Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

I can’t breathe.

My dad has always been my hero.

Despite the fact my lips don’t even begin to rise—no hint of a laugh threatening—I am taken aback by how quickly she got any kind of reaction out of my empty body.

But now I know better. My mother doesn’t love anyone except herself. And my father might love us, deep down, but he’ll always love his vices more.

Oliver might be bursting with anger, but Liam is wrestling with fear.

But I’ve been a caretaker my entire life, and no amount of annoyance can keep me from kneeling before him and taking his hands in mine.

Having things under control has never really been my specialty, nor has self-preservation. Feeling too much all at once until the dam bursts is much more my speed.

“Not if I see you first,” I mutter beneath my breath. A little vow to myself to steer clear of the boy with the sad eyes before I try to take his healing into my own hands.

desperate for a break to just be empty without the pressure of pretending I’m not.

I’m a hollow shell of nothingness and she’s so goddamn full.

She’s so up-front, be it with anger or teasing, so brutally honest in the face of my weakness that it settles something in me.

There’s a quiet stillness to the music—soothing and just repetitive enough to drown out the mass of older panic taking over my brain. Like the sound coming from the bud in my left ear is enough to overpower everything else. Except for the warmth of her beside me. Somehow, that’s more.

Seeing him this way hurts.

Every part of my usual numbness starts to fade away at the promise of her.

But I’m in her orbit now, and she’s becoming my goddamn center of gravity. Whether she realizes it or not.

No deal needed—if she keeps looking at me like this, I’ll do anything she says.

“Sadie’s Songs for Reece’s Sad Demon Brain,”

My heart pinches like a lingering stab wound at the thought of her in her bedroom, up all night curating songs and making art for the cover so it looked like this. For me.

“I thought maybe you could listen to it while you skate and… I don’t know. It’s stupid—” “It’s not,” I cut her off vehemently. “You made me a playlist.”

She stops there, but the unspoken words are just as loud. The look in her eyes says I wanted to help, and this is all I have and I see you.

I want to stay just like this with her forever.

That there is a girl, at least on my end, even if she’ll hold me at arm’s length forever? That’s fine; I’ll stay an arm’s distance away as long as it means she’s still near me, chasing out the shadows crowding my empty body. I know it isn’t healthy. I just don’t care.

It feels good to talk about Sadie, at least a little, but it’s another reminder that, no matter how often I think of her—of the way her gray eyes settle on me, of her music in my headphones after another nightmare, of the fantasy of her hips in my hands—Sadie is not really anything to me. I doubt she’d even call us friends. Meanwhile, I find myself desperate to be near her.

His face lights up with another bright smile that I pocket away; they’re so rare nowadays. But tonight, he’s made of them.

I’d never skate again if it meant an endless supply of nights like this for my brothers.

For a moment, while lying on Ro’s bed waiting on her, I think about trying to contact Rhys. Like something about him would make this better—which is ridiculous, considering who he is and what he’s dealing with himself. But I can’t shake the thought.

She turns every hesitancy into excitement, every anxiety back into near bliss in the way it used to be for me on this ice.

“I like anything when it comes to you,” he confesses, and my heart clenches.

You can’t help anyone. You’ll just mess them up forever.

I can’t be your savior if I’m pulling you down with me.

She looks exactly like I thought I would now. Graceful and strong, yet beautiful. Not this tired, overly emotional—even hateful—skater that I’ve become.

I hate this version of myself—the desperate, fear-driven, and hateful girl who wants everyone and everything away from her because it’s too much.

And then he smiles that same dimpled shining-star smile, and I realize… it isn’t fake; he’s just that goddamn beautiful.

Matthew Fredderic, left winger and resident pain in my ass.

Bennett is a solid presence. One I haven’t allowed myself to lean on, expecting I’d pull him down with me.

and you’re a savior, a protector—you couldn’t protect me from this.

Routines, sameness, they’re what keep Bennett alive.

She kissed me to the point that I almost felt like I wasn’t broken anymore.

Promises from Freddy are as reliable as ones from a politician,

His hand settles on my waist, slipping around to press against my lower back. “Then she can play them with me. Get the fuck out of here.”

This won’t be enough for her, and I understand it. There’s barely enough of me left to make a complete human. Why would I be able to hold her together when she’s becoming the one keeping me intact?

From her position a few steps higher than me, she’s slightly taller, so I have to look up at her. I’ve been looking up at her from every panic-induced dream I’ve had since that day on the ice, like she’s meant to be there.

A fucking guardian angel, I guess. Which is something I’ll never say out loud because I’d never live that down. Especially considering how much I crave that from her. Like she would want to save me.

Have a good night, hotshot.” I can’t help the small smile that appears. Despite everything else, I now have something of hers. “Good night, kotyonok.”

The girl can read chapter-long filthy sex scenes without a flinch, but tell her a boy thinks she’s pretty and she turns into a tomato.

Thanks, Sadie, for everything.”

Ro is my best friend, no matter my best efforts at keeping her at arm’s length. She shoved her way in freshman year, not deterred by my attitude or attempts to rid myself of her. Instead, she stuck like glue, until she was so attached I couldn’t exist without her.

I’ll do anything for her, protect her endlessly, forever. Oliver, Liam, Ro. My family.

It’s easier this way: to pretend to be who I was before that game, to be the same team player and leader who earned the C on my jersey sophomore year. It’s who I am, who I should be—just lost beneath the dark cloud insistent on following me everywhere.

His father was a silver-spoon baby with a trust fund larger than a full roster of NFL contracts, which makes it somewhat surprising that he became best friends with the Russian transplant who’d been living in a dingy apartment after turning eighteen in a boys’ home and learning to speak English from an elderly college professor who lived above him.