Ice Queen

Chapter 5 ~ "Get lost"

Sasha

I can't think straight, my head is overflowing with so many thoughts it's like I don't know which way is up. Why did he do all of that? Nate hasn't so much as spoken one friendly sentence to me in four years and here he is crashing my practices and wanting to be my friend again?

This much is true, I can't be friends with Nate again, it's just a bad idea. Besides what gave him the right to my friendship after the way he's been treating me? I just needed to forget about it, move on focus on my upcoming competition.

Ballet was always nice to unwind, think about anything that was on my mind. I could envision my jumps in my mind, my arms, my form. 

All too soon the class ends and I'm leaving ready to take the bus home when I stop, seeing a familiar face standing on the sidewalk.

"Hey Sash." Nate says and I nearly pass out. "I knew you still danced here."

"What are you doing here?" I ask and he furrows his eyebrows.

"I was hoping I could take you home." He says and I laugh rolling my eyes.

"And risk my life for the second time today? No thank you." I tell him crossing my arms.

"Yeah I'm still new. Let me make it up to you."

"No thanks." I tell him shaking my head.

"Sash come on I'm already here-"

"I said no Nathan." I tell him grabbing more tightly onto the straps of my bag. "I can't do this alright?"

I still remember the first day he made fun of me with everyone else. The day I walked up to him at school and he just joined in the fun. I still remember the day he never came back to practice, and didn't tell me he was leaving.

We were as close as two people could be, we were young but he was so important to me. I didn't have many friends and I was so thankful to have him. We did everything together, we shared ice time, coaches. Then one day he just vanished.

Now he pretends he doesn't know me, that I'm a second class citizen in his world. That he doesn't know the first thing about a ballet lesson or a toe loop.

"Can't accept a lift from a fr-"

"Do not say friend." I tell him pointing my finger at him. "It's great that you've had this epiphany Nathan, that you've decided you shouldn't be so awful to me. But....this is fucked up. We're not the same people we were, or at least you're not."

"I'm not?" He asks in a frustrated tone. "I'm not the one who became something they weren't. Playing hockey didn't change a single thing about me as a person. I'm the same, you've turned into a robot." He says in a disgusted voice. "You used to be so....real. So great, and now you glare at everyone like you want to watch them suffer. You're not you anymore."

"Right and what makes you think you know anything about my life?" I snap. "You don't know me anymore and I don't know you so why don't we just leave it at that." I turn and walk down the street to hop on the bus, luckily one comes along pretty fast.

I feel one tear trickle from my eye and huff wiping it away. I haven't changed, I'm still the exact same person I was. And skating is what's important to me, not Nate. This whole showing up out of nowhere thing is not going to keep happening, we're not going to become anything.

I walk home from the bus stop and try not to keep thinking about it. I needed to sleep I was exhausted, early morning and a ballet practice. I'm wiped out.

Dad wasn't home yet thank god. He'd yell at me for a while, we'd talk about my routines and my practicing. I wasn't in the mood for it anymore.

Instead I start to think about what my life would have become if I'd done what Nate had. Would I have friends? What would it be like to have somewhere to go on a Saturday night? Go on a date?