34. Mer - Numb: 10 years ago

I always thought getting second place at the Olympics would be the worst-case scenario. Or maybe fourth place and missing the podium, or even fourth at the trials and missing out on going to the Olympics.

Getting hurt on a practice session before trials, being stretchered off the ice, and then being told it’d be months before I could even attempt to walk again… Yeah, that never even crossed my mind as a possibility.

But here I was… living out this new worst-case scenario.

Right after I became lucid again in the hospital, I sat there piecing my life together, and I was angry.

Questions of why bombarded my brain: Why did this happen to me? Why now?

I’d gone my whole career without any horrible injuries just to sustain the worst one right before I almost made it. Right at the finish line.

I sat there by myself with nothing to do but think myself into a hole. My thoughts bounced between skating and Colt.

Sure, I was a fucking idiot to Colt, I was mean to him that night, but he said he understood, he said he’d be waiting for me to call him. I guess that had just been a convenient little lie for him to tell… Because if he loved me, if he ever cared about me at all, he would’ve been here for me. He would’ve called or texted or something.

A horrible realization struck into me then: I must've been delusional.

I thought of him as the love of my life

But that’s just it– he was the love of my life.

Maybe I wasn’t his.

Because if he did love me, where was he?

So… It’d all been a lie then. Every touch. Every kiss. Every word out of his stupidly handsome mouth.

And if the guy who said he loved me with his whole heart could discard me that easily… Well, then imagine what a stranger who never cared about me at all could do…

Damn. I hated people.

I sat there gritting my teeth against the excruciating pain while they weaned me off painkillers with nothing to do but hate.

I hated skating.

I hated myself.

I hated everything.

The hate consumed me to my very core, so much so that I could practically taste it.

But after a week or two of living in all-consuming anger, my body just… gave up.

What was the point of it? What was the point of anything anymore? The Olympics were gone. Skating was gone. Colt was gone. Everything I worked for… all my plans… were completely wiped away.

I was lost.

Day after day, I sat there feeling numb. A little part of my brain screamed at me that this wasn’t okay, that I needed to feel something, anything, again.

So when Iryna called asking me to come back to the rink, my mom encouraged me to go.

Iryna wanted to make a plan for a comeback, which sounded nice, but I knew it was self-serving. Without me, she was missing a huge chunk of her paycheck. Either way, she told me to come and see how I felt at Centre Ice, see if I still wanted to do it. What she didn’t tell me was that there would be press there, covering the story of what happened.

It occurred to me that I should’ve been disappointed, but I felt nothing. I was numb to my core.

I even let Andy hug me, thinking it’d wake an angry monster in me.

It didn’t

He kissed my head

Still nothing. No emotion.

I just didn’t care.