Jenna doesn’t buy it based on the way a crease is forming between her eyebrows.
“Cancel everything after ten o’clock.”
Sitting at my desk, my head drops into my hands. Fear keeps me from listening to the second voicemail. Maybe I’ll listen to it after work so I can stay in work mode. Or at least try to.
After my only patient, I grab a bag from a closet and sling it over my shoulder, and I can’t get out of the office fast enough. I need the cold. I need to sweat while freezing. “Did you move all the appointments?” I ask.
“All done. You can count on me boss.” Then she glances at my bag, noticing the contents. Half of a skate and gloves sticking out. “You know if your clients, especially Parker, find out you’re canceling on him to go ice skating, you’ll lose their trust. Or be offended at a minimum.”
I grind my teeth together. “Mr. O’Ryan will survive.”
Jenna grins. “I don’t know. Football players are fragile.”
He’s hanging on by a thread, but how can I help any of them when I can’t concentrate.
When I don’t respond, Jenna continues, “It’s funny how you’re calling him Mr. O’Ryan. You don’t call any of your patients by their last name.”
Again, I don’t answer, instead I leave before she sees my hands shaking. Space. I need space between Parker and me. Between whoever is calling me.
The moment I step inside the rink my chest loosens. Abite of frozen air settles deep in my lungs. The rink smells the same as the last time I was here, three weeks ago—cold metal, Zamboni oil.
There are a few people on the ice. A young girl, a boy and an instructor. I sit on the bench and pull my skates from the bag. The blades gleam under the fluorescent lights. Thin and sharp.
The kid spins, her skirt fluttering through the air, balancing on the frozen water. Beautiful.
My father used to say skating was like walking on a knife’s edge.
Precision keeps you alive.
The memory slips in before I can stop it. I shove it away.
Lace the skates. Pull on my knit cap. Stand.
I push onto the ice. The first glide sends a shiver up my spine.
God, I missed this.
Push. Push. Then the familiar whisper begins beneath my blades.
For me, ice skating is like meditation. It calms me like nothing or no one else. It’s not like breathing exercises in quiet rooms. It’s the kind of calm that moves through me.
Glide.
Push.
Edge.
Turn.
Your brain can’t hold fear when your body is balancing on millimeters of steel.
I build speed around the edges as the lesson is being taught in the center. My muscles burn since it has been a while, but they haven’t forgotten.
Crossovers. Sharp arcs. Backwards edges. My muscles remember everything. My body trusts the ice. I always felt my blades run on a track, so I was always secure, safe.
On the ice, the world makes sense. Movement, control, and focus. Everything I lost.
My father used to stand at the rink boards yelling instructions in three languages.