, to set me up to be able to pursue other things comfortably after I finished skating. So instead of blowing all of my money, I’dspent my dad’s. There’s not a person in the world who would feel sorry for me. They shouldn’t.
“The money stops,” he continues. “You’ll get nothing from me but a roof over your head, and barely that. You can keep the apartment, under one condition.”
I huff out a laugh. I’ve already lost my scholarship. I haven’t been to school this semester at all. His money was the only thing keeping me afloat these past months. I sure as hell wasn’t holding down a job. My trust wasn’t accessible.
“What condition?” I ask. I try to sound indifferent and annoyed, but the undercurrent of panic still comes through. He’s serious. I swallow, bracing myself. “What about my trust?” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, but I seriously doubt he’d release it to me after my recent behavior. “Can I access it now?”
He barely reacts. “No.”
Just that. No hesitation. No explanation. Just a brick wall, solid and unmoving.
I clench my jaw. “It’s my money.”
“And you’ll get it when you turn twenty-five. You haven’t shown an ounce of responsibility in the last eight months, Monroe. I love you, but I can’t trust you. You aren’t going to blow through all that money too.”
We stare at each other. A standoff.
Then he continues, “I will pay for your apartment, and you’ll work at the rink and you’ll go back to school. That’s it. No extras, no credit card.”
Oh, fuck that.
“I’m not going back to the rink.” I don’t mention that I failed out the last semester of school, so it’s possible they won’t even take me back. I swallow back the vomitthreatening to decorate the carpet in front of me, a combination of hangover and panic.
“You will. Because if you don’t,” he is somehow even more serious now, “you will be on your own. I will not aid any more in your self-destruction, Monroe Abrams.”
I don’t even know how to be on my own.
My dad isn’t going to go back on this. I sure as hell won’t be able to convince him. He’s going to pull any and all support. I could call Mom, but after my injury? I am no longer her Olympic-bound prize of a daughter. As far as Elaine Laugherty-Abrams is concerned, she doesn’t even have a daughter anymore.
“What am I doing at the rink? Skating clinics?” I used to do clinics at the rink where the Wolverines practice. It’s the same rink I skated at for the Nationals team. I was absolutely going to run into my old teammates. Andfuck,I didn’t want to get back on the ice. My worst nightmare was unfolding directly in front of me. I pinch myself but unfortunately, I am very much fully awake.
“No. You’ll be cleaning the rink, working concessions. Whatever Elsie wants you to do.”Elsie.My heart hurts when I think about Elsie Patton, the rink manager. She watched me grow up on that ice. She’s the longest-tenured employee my dad has ever had.And she’s a hardass.With my luck, I’d probably be scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush for the next year.
She’s yet another person I have let down spectacularly, but as far as surrogate mothers go, Elsie was the best. When my actual mother was busy living vicariously through me, Elsie was the one who gave a shit.
And I ruined that, too.