A Fine Line

about 4,620 words

Brett

I watched from the seats above the rink as Stacy skated, my pencil frozen in the air above my sketch pad. It was amazing the way she made it look so easy. Her limbs were long, thin and graceful. They were deceiving. She was three times stronger than she looked. Wisps of her thick brown hair were escaping her elaborate braids and falling gently around her face. When she was on the ice it was like watching magic unfold. As she did a scratch spin, her image blurred before me. I’d seen her land her first triple axel the day before and everyone was so excited about it I thought I’d never get her to myself again. Actually, I hadn’t gotten a moment alone with her since.

It was the end of summer and we would both be competing soon. It would be regionals first in October and then sectionals in November. If I was lucky, really lucky, I might make it to Nationals in January, but we all knew that Stacey would be going on to the World Championships in March. There was only one question really. Would Stacey be performing the triple axel when she went? If she landed it, she would be the third female ever to land it in a competition.

Doug dropped his skating bag beside me and stretched out in the seat to my right. Doug is an annoying slouch who has no respect for skating. He’s also one hell of a skater.

“You watching my partner again?” He was referring to Stacy who happened to be partnered with him for couples this year.

“No, I’m watching my girlfriend,” I replied, stashing the sketch pad I’d been doodling on away in my bag, “not that it’s any of your business.” Doug and I barely got along. I think it’s because I still remember the way he used to trip me on the ice back when we were both 6. He doesn’t seem to remember, but that’s just another example of how thoughtless and forgetful he is.

“Still pissed at me? Look, I said I was sorry for being late to practice last weekend. Stacy is over it, why aren’t you?”

“I’m not bothering to answer that, but don’t worry, you’ll forget you even asked in a minute or two.” I stood up, threw my bag over my shoulder and moved a bit closer to the ice. I’d missed part of her routine because he’d decided to bug me. I had never figured out why he kept trying to talk to me. It was almost like he wanted to be friends or something.

As I watched, Stacy flew into the air and landed a double axel. Unfortunately it was supposed to be her triple. I listened as our coach encouraged her to try again then watched as she tried and tried to land the triple she’d accomplished so beautifully the day before. Finally he let it go.

“Doug get down here. I want to see your routine for singles again,” Coach called. Stacy skated over to the edge, her cheeks red and her eyes a bit puffy. Her face was normally a pale ivory. We’d spent most of our summer inside, practicing, so neither of us had a tan this year.

“Were you crying?” I was right at the edge of the seating now, stretching my hand down to touch hers. “Stacy, it’s no big deal. You got it once, you’ll do it again. Every jump takes time. You can’t expect to know it perfectly already.” She looked up at me with her soft grey eyes. They were beautiful, although not as much with the white around them turned pink.

“I don’t expect it to be perfect, I just,” the rest of what she said was so soft I didn’t hear it. I didn’t want to make her repeat it when she was so upset, so I invited her up to sit with me until she needed to work on her partner routine.

Stacy

I’d fooled everyone into thinking I could do a triple axel but I couldn’t. It had been luck, or a mistake, but in the wrong direction. I had them all fooled, even Brett. He thought I loved him. He thought I’d go to the World Championships. He thought I was perfect. It was all a lie.

I dated Brett because he loved me and that made me feel special. I would never go to the World Championships because I was weak and frail. I was so far from perfect that I was the definition of flawed. There was nothing right or good about me.

It was midnight when I decided to end it all. I didn’t want to disappoint everyone. Soon they were going to find out. When competitions came, this time I would fail. I would fail faster than ever before. At eight o’clock I woke up still alive. The sleeping pills I’d taken hadn’t killed me, but I felt groggy and I was late to school.

All day long I yawned and stared blankly at my teachers until I was finally able to leave for the rink. Brett was already there with his sketch pad. He waved as I entered and I smiled and waved back. Good news, he didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about me. Unfortunately I noticed. I’d lost both my breakfast and my lunch. Overall I was lightheaded, and I felt like my head and my body weren’t actually connected. Actually, maybe it was my soul that wasn’t connected. It was floating above me and could detach at any moment.

I actually liked that idea. I wanted my soul to float away, far away, to a land that is anywhere but here.

“Stacy,” Coach eyed me, then raised his eyebrows, “are you sure you’re up to this?” I didn’t understand why he bothered to ask, as if I had a choice in the matter or something. There was no choice. At first it was just my mother who wanted me to skate but now it was everyone. Everyone was depending on Stacy to do it, to make it to the top, to be the very best. That was my purpose.

I looked to the seating area again. Brett was sketching now, his black hair falling in a curtain over his forehead as he concentrated on his paper. He was truly talented, and he had options. He could be anything. His grades were good, his art amazing and he could skate too. I didn’t want to date him. I wanted to be him.

My eyes drifted to the upper entrance where Doug stood. He was watching Brett too. That was the other thing Brett had that I could never get. Every day Doug tried to get his attention. Doug didn’t like me. He could see that I wasn’t the special one. He saw through whatever it was that fooled everyone else. Doug knew who was perfect and who wasn’t and he wanted the real thing. That was my one victory. I couldn’t have Doug, but so long as I continued to exist he didn’t have a chance with Brett. That made me feel good and rotten at the same time.

“Are you paying any attention to me at all?” It was Coach. I wasn’t sure what all he’d said.

“I’m fine,” I told him, hoping it would be good enough.

“Fine, then warm up.” I moved onto the ice and began to warm up. Today I would land the triple axel again. If I didn’t I would never hear the end of it until I really did kill myself. With the number of times I’d tried I wasn’t sure why I was still alive and well at 16. I eased into my routine, but I found myself making silly mistakes, things I hadn’t done in years. Coach was yelling something as I moved into the jump, but there was a roar in my ears and it was difficult to hear. At any rate I was sure he was complaining about one of my mistakes. I threw myself into the air to turn once, twice, three times I wasn’t done but I was landing. Why was I landing? I still had half a turn to go.

There was a pop and a crack, and I was on the ice, my right leg sticking out at an awkward angle. People were coming at me from all sides, Coach, Brett, Caroline, Jenny, even Doug. It took me a moment to realize what was going on. My leg, it was completely wrong. It was not in the right position at all. It was over. I was finally free and in becoming free I’d also become completely useless. Hot tears fell from my eyes and a searing pain suddenly reached me. The pain was everywhere, in my body, my leg but deepest of all was the pain in my heart. I fell back like a broken doll.

Doug

If I’d paid more attention to Stacy that day I’d have noticed that she was in trouble. She’d come to practice like that a few times before. When the Doctor told Coach about the sleeping pills she must have taken the night before I wasn’t surprised. Brett was surprised. Brett was falling apart. I’d never seen him cry so much before. Even back when we were kids and I used to pick on him he hadn’t cried like this. It was like he hadn’t even known she was suicidal. How could he not know that? I sat down next to him in the waiting room.

“She’ll be okay,” I told him.

“What do you care?” It was the same as usual. I wish I knew why he hated me so much. All I ever tried to do was be nice to him for the last couple years. He could have at least been civil.

“Stacy’s a friend. I care.”

“I still don’t understand what you’re doing here. You aren’t even worried about her and everyone can tell.”

“I’m not here for her,” he was the most annoying person I’d ever met. No one pissed me off like he did. I couldn’t think for a moment why I liked him so much.

“Then what the hell are you here for?” He glared at me. His deep brown eyes meeting my blue ones. For some reason that made me smile. I think it’s because when he glares at me he actually pays attention to me for a moment. I tried to hide the smile but it was too late. “What are you smiling about?” His lip twitched. It only does that when he’s really annoyed. I’d watched him long enough to know. I shook my head and looked at the floor.

“She’s not happy ‘cause she’s not living. No one’s ever given her the chance to find her own way,” I told him. I wasn’t sure why I bothered to say all that. Maybe I just wanted to sit next to him a bit longer. There in the waiting room it was harder for him to get away. Sometimes the way I felt about Brett made me sick in more than one way. I felt like I was wrong to like him the way I did. I suppose a lot of people would say it was wrong. He looked away from me and I was left staring at his profile. This was the view I got of him most often.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then there’s something wrong with your relationship,” as soon as it was out I knew I shouldn’t have said it. He stood up, the tears worse than ever.

“You don’t know anything about our relationship,” he screamed at me, then he bolted from the room. I gave an apologetic look to Coach, who was waiting for Stacy’s parents and ran after him.

Brett

Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? I was worried about Stacy. Why would she take that quantity of pills? Was she having trouble sleeping? Did she forget how many she’d taken? I was avoiding the option I didn’t like. How could Doug just say something like that, casually, as if everyone knew it? She’s not happy. Of course Stacy was happy. She smiled all the time. She didn’t seem depressed. If she wasn’t happy she’d never told me.

I was running through the hospital like a complete idiot. I slowed down, looking for a way out. If I could just get some fresh air maybe I could think straight again. I saw a side door and went through it. Finally I was outside, but I was still having trouble breathing. I was on a cement sidewalk with a 3 foot brick wall around it. The sidewalk lead down the hospital to the front. I moved to the wall and leaned against it, trying to catch my breath. Doug came through the door.

His breathing was easy. It hit me that if the run through the hospital hadn’t tired him, it shouldn’t have tired me either. Why couldn’t I catch my breath? Why did he have to be here to see it.

“Leave me alone,” I was so loud that people further along the sidewalk looked back at us.

“Look, I’m sorry I said that, okay? I wasn’t trying to upset you.” Why was he apologizing? Why would he do that? I wanted someone to hate right now. I realized this with sudden certainty. I was angry, and Doug had very little to do with it, but I wanted to hurt him. I wanted someone other than me to hurt. I shook my head.

“Just leave me alone,” my voice was softer as I said it. I pulled myself onto the wall. I wanted to hurt him but there was really no reason to. I had to pull myself together. You couldn’t just go around hurting people because you felt like it. “I need to be alone.”

“I don’t think so,” his voice was calm. I hated that calm voice. No one should be calm when everything was upside down like this. Stacy was in an emergency surgery. She would live of course. It wasn’t her life that was in danger, it was her leg. Why hadn’t she stopped when the coach had yelled for her to do so? He’d seen she wasn’t ready for the jump. He’d called for her to stop. Why had she kept going? I pulled my feet onto the wall as well, curling my knees into my chest, holding them to me. Why had she taken the pills?

“You think she took those pills on purpose don’t you?” I’m not sure why I asked him. What did I care what Doug thought?

“How else would they have gotten into her?” He was standing a couple feet away from me, with his sapphire eyes resting steadily on me. Those eyes were his best feature. Everything else about him was pretty standard. He was a couple inches taller than me with broad shoulders and an obviously strong frame. Since I had a smaller frame in general I should have been the better skater. The fact that I wasn’t had always made me angry.

“Maybe she just wasn’t thinking, you know?” It sounded like I was pleading with him. What was wrong with me?

“Brett, were you listening to the doctor? She couldn’t have taken that many by mistake. Oops I took too many, is not like, half the bottle.” His voice still seemed so neutral. I stared at him.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” It bothered me. What else was there that she’d hidden from me? Doug shook his head.

“She’s done it before.”

“That’s not true!” For the first time in my life I understood why fights broke out. I wanted to hit him. I knew he had to be lying.

“Calm down, I wouldn’t lie about that. Look, it was three months ago. Remember when we were practicing the new routine for the second time and she fell? She kept making little mistakes that day. She was having an off day? It wasn’t the first time either, it had been happening on and off for like a year. You had to notice.” I’d noticed. Everyone had off days.

“So.”

“So, it wasn’t like her. I confronted her with it and she told me.” He shrugged like it was no big deal.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” I didn’t want to believe him. Why did I believe him?

“She told me not to. I tried to get her to promise she wouldn’t do it again, but…” he fell silent. It looked like he didn’t plan to finish the sentence.

“But what?” He shrugged again. What was he hiding?

“I couldn’t give her what she wanted in return.”

“What are you talking about? What did she want?” If there was something she needed why didn’t she just ask me for it? I was her boyfriend. She knew I would do anything for her. He shook his head and looked down at the ground.

“She wanted something I couldn’t give her. It wouldn’t have mattered anyhow. She’s suicidal Brett, that isn’t fixed with something as simple as what she asked for.” I had to know what it was. Maybe I could still give it to her. Maybe if she got what she’d asked him for she would be okay and the nightmare would end. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just wanted to make things right because they were so terribly wrong.

“Tell me what she wanted.” He stepped closer to me, his eyes on mine.

“Brett, you don’t want to know.”

“Tell me.”

“You won’t believe me if I do.” My eyes were starting to burn as they held his. It was like time had frozen. My breathing had regulated at some point or another but now it was caught, stuck inside me, unable to come out.

“Tell me.”

“I’ll tell you if you let me kiss you.” The breath escaped, but my heart came to a jolting stop. Had he just asked to kiss me? How could he have just asked to kiss me?

“Fine.” I’ll never know why I said that. He leaned toward me and pressed his lips against mine. It was completely different from kissing Stacy, something which I was always the one to initiate anyhow. His lips were warm and firm. My heart raced and a jolt of heat spread through me. I didn’t close my eyes, they fell closed all on their own. I didn’t lean into the kiss. He must have leaned closer to me. It wasn’t an amazing kiss at all. I don’t know why my body trembled like it did. It might have been a shiver due to the strangeness of it all. He broke away and we stared at each other. I’m not sure why I didn’t say anything. The silence stretched until he moved away again.

“She wanted me to go out with her.” I tried to digest that, but there was just too much going on in my mind. I buried my head in my knees and tried to think.

Stacy

My leg would never be the same again. I would probably be able to skate again, but never professionally and I would have to be very careful. There was a lot more to what the doctor told my parents and me but that was the important part. My mother was still crying. I just felt numb. I really was like a broken doll for all the emotion I had right now.

I felt emotions somewhere very deep inside me trying to surface. There were things like relief, joy, hate, sadness, desire, anger, but they couldn’t make it to the point where I actually felt them. I was just empty and numb. Brett tapped on my door and peered in when I didn’t say anything. He’d been visiting every day.

“How do you feel?”

“About the same.” I hadn’t been able to smile for him since the accident. He was probably worried about it.

“You’re going to be fine you know. I mean I know you can’t skate in the competitions or anything, but…” He fell silent.

“I think we should break up.” I’d been thinking about this in the hospital for a while. It was cold there and my thoughts seemed to be much clearer. I couldn’t have Doug, he couldn’t have Brett. Brett would never leave me alone so long as he thought he was with me. Right now no one could really be happy. Maybe Brett liked guys and maybe he didn’t, but who would ever know if he stayed with me? I was tired of the game I’d been playing. I was tired of pretending. He looked like a deer facing the headlights of an oncoming car.

“What?” I knew he’d heard me, so I didn’t say anything. He lowered his hand onto the metal and plastic visitor’s chair. When he spoke again, he spoke very slowly. “Does this have something to do with Doug?” I shook my head. Where had he gotten that idea?

“No, it’s about me. I don’t love you.” He shook his head. He was clenching the chair back so tightly that his knuckles were white.

“You love me, you’re just going through a hard time right now.” I shook my head.

“No, I never did, I just wanted a boyfriend.” I almost felt sad as I said it, but not quite. He released the chair and took a step closer, reaching his hand toward me. I didn’t know what he was reaching for. I was still too far away to touch.

“Stacy, don’t do this to me.” I shook my head at him. He seemed so small and weak. Why had I wanted to be like him? I was strong. That was better than weak, wasn’t it? I started to feel like Doug was stupid for wanting Brett when he could have had me.

“I don’t want to pretend anymore, Brett.” His hand dropped. He stared at me for a long time. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Then he started crying. He’d cried a lot lately. I never knew he was such a baby. He thought my injury was tragic, something to be sad about. He was more like my mother than I’d ever realized. Dealing with her was bad enough. I didn’t need him around crying for me too. I think my thoughts showed on my face, because he left in a hurry all of a sudden. It was then that I felt my first real emotion during my hospital stay. My first real emotion was relief.

Doug

Brett had been avoiding me for weeks. It wasn’t actually all that different from usual, with one exception. Stacy was no longer my partner. Now he had no reason to watch me at all. I refused to regret the kiss. It had been my first and he had said it was fine, whether he’d meant it or not.

“Doug, what are you doing with your hands out there?” Coach yelled as I finished my singles routine. I ran my hand through my half inch brown hair frowning, then shrugged. I hadn’t been paying any attention to my arms let alone my hands, so he knew better than I did what I’d been doing with them.

“We’ve got regionals in a week and he shrugs at me,” Coach complained, shaking his head and slapping his forehead. “Take a break before I kill you. When you come back I want you paying attention to everything, got it? Caroline, singles, now!” It was strange not having Stacy around. Coach had been a bit harder on us lately too. He must have missed her, she’d been his best.

As I skated to the edge of the rink I saw the oddest thing. Brett was sitting near the front, his eyes following me. I made my way over to him. He was right by my bag.

“Hi,” it was like he hadn’t been ignoring me at all.

“Hey Brett, what’s up?” I sat down and looked at him.

“I don’t know,” his voice was a bit flat, but it had a catch in it, like he’d been crying recently.

“You okay?” He shook his head. He was looking at the floor, so I had a really good view of his black hair. It fell far enough over his forehead that his eyes were hidden in shadow. It looked soft. His hair always looked soft to me.

“I don’t know. No, not really,” he looked up then and our eyes met. He has deep expressive eyes. They were sad and confused today. At least that’s how they looked to me.

“Can I help?” He shook his head again. I wasn’t surprised. He would never think I could help. I smiled a bit, glad he was talking to me.

“I’ve always hated you, you know.” I did know, I didn’t know why.

“I know that. Why do you hate me so much?”

“You were really mean to me when we first started learning. I was mad when you picked the same coach as me. Then you turned out to be a better skater than me. Coach always gives you the best partners, and you don’t even care.” What was he talking about?

“Are you nuts? I’m better at singles but not partners. You have the best partner skaters.” I really couldn’t believe he didn’t know that. Everyone else did. If anyone knew how to skate with a partner it was Brett. All the girls wanted to partner with him.

“You got Stacy,” his voice was soft, “three years in a row.”

“Stacy is not good at partner skating, Brett. She and I were left overs. Last year we took a silver at regionals by luck. We barely made it through sectionals. Brett, Stacy and I both have a lot of trouble with partner skating. Well, had,” I stopped. It was hard to accept that Stacy wouldn’t be back. His eyes were still on mine. I felt like he was looking for something but I didn’t know what it was.

“She broke up with me.” I don’t know what I looked like when he said that. It completely floored me. I thought Stacy would keep him on her string forever.

“She did?” He nodded. “Sorry, I mean, not really, but,” I stopped to gather my thoughts. “I’m sorry she hurt you.” He nodded again.

“I’m really confused about you.”

“I shouldn’t have asked for the kiss. I know, it was the wrong thing to do,” I admitted. I wasn’t sorry about it, but it had been unfair.

“I didn’t mean that. I mean that was confusing too, but, that’s not what I meant. I mean I think we should start over.” Now he had me confused.

“Start over from where?”

“From here, I want to forget about what happened when we were kids.” Was there an off chance he liked me?

“I wish you would. We haven’t been kids for a really long time.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with the kiss. I just think we could be friends maybe. I want to try being friends.” I grinned, his mind must have still been on the kiss or he wouldn’t have mentioned it. He was thinking a little too much about it for him to have hated it. I thought I might have a chance with him after all.

“Well then, let’s try it.” It looked like Stacy’s loss might just be my gain. I sat next to Brett, looking out at the ice, feeling very, very lucky.