Like a Power Play

by Elle Sprinkle

For those whose bodies forced them to let go of what they loved. It's still yours. You just might have to learn how to hold it in a different way.

She picks up the slip of paper and holds it between us like a peace offering, but even if I wanted to take that olive branch, I’m sure it would give me splinters. Thin, sharp irritants, digging into my skin, festering until I ripped them out with blood-stained tweezers. Worse, I think, would be if they stayed there too long. If my skin grew over them and every time I pressed down, I’d wince, knowing in this exact moment I could’ve said no but didn’t.

My stomach churns, either from the conversation or the fact that I forgot to ask for almond milk instead of whole milk, and can already feel the clock ticking down to my inevitable sprint to the bathroom.

I fucking hate that word. I hate that people think a diagnosis comes with armor. That strength is some automatic response to pain. I’m not strong. I’m just tired.

The worst part of losing the thing that made you is that the only thing you can do is marinate in its absence.

It’s easier to suffer alone than it is to know that the misery is shared by someone you care about. You don’t want to be understood. You just want to survive it.

“You’re never gonna be happy if you try to completely cut hockey out of your life. It’s like spiders. You can spray the house till the cows come home, but they’ll always find a way back in.”

So now, looking at the photo, all I feel is heaviness. The weight of the fact that everything I had, everything in reach, is gone, and there is nothing I, nor anyone else, can do to bring it back.

Maybe I am grieving, or maybe I’m just stuck in the past. I know change is inevitable, but how do you let go of the very thing that made you who you are?

She’s smaller than me, I guess, but I’ve never really noticed it before. Not until I put on her hoodie, but even then, she always seemed bigger than me. Like she took up the space around her whether she was supposed to or not.

“Nothing matters,” I answer. It’s the kind of thing I would’ve said back in middle school, the angsty, melodramatic version of myself. But it does feel true. Everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve sacrificed—it’s all gone now. So why did it matter?

“Peyton Clarke, I can’t fucking stand you!” I grin. “Darcy Cole,” I quip. “I think I can live with that.”

“And I hate that in the cabin, when you made me dance with you—” My gaze locks with hers, and suddenly I’m in the center of the rink, the ice gleaming beneath me like a vast, white sea. “I hate that you didn’t kiss me.”

Maybe she was right. Maybe I am Icarus. And she’s the sun. And oh, fuck—I’m going to burn to death.

“And if I’m not doing either of the two, I’m at some other event, showing up for everyone else, because it breaks my heart to think that anyone feels that way too. That they don’t think they deserve what they’ve earned. So… I go. To the parties, and the art shows and the study groups. Because if I can’t be on the ice, then I need to be somewhere that matters.”

“You brought me all the way here to tell me that? To make me stare at the statue of a dead guy who has an even deader son?”

Kissing her is like a power play. You know the other team has the upper hand, but you still fight like hell, because in the end, the win is that much more deserved.

I thought falling for someone was supposed to be subliminal, something you didn’t even realize was happening. I thought you weren’t supposed to understand why that ache in your chest existed, why someone you hardly knew could take up so much of your attention. But it’s not like that. In fact, it’s painfully, glaringly obvious. There is no confusion. There is no mistaking it. I am falling in love with Darcy Cole.

"I want to understand what causes flare-ups. I want to know what ‘no spoons’ means and why people tweet about it at 2 a.m. I want to know all of it—because it’s you. And no, it’s not all of you. It’s not even close. It’s the least interesting part. But if I learn this, I get more time to learn the rest."

“The thing is, this—” she gestures toward me, “—if it’s real, it doesn’t just go away. You can ignore it, but it’ll always be in the back of your mind.”

That fluttering in my chest returns, slipping right beneath my collarbone, wrapping itself around the base of my throat, tickling. I try to clear my throat, but the feeling is insistent, like it knows something’s about to change. I’ve only felt it once before. The first time I ever stepped onto the ice.

This is that moment. One of those moments in life that, no matter how much time passes, you’ll always remember, because it became a fundamental part of you.

The second she looked at me, I realized I was done for. Telling myself I couldn’t trust her was like telling a fish not to swim. Telling myself not to love her was like telling myself not to breathe.

She knows me in specifics. Not in general. Not in theory. But in the details that weave the fabric of my being. It’s not a rare way to be known. But I think it’s the most important.

Don’t make yourself smaller to make me feel better. It doesn’t make me feel better. I want you to move mountains. Break records. You can’t do that by giving up these opportunities.”