Black Ice

by Camille Mackenzie

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I’m taking your loose ass to the doctor.”

  “No. I’m not going to the doctor. I’m not taking a Plan B pill or any pill for that matter because you say so.”

  “You little slut.” Auntie Carrie hisses stepping forward.

  “Carrie Ann!” Dean coughs.

  I take a step back and bump into Yuri. He drops Dean and quickly takes my hand in his. I feel him tug me closer to his frame as Auntie Carrie approaches, but I don’t let him tuck me away from her. I’m glad he’s here but, Hurricane Carrie is my storm to weather.

  “What Yuri and I do privately is none of your business.”

  “You are my business!” She shouts. “I send you here for training, Training that I’m paying for. I’ve put up with excuse after excuse as to why you’re too busy to handle your sponsorships. Oh, but you ain’t too busy to be screwed like a gym-rat whore in a god damn locker room.”

  Her words feel like acid to the skin. They are burning right through me and exposing my vulnerabilities. I’m beyond embarrassed to be standing in front of my coach and Yuri defending my right to have a sex life at twenty-three years old.

  “Carrie Ann I said that is enough!” Dean wheezes rubbing his chest.

  Auntie Carrie turns on him like a viper, ready to strike. “Don’t you tell me what to say to my niece. If you were doing your job this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “His job? What goes on in my private time, has nothing to do with Dean. Or you!”

  Auntie Carrie throws her hands to her hips and paces like a mad woman. She looks like she will combust in any moment. I’ve never seen her so angry. And yet, I don’t care.

  “This is my life—”

  “No! This is our life. I’ve built this life for you. You owe me. And I say you keep your god damn legs close.”

  I’m sick of being spoken to like an object instead of a human being. I step directly into her path. We stand toe to toe. I look into her hateful gaze and throw mine back at her. I’ve tried to be everything she asked me to be and I have lost myself. I’m done trying. Come hell or high water I’ll be me before I let another person chip away at what’s left of me.

  “This. Is. My. Life.” I shout. “This is my body and I will let whomever I choose into it whenever I want!”

  She slaps me so hard that I actually see stars. And it’s just like on the cartoons, floating around my head even as I feel Yuri tear me away from her, keeping me from throwing my fist back.

  “Don’t you ever touch her again.” He growls. “She doesn’t owe you a thing. Raising her doesn’t put her in your debt. She’s giving you more than you deserve. She’s an adult now.”

  “She’s a fool is what she is. Spreading her legs like her Momma did. Ruining everything our family did for her.” She looks past Yuri and shouts. “You’re just like her. An idiot! She got knocked up by a married man who didn’t give two shits about her.”

  My father was married? That tid-bit of information had been conveniently left out. Momma had never said he was married. Is that why he left us? Did he have another family more important than the one he accidently started with my mother?

  “Shut up!” Dean hollers.

  “I’ll shut up right after you tell her just how far her Daddy ran from her Dean.”

  My eyes jump to him. He looks distraught and exposed. His brown eyes are big and round almost like mine…

  “Tell her!” Auntie Carrie demands.

  Looking at him now feels like I’m seeing him for the first time. Suddenly things that never made sense before are clicking in my brain. The similarities between Kennedy and I. Dean’s closeness to Momma. Still I shake my head, unwilling to believe that all this time, he kept something so big from me.

  “Sage…I was going to tell you.” He starts.

  “Y-you can’t be.”

  Auntie Carrie looks like she’s just won some great prize by dumping all of this on me. “I am the only one who has ever meant you any good.” She gloats. “I wanted to tell you when your Momma died but he didn’t want me to.”

  She’s lying. He wouldn’t lie to me. Not about this. I fight the lump in my throat.

  “Dean?”

  He keeps his gaze low, unable to meet mine.

  “I am the only one who took you in.” Auntie Carrie continues. “Your precious Dean took one look at you and denied that you were his for the first eight years of your life.”

  “No, Sage. It’s more complicated than that.”

  Auntie Carrie scoffs. “The hell it is.”

  “Is that why Kennedy hates me so much?” I ask. “Is that why Angela hates me? Do they know?”

  “They found out a year ago.”

  A year ago. When everyone and everything felt like they had turned on me. When my world went belly up and I had no one to turn to.

  “Oh fuck.” I cry.

  It all makes sense. That’s why Angela couldn’t stand to look at me. It’s why Kennedy hates the air that I breath. I’m a walking, talking reminder of his betrayal.

  Dean reaches for me and I shove him off.

  “I-I was going to tell you.”

  “You lied to me.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s complicated.”

  “Don’t say that! People always say that when they lie.”

  I rub my wrist. I need somewhere to go, somewhere to hide. I need to get of this moment. I-I can’t breathe. My head. My heart. The entire room is spinning.

  “Sage,” I hear Yuri’s voice before I can spiral completely out of control. He’s there. My anchor. My one good thing. I turn and bury my face in his chest. I beg him frantically.

  “I want to go. Take me away. Please.”

  Yuri begins to walk me out and Dean rushes him again. He catches him off guard and sends Yuri’s shoulder crashing into the wall.

  “I said get away from her!” He demands, forcing his weight against him further. “She’s not leaving here with you.”

  “Like hell, she isn’t.” Yuri shouts.

  “You came here and disrupted everything. What have you done for her but ruin her life?”

  “You seriously want to blame me for this.” Yuri waves his hand around the room. “This is my fault.”

  “I told you to keep your hands to yourself. She’s too fragile for this shit and you didn’t listen.”

  “She’s not so fragile that a lie is better than the truth. You lied to her and you want to blame me.”

  “I was trying to protect her Yuri. I thought you understood that. Isn’t that why you haven’t told her?”

  I lift my head to Yuri. “Y-you knew about this?”

  “Sage—,”

  “Did you know about this or not?”

  He nods solemnly. “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Your father—Dean and your Aunt asked me not to .”

  “And you listened.”

  “I didn’t want to. But it wasn’t my place.”

  “No! She played you. She played you the same way she plays me and Aspen and my mom and Dean.”

  “Now you listen here,” Auntie Carrie starts.

  “Oh, shut up for one fucking second, you crazy controlling bitch!”

  That snaps her jaws firmly close for the first time in her life as I turn to face Yuri. But I can’t really look at him. The room is spinning. I pull myself out of his grasp and balance myself against the wall.

  “Sage, wait.”

  “My whole life she’s had control over everything that I have ever cared about or loved. The only good thing in my life that she didn’t have is you. And now she has that too.”

  “Little bird, I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  Dean takes my wrist. “Sweetheart he can’t be trusted. He put his hands-on Kennedy. I’m telling—,”

  “I was trying to get her out of my pants.” Yuri shifts his gaze to me. “Sage you know me. I would never intentionally hurt anyone. She was coming on to me and I was tryi
ng to get away from her.”

  I know Kennedy and trying to sleep with Yuri is exactly what she would do to get back at me. So, I believe him. Maybe that makes me a fool. It just doesn’t make it hurt less. Yuri grabs me but allows me to break free from his hold. I take a step back. I look at all of them. They’ve all hurt me in their own ways. At this point it’s hard to say who has hurt me most. I look at all of them and I don’t feel loved. I feel deceived. I feel cheated. I feel worthless. I feel alone.

  “I never want anything to do with you.” I yell at Dean, before turning to my aunt. “And you, I’m done with you. You can have it all. Take my fucking scholarships. Take skating. Take everything. But stay the hell away from me.”

  I grab my things and race up the stairs. I run so fast that everything becomes a blur. Even when I go colliding into someone at the arena’s entrance, it takes me a moment to register who it is.

  “Jesus, Sage.” Kennedy howls rubbing her shoulder. “Watch where you’re going…” her voice dies off as she takes me in for the first time. I must look as hurt as I feel because for once she doesn’t have a smart comment. She just stares at me. I launch forward and punch her in the face. She stumbles back and falls to the ground.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she screams.

  “You’re a fucking whore! That’s my problem. Stay away from, Yuri.” She tries to stand up but I shove her back down. “And you can keep Dean to yourself. I don’t want anything to do with him anymore.”

  I step over her and race out to my car. I sped out of the parking lot. I just need to get away from everyone and everything. I need to think. I need to clear my head. And I don’t know where I should go, just that I can’t stay here.

  ##

  The walls felt like they were talking to me. Telling me to just do it. Do it and let the pain be done. I laid flat on my back while the room went spinning around me. Whoever said the mini-bar wasn’t a national treasure was a liar. Those bottles may be small, but they packed a big punch. I shoved them away from me along with the empty bottle of prescription painkillers and sleep aids.

  Neither did their job. I never slept and I was in constant pain. Most of my pain was mental, that was true. But you’d think that Morphine, Tramadol and Percocet could relieve every sort of ache. You’d think at least. But it didn’t. Perhaps I was using them wrong all a long. The admonition to not take with alcohol was clearly a misprint. Because I felt fine. I felt good.

  My eyelids were heavy. I let them slip close for a moment. I was smiling although I felt numb. I must have realized that my torment was nearly over. I began to feel weightless on the mattress. I was convinced that I was floating right above my body. This was it. The way to go. Had I said goodbye to everyone? My eyelids sprung open.

  Yuri.

  I searched for my phone in the thick blanket but didn’t feel it. There wasn’t time to search accurately. I could feel my heart pounding and my stomach turning the medicine. I took the hotel phone. I knew his number like I knew his name. So, I see it through the mask of tears. The phone rings. I hold my breath. He wouldn’t recognize the number. I hoped he would pick up anyway. Sorry, I wanted to tell you goodbye before I killed myself was a terrible voicemail to leave.

  “Hello?”

  Just one word. That’s what breaks me. Everything I’ve ever felt comes crashing into me like a tidal wave. I’m caught and tossed about in my unforgiving sea of pain and regret.

  “Sage? Is that you? Why are you crying?”

  Am I speaking? My lips are moving but is there any sound coming out? And why why is the room’s creeping shadows closing in on me?

  “Where are you?!” Yuri shouted.

  “I’m going to go to sleep for a little while.”

  That’s what I told him. I’d echoed the same words Momma had said to me. Death was just like sleeping. You close your eyes and for a little while there is nothing. And right now, I crave the nothing.

  “Hold on!I’m coming!”

  He sounded so terrified. But why? Didn’t he know that he was better off? Didn’t he know that the world would be happier with one less spot of darkness in it. He’d find out soon enough and he’d thank me. Even if it took some time.

  “Don’t hang up. Stay with me, Sage!”

  “I am.” I slurred. “With you.”

  The last thing I remembered was the fall. The sensation of dropping to the floor, the phone in my hand and the distant sound of Yuri’s voice telling me to hold on.

  Chapter 23

  Yuri

  “No! Stay with me!”

  I shouted the words into the phone as I bolted down the street and hailed the first cab. Most of the athletes were staying in the same hotel. I was less than three blocks away at a bar with friends. I could get there in about five minutes if I left now. And that had to be enough, because the alternative wasn’t allowed in my mind.

  In the cab, I tossed a wad of money at the driver. I ordered him to go straight to the hotel; to make no stops. Not even for traffic lights. He raced like a skilled NASCAR driver as I attempted to get hold of the hotel manager. I was shaking. The cabby likely thought I was an addict. If he only knew that the girl I loved was overdosing alone, he could possibly understand.

  The other vehicles and pedestrians blurred by as I convinced the manager to call emergency services and unlock the room. He was hesitant to do anything on my word alone but came around when I threatened his wellbeing. If I lost her, it would be their fault. And I’d make sure that they knew it.

  At the hotel, the manager had followed me to her room. We said nothing. He must have thought that I was insane. Just trying to gain access to the room. I could see the doubt in his eyes even as one of the hotel staff joined us on the elevator. But when the door to her room opened, we found Sage lying face down in a pool of vomit. Empty pill bottles and liquor from the minifridge decorated the bed.

  My heart hammered out of my chest. I raced to her side and started shouting at the two men around me.

  “Did you call EMS?”

  The hotel manager stuttered “I-I didn’—,”

  “Call them! Call them now. You!” I yell to the shorter man with his jaw hanging opening. “I need a warm, wet washcloth.”

  He nods and they scatter about. I roll Sage’s body over. She’s still breathing but barely. I can hear how hard it is for her and my heart breaks. I lift her head out of the mess and into my lap. Her skin had paled considerably. Dark circles sat under her eyes. She hadn’t slept and I knew. Since the anniversary of her mother’s death, I’ve checked on her constantly. Six years later and Sage always got really down around this time. I’d been in Europe competing so I hadn’t seen her in months. But I believed her when she said she was fine. I trusted her.

  I started crying. Me. How many times I had I cried in my life. Twice. If that. But not like this. I had never cried like this.

  “Little bird, what did you do? What did you do?” I wept, wiping her face clean and setting her head in my lap. “Fuck. What did you do?”

  I see her arms and it’s like seeing them for first time. When had these scars gotten there? How had they gotten there? Did she do them? Had someone done this to her?

  “What the hell is going on—Jesus Christ. Sage!” Dean bolts in falling beside us.

  “W-what happened? What’s going on?”

  “She’s overdosing.” I nudge to the hotel manager. “He’s calling the paramedics now.”

  Dean turns several shades whiter and looks at the man in the corner. “Did you?”

  “No, you asked me not to.”

  “Good. Good.”

  My eyes bulge forward, and I angrily turn to him. “She needs to get to the hospital.”

  “No. She’s fine.”

  “Look at her. She’s dying!”

  “I am looking.” He charges. “She’s already vomited up most of what was in her system. What’s left isn’t enough to kill her.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  Dean looks
away and starts gathering the pill bottles from the bed. He starts sorting them and trying to decide how much was in each bottle based one what he finds.

  The realization hits me like a speeding train off track. “She’s done this before?”

  “You mean accidentally mix her medications with some alcohol? Yes.”

  “This looks accidental to you?!” I point to the vomit and then the liquor. I lift her arm and force him to see the damage. “Does this look accidental to you?!”

  “Yes!” he roars. “I know Sage. She wouldn’t…” he paused. The very idea inconceivable in his brain. “I’m telling you it was an accident. And if you get anyone else involved you are going to ruin her chances at tomorrows competition.

  “Fuck the competition. Look at her! I’m calling the police!”

  I reach into my pocket and Dean stops me.

  “Where did she get the Percocet?” he asked smugly.

  “I gave it to her, for her knee injury.” I retorted. “She came to my room, said she was in pain. I gave it to her.”

  “The entire bottle?”

  “Don’t. Don’t blame me for this.”

  “I’m not. But what it looks like is different.”

  “What does it look like? Tell me.”

  “You’ve had a problem with prescription drugs in the past.”

  I shake my head and scoff. He continues on and it pisses me off.

  “It looks like you gave her your drugs. Maybe told her to mix it for a better high.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “I’m trying to do what’s best for her. I always do what’s best for her. You on the other hand, I don’t think the media would say the same.”

  He’s right. Because of my struggle with prescription medication this does look bad. And even if it’s the furthest thing from the truth, the media will take it and they will ruin me and they will ruin Sage. But I don’t care. I’ll take whatever comes my way if it means she’ll live.

  “She needs help. She needs to get to a hospital.”

  “She needs a goodnight’s sleep.” He dismisses me.

  “You’re not a doctor. I don’t care if she’s done this before. She could die, here.”