Smoked Out

I looked at the clock for the fifth time since class started. Twenty minutes had gone by since the kid’s beginning-of-class warm ups and Axel still hadn’t shown up yet. I told Talon to make sure he was here when I saw him in class earlier and he made a point of telling me I was uptight and clearly stupid if I thought he wasn’t going to bring his brother to his first class after he made such a big deal about it before. I walked away from him that time, saving myself another argument and assumed that what he said meant that he was definitely going to be bringing Axel today. I don’t even know why I was wasting my time worrying about it when clearly neither of them wanted to be here.

“Lydia,” I shouted out as she attempted another turn. Since she had discovered that Annabelle was no longer in the class, she had been trying to do the perfect turn all night. I had a feeling that the reason she never tried them before was because she thought she couldn’t compete against Annabelle. “Lydia, make sure that when you turn you’re turning your neck with you. I don’t want you to get dizzy and fall over, especially during your competition next month.” I noticed how much I sounded like Claire and smiled to myself. She was a great teacher.

“I thought we were going to rehearse today!” Jacob whined through his helmet. I had let them know that there was a change in the schedule today but I hadn’t explained anything to them yet. I was planning to when Axel arrived, but so far he was a no show. I looked back at the clock again; 5:30. Exactly half an hour since the class started. I pegged him as absent for today and told everyone to bring it in so I could talk to them.

“Listen up,” I began. “As I told you before, Annabelle has left us for the intermediate level class and so we’ve lost her for our competition. However, we do have a new student joining us. His name is Axel and I’d like you all to treat him nicely and welcome him. First days can be nerve-racking, even if it has nothing to do with school.” That earned me a chuckle from them.

“So, our rehearsal –”

“I’m so sorry we’re late!” A lady shouted from behind me, cutting me off. “Axel, get here now!” I turned around and skated over to where Axel was getting on the ice. “His father was supposed to take him today and he just called me ten minutes ago and told me he couldn’t anymore and so I had to leave work because my son, I believe you met him before, Talon? Yeah, he apparently was way too busy to handle this for me and you know how teenage boys can be.”

“Mom, stop.” Axel said. “You’re so embarrassing sometimes.” His mother’s face fell and Axel skated off, I guess already knowing that she would listen to him.

“Hey, it’s not a problem.” I said, reaching my hand out for her to shake. “I’m Macy Crawford, the skating coach.” I smiled my widest smile as she took my hand and shook it. She smiled back at me, her whole face lighting up as she did so. She was the kind of pretty that took you a while to notice. At first, her blonde hair looked pale and fringy and her golden brown eyes looked too big for her face, but once you got close enough to really look at her, she was probably one of the most gorgeous mom’s I had ever met. She had hardly any wrinkles and even I would kill to have a body as nicely structured as hers.

“Nancy Langworth,” She said, still smiling at me. “Again, I’m so sorry that he’s late. I promise it won’t happen again.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said calmly. “He’s here now, so we’ll get him working on some stuff and he’ll be all set.” It was weird how different a presence she had than her two sons. She seemed genuine and sweet whereas Talon and Axel seemed hostile and annoyed every time someone got too close to them. I figured they probably got a lot of it from their dad.

“Alright, well I’m going to get going. I’ll be back at 6:30 to pick him up and don’t worry, I won’t be late.” I smiled at her and half turned to skate away. “Axel, hunny! I love you.” She blew him a kiss and he scrunched his face at her, clearly embarrassed that she decided to do that in front of a crowd of people. I waved goodbye to her and skated back to the group to introduce Axel to everybody.

“So everyone, this is Axel. He’s the new student I was telling you about. Remember what I said, okay? Play nice.” Lydia skated up beside him and shoved him playfully as a way to greet him. Axel rolled his eyes and moved an inch away from her.

“You still haven’t told us when our rehearsal is going to be!” Brian, another hockey boy, shouted. He pretended not to like figure skating that much but I could tell he was coming around to it a bit. It didn’t matter in the end anyways because he was only going to be in my class for a season to work on his skating techniques and then he would be back in the hockey arena again.

“Well, I haven’t set a date for it yet but I was thinking we could push it until the end of next week. I’m sure we could all use the practice before then anyway.” I saw a bunch of their heads nod and took that as they all understood and I was okay to move on. “Now, chop chop. You’ve all got something you should be working on today. Let’s see what you’ve got.” Everyone split except for Lydia and Axel.

“Do you want me to show him some stuff?” Lydia asked sweetly. She was too nice of a girl for somebody like Axel. I decided to save her the low self-esteem Axel was bound to give her from her helping him and told her that I needed to work with him myself before anyone else could. I watched as she skated away and began practicing her turns again. I kept my eyes on her for a few seconds longer to make sure she was turning her head the right way and then looked down at Axel.

“I shouldn’t even be here,” Axel started before I could say anything to him. “My hockey coach is an idiot for making me sign up.” I could see the hurt in his eyes as he said this.

“Well how about you prove that to me.” I said as a way to encourage him. However, he took that as me barking up the wrong tree and shoved my words back in my face.

“I don’t have to prove anything to you.” He said skating a few inches away from me. “I’m only here because I have to be. Once this season is over I’m out of here.” He skated to the other side of the rink this time and looked back every now and then to make sure I wasn’t following him. I felt bad for him even though he was being a little brat. He clearly felt like he wasn’t good enough to play hockey and on top of that he was forced to try a different type of skating that he had no interest in trying.

It was going to be hard getting through to him and I knew that, but something about the kid made me want to help him. I wanted to show him that he could trust me. That was a pretty hard thing to do when he had every single wall built up and he insisted on acting exactly like his older brother. I rolled my eyes at the thought.

I left Axel alone for the remainder of class and allowed him to get used to the other kids. Lydia had noticed that I wasn’t working with him and had offered her services which Axel seemed to hate at first but had come around to towards the end of the class. I noticed him talking to Brian and hoped they would become friends through their mutual interests in hockey. I figured that if he got a chance to know the people in the class first then he might listen to me a bit better later on. I blew my whistle letting them know that class was officially over and gave each of them a high five as they made their way to the change rooms.

“You did well for your first day, kiddo.” I said lifting my hand to him for a high five. He looked taken a back and shoved past me ignoring my gesture. I felt my face fall as I looked around the arena for his mom. All of the other parents were waiting by the change room doors now except for Nancy. I hoped she hadn’t forgotten about him.

I decided that I would take an extra hour to work on some of the things Claire had been helping me with. My last class with her had gone so miserably that I wanted to make sure it was just a fluke and not a routine I was going to keep up with. The last thing I needed was to lose my talent right when I had a competition coming up.

All of the parents had vacated the arena but I noticed that Nancy still hadn’t showed up. I looked behind me at the pathway leading to the exit of the arena and saw Axel walking with his duffle bag and skates hanging over his shoulder. He definitely had that hockey boy swagger going for him. He was sure to be a heart breaker when he was older.

“Hey you,” I shouted at him. He didn’t look back. “Axel!” This time he turned around and glared at me.

“What?” He shouted, clearly annoyed with my presence.

“If your mom isn’t here yet, you should put your skates on and come join me on the ice. I’m working on some stuff and it would be nice to have a second opinion.” I smiled at him warmly to let him know that I wasn’t going to treat him unfairly as I imagined Talon drilled into his head that I would.

“My mom’s actually outside waiting for me, so.” He turned around to walk but I shouted back at him before he could get to the door.

“I’ll walk you to her then.” I said, calling his bluff. He huffed and walked back towards me, sitting down on the closest bench to the ice.

“I’ll watch but I’m not skating with you.” He said grumpily. I shrugged as if to say ‘suit yourself’ and began to skate around the arena picking up speed.

I started with a basic twirl to warm me up and then proceeded with a toe loop and a regular loop after that, allowing my body to twirl in the air with ease. I considered doing my butterfly jump and looked back at Axel who was trying not to look interested in what I was doing but failing at it. I smiled to myself and did another toe loop so I could see his eyes widen.

With every trick I did, I could feel myself giving in to the ice. The ice was my best friend and balance was my sister. It wasn’t like before when I was with Claire, this time I wasn’t letting any of my problems get to me on the ice. I felt myself forget about everything as I twirled and jumped my way from one end of the ice to the other. My muscles were starting to ache but I kept going anyways. I wanted to try this butterfly jump and I wanted it to be perfect.

“Axel!” I shouted back to him. “If I fail at this next trick make sure you call the ambulance right away, okay?” I turned around to face him this time and caught his face just in time to notice the worried expression on it before he hid it.

“Whatever.” He shouted back, trying to sound annoyed but letting his fascination creep through just a little. I turned around to face the center of the ice and took a few deep breaths to calm myself. The last time I had tried this, it hadn’t worked out like I planned and I wanted to nail it this time.

“You can do this.” I whispered to myself. I didn’t take any more deep breaths that time before skating off and soaring into the air. I landed perfectly and immediately went into a sit spin before stopping myself and looking in the direction of Axel to make sure he hadn’t run off while I was concentrating on my jump.

I smiled over at Axel and just as he went to say something the arena door swung open and in rushed Nancy. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m always late, I need to work on that. It’s just that Dom, his father, couldn’t get the dishwasher to work and when he was trying to fix it he got water all over the kitchen and I had to help clean it so it wouldn’t leak. But I’m here now. How was your first day of class, baby? Did it go okay?” Axel rolled his eyes at her and got up from the bench.

“Yes, mom, it went fine. Can we go now that you’re here?” He nudged on her arm a little bit to get her to turn around and face the exit but she wouldn’t go.

“Thank you so much for letting him join, Kasey. His father and I appreciate it so very much.” Axel gave his mom a good nudge and looked back at me apologetically.

“Her name is Macy, mom. Let’s go now!” I could hear the desperation in his voice as he tried to get his mother to leave the arena. With a big smile and one last wave goodbye she did as her son asked her to and left the rink. She seemed a little disorganized which was probably why Axel didn’t like it when she stayed and talked for too long. The arena door closed and I decided that I had done enough skating for the day. I went and changed in the change room and let down my hair which had been placed in a high ponytail and was beginning to hurt my head..

When I was done in the change room I drove home and went straight to my room to lay down. My legs had been hurting more than normal since my last practice with Claire but I figured that it was just because I was overworking them to make my routine perfect for the competition. There was probably nothing to worry about and so I didn’t bother going to a doctor about it. I had been icing them for an hour every day which had helped so far. I just hoped they stopped aching soon because I wasn’t used to having to push myself through the pain when I skated.

I closed my eyes, not expecting to fall asleep right away, but my eyelids immediately felt heavier and my whole body relaxed as I breathed evenly and drifted off to sleep, forgetting the pain in my legs completely.