6. Nia

6

NIA

I've become a wretched mess of poorly composed feelings. Spending the night getting high with Ryan Lee was what I thought I needed to get my mind off Lonnie, but the minute I arrived at the rink, it all came flooding back. Every awful emotion penetrates deep and eats away at me from the inside out. Except now, I've burned through all my serotonin, and I don't have the energy to muster an ounce of social demand.

I'm not okay.

A person I loved more than anyone else is gone, and I'll never get to say goodbye.

My thoughts circle in my head like vultures, ready for their next meal—except I'm the meal, my misery their sustenance.

K-Otic slides in next to me, slipping their mouthguard in and rolling their shoulders back to prepare for the jam. They have at least a foot on me, but once they lower their hand to the track, our backs are practically at the same height. Regardless, the only way out of this jam is with speed.

The whistle blows. K-Otic moves to hip check me, but I'm too aware of my surroundings, giving them a three-pass lead to avoid the hit and grabbing Venice Witch's side to get through the wall of blockers. I'm through, but the minute I reach the open track, I feel a slam on my left from Harvey, a sharp pain in my shoulder, and suddenly, I'm thrown from the track, sliding out of play.

Hands on the ground to steady myself, I shake my head to recalibrate before bouncing back on my toe stops and diving into the track again. Just as my feet hit the line, StarScreamer sends K-Otic flying, giving me the time I need to catch up.

We're shoulder to shoulder now, just a few crossovers from the jammer line, and it's as close as it gets. I deepen my squat, damn near sitting on the ground while I skate as low as my center of gravity will allow, keeping me protected in case they try to hit me.

It's inevitable. I'm flying again, my teeth knocking against each other, and though I don't see the hit coming, I sure as shit feel the throbbing in my hip for what it is. I catch a satisfied Harvey in my peripheral, and it's all I need to know she was the one who sent me skidding on my ass through the center of the track. Mo and our new manager watch me with unimpressed looks. Grimacing, I shake it off as Mo blows the whistle and readies for the next jam.

I clench down on my mouth guard, practically piercing a hole through the plastic in frustration. Looking up to see the blonde pivot laughing with StarScreamer as if she hadn't just handed my ass to me is the same as hitting a brick wall of insecurity.

Maybe I'm not wanted here.

Maybe I should go.

Or maybe I'm hyper-sensitive from all the pain pills in my system and overly aware of how out of my element I'm feeling in the only place I ever dared to call home. It's unsettling, staying in a motel when the house my parents once owned is half a mile down the street. Knowing that if I go to the grocery store, a coffee shop, or even the animal clinic I'll likely run into the parents of a friend who died too early from our bad decisions.

A reminder of exactly why I ran with my tail tucked between my legs the first chance I got.

Or perhaps I've just depleted all the good sparks in my brain.

I take my place behind the line, receiving nothing but a chin raise from K-Otic, as if that somehow counts for praise. It kind of does, giving me a little more confidence to not mentally crumble before the whistle sounds again.

I reach for Lady Yaga's hand, going for the whip as a way out of the pack of blockers skating in front of me. No chance of success. Harvey is already there, waiting in a standstill as I hit her from the front, her chest a solid wall knocking every bit of oxygen from my lungs and sending me to the ground.

The whistle blows, and Mo yells, "Take a knee," while I struggle to catch a breath, wheezing through what feels like collapsed lungs from the impact. "Goddamn, Cat. Give the girl a break."

I look up to see her skating circles around me, her gaze locked on mine even as she pulls her mouth guard out to answer. "You want a pivot, or you want me to let her win?"

"She's not wrong," our manager agrees, blowing the whistle again. "Harvey, sub for Nia until she's ready to go again." He turns to Mo. "Stand in for pivot until the rest of the girls pass their test."

I couldn't disagree, every bit of my chest aching and begging for a break. I slip the star from my helmet and hand it to Mo, who makes the switch with Harvey while I drag my body from the track, crawling backwards until I find a wall to lean on. I make myself content with watching, realizing I've yet to examine the way this new version of the team skates.

Harvey is fast, making it easy to sympathize with her annoyance at losing her place. But she's not just fast, she's strong, and by the way K-Otic exhausts themselves jam after jam, it's clear she's nearly impossible to knock down. She's the perfect pivot, despite her feeling like I'm taking something from her. She just hasn't been utilized this way yet to see for herself.

If I'm not jammer, I'm nothing.

A weak girl with weak bones and a bunch of pins in her leg from the last time she got hit too hard.

I've been that girl for the last five years, and I'm ready to move on from the fear of getting hurt again, to get past the sight of my broken bones when I close my eyes and see visions of that memory.

Five years ago

The announcer's overly alert voice came through the speakers. "Nia-Death Experience passes Tonna Hips, but Reese Ender checks and—oh! That's a stumble, but she recovers, nearly tripping over the still-fallen Britney Fears. Can we get a medic on the track?"

It was a joke, but he was distracting as hell, and I was feeling that last slam. Reese Ender was a heavy hitter, and I knew I'd be black and blue before the morning. Worst of all, it was extra hot on the track tonight with all the lights set up for the film crew. They were televising this for some streaming special on the TvFlix, and our rink parent, Lonnie, was seeing dollar signs from the prospect of fame, enthralled by the idea of people coming to Devil Town to watch us play and spend their hard-earned money at Skateland.

Sweat dripped between my breasts, and my fishnets itched under my shorts at the thought of every person I knew watching, but I pumped my thighs with every ounce of energy left in me. I moved, one foot in front of the other, crossing over as I circled the track, fifteen feet away from stealing the win from the Wolverine Dreams Roller Derby team.

"Nia! Nia! Nia!" the crowd shouted to my right as I circled the track.

I lifted my fingers in the air, raising them to my head to perform a two finger salute—a little show of cockiness—as I crossed the jammer line.

I felt my brain rattle inside of my head before I'd even noticed my skates weren't on the ground anymore. My teeth clanked painfully inside my mouth, my tongue splitting from the blunt force of my canines tearing through my mouthguard and my flesh. Liquid iron pooled at my gums. Simultaneously, my back hit the floor, a sick crunch beneath me raging through my body in an agonizing wave of pain.

"Oh sh—" The announcer's microphone was still on.

"Take a knee." Lonnie's voice boomed through the crowd, and it went silent around me.

"Call an ambulance," I heard not far off in the distance.

I blinked my eyes open to see Reese Ender standing above me, a ghost-white expression painted over her face.

"Her leg," she said, a retching sound coming from another direction just as my eyes flickered closed once more.

I was in a wheelchair for seven months. It took four surgeries and almost a whole year to learn how to walk again.

While I refuse to let my fears command me,I can't deny that I'm a much more anxious skater now. It's impossible not to be extra vigilant, being always on the lookout for the possibility of getting hurt. I see them everywhere now. My brain works harder than before to recognize the patterns, as if they were tiny moments of premonition, alerting me to the possibility of pain.

Precognition induced from trauma.

My self-diagnosis reminds me I'm not my mother, that I don't need to define every little thing that's wrong with me.

They go a few more jams before I finally feel okay to rejoin the pack, forcing Harvey to pass me the star and take her place as pivot again. I don't miss her look of disdain as she's made to give up the position, but I do recognize the work she's put in. It's practically unfair, the way she completely exhausted K-Otic and made them much easier to outskate.

The jammer I can handle, but either Scott and Mo are setting me up on purpose, or they don't see the unfairness of pitting Harvey up against me round after round. With her targeting me, I can hardly get through the pack, let alone lap K-Otic, without getting hit.

I'm getting crushed between Harvey and Nancy Shrew when one of their wheels grind against mine, causing me to fall forward.

Overwhelmed with frustration to the brink of exploding, I do my best to contain my emotions on the track, to avoid taking it personally.

It's nothing but personal, though.

If this was your home, you'd know Lonnie Green is dead.

The truth of that statement is painfully uncomfortable. It stabs at parts of me that have been hiding for so long, I swear they no longer exist. Bouncing back on my skates, I struggle to catch up, but right at the last minute, I feel DreadPool's hands on my hips, sending me flying forward, helping me take my first win for the night.

Mo blows the whistle, and I practically jump into DreadPool's arms, not caring that we've barely exchanged two words. Comradery is the only bridge you need sometimes. They lift me into the air, my skates coming off the ground as she squeezes me into a hug. I feel the heat of a stare, following the thread of the sensation to find Harvey's eyes locking onto us.

It wasn't much to anyone else, but it was everything to me.

My first win in five years.

Just like that, my first practice is over, and I know now more than ever that I was meant to come back. Coming home was part of my path, my journey to figure out whoever the fuck I am.

Not my injuries, not my trauma, not who my parents want me to be.

Me. Behind all that shit.

Living for me.