Edge of Breaking: On Thin Ice

Catalina's POV My blade hit the ice, and the sound was wrong. The ice should not have been there. The Zamboni broke down at noon, because someone forgot to lock the east door, and now water had frozen from the hockey rink into ours. The ice was thicker and rougher on that side. My blade caught on a ridge, my ankle twisted, and I hit the ground hard. I felt my hip and elbow hurt. I lay there for a second and stared at the lights on the ceiling. I thought about how many times I had fallen in my life. There were too many to count. But every fall still felt like the first one. I pushed myself up. My hands were shaking, but not from the cold. My arms shook under my weight. I had to try twice before I got my knees under me. The ice was cold through my tights, and I could feel wetness spreading where my elbow had began to bleed. "You are bleeding," a voice said. I turned my head and a boy was standing at the edge of the rink. He was tall, his shoulders were wide, and he wore a hockey jersey that said CASTILLO across the back. His arms were crossed over his chest, his jaw was tight, and his eyes were moving over my body like he was looking for more blood. "I am fine," I said. "You are lying," he said. I stood up. My hip hurt, but I did not let my face change. I learned a long time ago that showing pain was the same as showing weakness. Diego taught me that, Coach Holcomb always reminded me of it, and the ice sealed it like a deal. If I cried out, Diego would call me weak. If I limped, he would make me run laps until I collapsed. If I showed even a flicker of pain, he would find a way to use it against me. So I learned to be still, to be silent, and I learned to get up like nothing had happened. "I do not know you," I said. "Sebastian Castillo," he said. "I play hockey, and we share this building now. Someone should have told you." No one told me anything. No one ever did. I looked at the ice beneath my feet, and I looked at the hockey nets stacked against the far wall, and I put it together in my head. The Zamboni breaking, the door left open, and the ice spreading from their rink into ours. This was not my territory anymore. It was ours. I did not know how to feel about that. The hockey players were loud, rough and they took up space like they owned it. But this one was different. This one was quiet, and he had seen me fall. "No one told me," I said. "No one tells anyone anything around here," he said, and he stepped onto the ice. His skates made a different sound than mine. It was heavier and louder. I took a step back. My hip hurt so bad that I almost gasped, but I bit the inside of my cheek and swallowed the sound. "What do you want?" I asked. He stopped a few feet away from me and tilted his head. He looked at me the way you look at a wild animal you do not want to scare away. "I want to know if you can walk," he said. "I can walk." I said with confidence. "Then walk." he folded his arms across his chest, and kept looking at me. I did not move. I stood there on the bad ice with the bad light and the bad feeling in my chest. I stared at him, and he stared back at me. But neither of us spoke. The silence was heavy, but it was not mean or uncomfortable. It was waiting. "Why do you care?" I asked. His face did not change, but something in his eyes softened. Just a little and just enough for me to notice. "Because I saw you fall," he said, "and you did not make a sound, and that is not normal. That is someone who learned to be quiet when they are hurt. And I do not like what that says about the people you train with." My throat got tight and I did not know why. I did not know this boy and I did not owe him anything. But his words landed somewhere deep in my chest, somewhere I had locked shut a long time ago, and I could feel the lock rattling. I thought about Diego. The way his fingers dug into my arm when he was angry, the way he smiled at cameras and whispered poison in my ear, and the way he grabbed my wrist last week and twisted until I said yes to a routine I hated. I thought about the bruises on my ribs that no one ever asked or knew about. I remembered the way he laughed when I flinched, and how he always knew where I was, like he was watching me even when I could not see him. The lock in my chest rattled again, and I pushed it down harder. I wanted to tell this stranger everything, but I did not, because that would be stupid and dangerous. That would be the first step down a road I promised myself I would never walk again. "I am fine," I said again. My voice was harder and colder this time. He nodded slowly and stepped back. He gave me space. "Okay," he said. "But the ice is bad here. Skate on the other side until they fix the door. And if you fall again, do not get up so fast. Stay down for a second, and let your body tell you if something is broken." "I know my own body," I said. "Do you?" he asked. The question hit me like a slap. But I did not have an answer. He did not wait for me to speak. He just turned around, skated toward the door, and his blades cut through the bad ice like it was nothing. Like the ridges and the roughness did not matter to him at all. I watched him go. My hip was throbbing and my elbow was bleeding through my sleeve. My chest felt strange. Not the bad kind, just strange. Like something had woken up inside me that had been asleep for a very long time. I looked down at my hands. They were still shaking. I thought about what he said. Stay down for a second and let your body tell you what is broken. But over the years, I learned the opposite. I learned to get up before anyone noticed I fell. I learned to smile through the pain, and I learned to be small, quiet and easy to carry. That was how you survived, how you kept your spot, and that was how you stayed good enough. I skated to the other side of the rink. The ice was smoother there and I started my routine again from the beginning. My hip hurt with every push and my elbow left small red drops on the white surface. But I could not stop thinking about his eyes. The way they looked at me like I was a person, and like my pain mattered. Sebastian Castillo. I did not even know his name ten minutes ago. But now it was stuck in my head, along with the way he looked at me and the way he said "you are lying" like he actually cared whether I told the truth. No one had cared or looked at me like that in years. I thought about what it would be like to have someone who looked at me like that every day. Someone who saw the real me and did not look away. But that was a dream, and dreams did not pay for surgery or keep Diego's hands off my body. So I pushed the thought away and focused on the ice. I finished my routine and stepped off the ice. I pressed my hand against my bleeding elbow and walked toward the locker room. That was when I saw him. Diego. He was standing in the shadows by the door, and his phone was in his hand. He raised it, and the camera flash went off. That was when I understood, that he had been watching the whole time.