Under the Ice

The snow falls gently, as if it has all the time in the world. It covers everything in it’s white mask, disguising the trees, the rocks, the mountains, the whole world. The tiny crystals blend together, a whole being and separate entities. Some crystalize against the window, and I can see their individual shapes, how gorgeous and different each and every one are until there’s enough in the layer to make it one big frost. One could stand there forever, basking in the morning glow against the snow, hot tea in hand as the smell wafts up, feeling warmer knowing how cold it must be outside. My beautiful brown kitten, Puff, comes and rubs up against my leg, breaking my focus. 

“Well, hello there handsome,” I whisper to him, picking him up. I turn him so that he’s looking out the window too, and I sigh “Isn’t it beautiful?” 

“Been awhile since you’ve seen snow hasn’t it?” my mom asks, coming up behind me 

“Yeah, I forgot how gorgeous it is,” I respond 

“Bet you’ll be surprised by how cold it is too then,” my mom laughs “you being so used to that california heat.”

“I’m sure it’ll be a surprise.”

“Excited to go out today?” my mom asks “do a little sledding, a little skating, maybe a snowball fight?”

Skating. Right. “Oh, yeah. It’s been a while.” I tell her, staring at the ice 

“See you in a bit!” she calls as she walks out of the room   

It’s been years since I’ve skated. In fact, it’s been years since I’ve stepped on ice. The thought sends a shudder down my spine, chills me to my core. I can feel the anxiety rising, and the possibility of an impending panic attack coming on. I take deep breaths as I walk to the kitchen to grab a glass of water to calm myself down. 

“Wassup, loser.” my older brother, Brantley greets me as he comes into the kitchen “When’d you get in?”

“What a nice greeting.” I say “Hello to you too, dear brother. How are you? How is school? How’s that girl of yours?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I just thought I was getting a couple more hours of peace.”

I make a face at him “My delay ended up taking less time than I thought, so I got in at about one last night.” 

“Well, that’s a shame.” 

“Oh, shut up.” 

A few hours later we all head outside. The snowflakes land gently on my eyelashes and the cold bites my nose. I pull my jacket up a bit. 

“Awe, is Hollywood finding it a bit cold out here?” Brantley knocks into me a little as he walks by. He has his skates flung over his shoulder and is holding a stick in his hand.

Instead of responding, I choose to grab a handful of snow and rub it in his face.

“Hey!” he yells, dropping his stuff. “Get over here!”

I take off and he chases me. I run around the trees in the yard, trying to lose him, giggling as I go. I feel like a little kid again, running through the trees with my siblings and cousins, playing a game of pretend where we’re fighting against some near-omniscient foe, holding powers of another world. 

Suddenly I’m face first in the snow. 

“Ha-ha!” Brantley calls as I get up, propping one foot on a tree stump and doing a heroic pose. “I have prevailed!”

I wipe the snow off my face and stand up. “Now I’m going to be all wet.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you pushed snow in my face. You seem to forget that I am now bigger than you, and that you and Ceila can no longer team up on me-” his face falls as he realizes what he’s said “Crap. I’m sorry.”

My lip quivers, but I bite down on it to stop myself from crying “N-no. It’s okay. You don’t- We shouldn’t… I-” I sigh “We shouldn’t have to dance around talking about it so much. You shouldn’t have to watch what you say.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Oh, uh okay.” he looks taken back “So those therapy sessions… they’ve been working then?”

“Yeah. At least, I think so. It’s… it’s better now. At least a little. I came here, didn’t I?”

“That’s true. Should we get going?” 

“Sure.”

Together, we walk back to where everyone else is. I take in the sights. It’s stopped snowing and now it just glitters, undisturbed until we walk on it. 

“Hey! Look!” Brantley calls excitedly “Check it out, it’s still here!” 

“What’s still- oh!” I see him standing beside an old oak tree, bare and gray now that it’s winter. Hanging from one of the branches is an old tire swing. The trunk of the tree has wooden planks nailed to it. At partway up, there it is. The old treehouse. We had found it before, many years ago. We spent hours in it, playing games and hanging out. “I can’t believe it’s still here.” I murmur, placing my hand against the trunk. 

“Yeah, I haven’t seen it in years, and I come out way more often than you.” he looks around “Guess I haven’t ran through the trees in a while.” 

“Yeah,” I give a small laugh and look around “me either.” 

We spend the day in the snow. Sledding down the hills, being pulled on a tube behind the quad, snowmobiling over mounds of snow. It’s complete nostalgia. It’s as if I’ve time traveled back to a different life. I love my life in California, my job, my friends, the heat, but this place, these experiences will always hold a special place in my heart. Everything feels as it once were. At least almost everything. 

It’s near dark before we head over to the fire. Everyone else is already there, eating hot dogs and roasting marshmallows. 

“Hey Hollywood!” one of my cousins call. Evidently, Brantley had shared that very endearing nickname with the family. “Gonna join us for a game of shinny after supper?” 

Anxiety begins to rise in me, but I remember what my therapist said. Feet on the ground, anchored. Deep breaths, still breathing, still alive. Face your fears. “Sure, why not?” 

Everyone’s lacing up their skates. I’m sitting on a log, people all around me, chattering amounts themselves. All I can hear is the rushing of blood in my head. I stare down at my skates. The ice is not in front of me, I can see the edges of it at the edge of my vision. 

Before I know what’s happening, I’m gone. I vaguely hear people yelling behind me, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. I just need to get away. From them, from the ice, from her. I hazardly run through the trees, knocking into branches, snow piling on top of me. I don’t even bother to wipe it up. Suddenly, I’m at the trunk of the old oak- and I’m climbing the wooden ladder into the house, not even considering how dangerous it may be. I huddle in the corner, the adrenaline wearing off.

“I’m sorry.” I whisper “I’m so so sorry.”

We were all obsessed with skating. We loved it. Celia was like a dancer on skates. She could fly through the air, defying gravity. Spin so fast that she became a blur. Brantley and I preferred hockey. The quick motion, the adrenaline rush. He was better than me, but I was catching up. I could’ve probably played for a university. I dreamt of playing for the Canadian women’s Olympic hockey team. 

I was 14, Celia was 15 and Brantley was 17. We were at the cabin. It was getting warmer, but not too warm. Everyone else was sleeping. Celia and I snuck out late at night to go skating. We wanted to be under the stars. She loved the stars. She was telling me about this boy that she liked, and how excited she was for their first date when we got home. We laced up our skates. She got on the ice first. 

“Watch this!” She called out. She began skating. Fast, so fast. Closer and closer to the middle, like a spiral. She was going faster than I had ever seen her go before. At the middle, she jumped up and spun in the air. She made three full spins before coming down. The ice cracked beneath her as she hit it. She looked up, and I saw the fear in her face as the ice broke. She fell in. I ran towards her as fast as I could. I tripped when I was close to her, and I broke the ice more, falling in behind her. I tried to turn myself around, kicking desperately to get up. My skate connected with something. I was drowning, dying, I couldn’t figure out which way was up. 

I woke up to sirens and bright lights, a mask over my mouth and nose and a strangers face hovering over mine. 

Apparently, Brantley just so happened to see me fall in as he was getting water in the kitchen. He screamed for our parents as he ran outside in nothing but Star Wars boxer shorts. I remember because he had gotten them for Christmas that year in a pack. He jumped in, bare chested, and grabbed me, pulled me up. He later said that I was so cold that I had turned blue. He thought I was dead. My parents and everyone else in the cabin came out too. They didn’t know that Celi was under too. They only saw me. Only knew that I was there. They were so panicked, so stressed, that they didn’t realize that I wouldn’t go out by myself. It wasn’t until my uncle asked where she was, after the ambulance had been called, that it occurred to them. My brother and dad almost jumped in. They had to be physically restrained. My aunt, an EMT, told them that

they couldn’t go in, that they didn’t know where she was and they may only cause her to sink deeper. They didn’t care. They wanted to save her. 

Half an hour later, she was fished out. The people who got her out said that she was dead before they realized that she was in there, that there was no saving her, that it wasn’t their fault. 

Which, of course it wasn’t. It was mine. 

Sure, we both wanted to be out there. It was even her idea. 

But when she was pulled up, there was a gash on her forehead. Something had hit her. I had hit her. My skate had hit her head and knocked her out. If I hadn’t been so stupid, had gone for help instead of running to the water, she might’ve still been here, alive.

There were so many things that she never got to do. Never went on her first date, had her first kiss, her first love. She wanted to be a doctor. Get married and have kids. Travel the world. Climb Mt. Everest, see the pyramids, go to the top of the effiel tower. She had her whole life in front of her. I killed her, and she never go to do any of that stuff, never got to experience life. And it’s all my fault. 

“Lila?” I hear the soft voice of my brother outside of the treehouse “are you up there?” 

I sniff, but don’t answer. I just want to be alone. 

“I know that you’re there. If you don’t come down, I’m coming up.” 

I still don’t answer, hoping that he’ll just leave. A moment later I hear the creaking of wood as he climbs up. He sits beside me, and puts his arm around my shoulder. 

“It’s not your fault.” He tells me firmly

This time I respond “Yes it is. I did it. I killed her.”

“No, you didn’t.” 

“Yes I did!” I sit up, now angry “I didn’t go inside to get help. I skated over to the water, tripped and fell in, and I kicked her in the head! The gash was there. She might’ve lived if it weren’t for me!” 

Now he’s angry “Damn it Lila, you have to stop blaming yourself!” 

“I blame myself because it’s my fault! I-“

“No! Shut up!” He yells “did you push her into the water? Did you purposely kick her to kill her? No! If anything it was my fault- you were unconscious, and I was too stupid to realize that you would go out alone!” 

“Brantley, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. But it took a long time for me to realize that. And it’s still hard. Sometimes I still think that I could’ve done more, saved her too.” 

“You didn’t know.” 

“I know.” 

We sit in silence for a while. Suddenly he stands up and extends his hand. 

“Come on.” He says 

I look at him, perplexed “Where are we going?” 

“Just come on. Trust me.”

So I do.

We walk slowly through the woods, past the trees. Brantley leads me. I have no idea where we’re going. We emerge from a path, and we’re in front of the lake. 

“No.” I say “no way.” 

“Lil, listen. After Celia died, I felt… broken.” He takes a deep breath “I couldn’t even function sometimes. It felt like I was dying too. I guess you’d understand that, huh?” 

I nod. I do know how that feels.

“Anyways,” he continues “it took me a while- less than you- but still. The way that I even kind of got back to being myself was by doing the things that I loved, like skating. I know that I wasn’t there for the whole thing. I know that you experienced it, the whole thing. I know that it’s different for you. You were there, under the ice. But now you need to come back on it.” He steps on and holds out his hand “come onto the ice with me.”

I take a deep breath, and grab his hand. I close my eyes, and, ever so slowly, I step down onto the ice.