Going in Circles (23 page)

“Okay.”

“But it sucks, Charlotte, because at a certain point you're
supposed to ask me how I'm doing. That's what friends do. The problems go both ways.” Andy turns in his seat to lean his head against the brick wall. “I hate it when you make me talk like a girl.”

“Well, I'm not sorry about that,” I say, trying to make him laugh. But he's got his focus far away, his face bathed in the red light, softening his features. It makes his skin flawless, and he looks exactly like he did the day I met him. It makes me yearn for the past, our past, and wish I could go back and do some things differently, enjoy the times I was truly happy but didn't stop to notice.

“I know things have been difficult for you, but you make them worse,” he says, now turning his gaze toward me. “You go into this bubble of pain and act like nobody can understand. Guess what, Charlotte? Everybody understands. We aren't idiots. We've all been through pain. And you have been missing out on things because you seem incapable of moving on.”

The martini is making my brain fuzzy, and I'm worried I will talk uncensored. “Everybody wants to make sure I know how much I suck lately.”

“It was tough watching you spin yourself into depression, but I was there. And then when you spun yourself hard enough, you just forgot about everything and everyone. Including me. You don't call. You don't ask how I'm doing. And when I do get a call from you it's to play Matthew at your mother's birthday party. It's all you, all the time. It's exhausting.”

“I'm sorry.”

He smacks the table. “No! Don't be sorry. Fix it.”

“Okay! How do I fix it?”

Andy reaches over and pulls down my lower lip with his
thumb as he talks. “ ‘Hi, Andy. It's me, Charlotte. Your shitty friend. You got a new job? What's that like?' ”

I pull back. “Get your finger out of my mouth.” I wipe my lips with my wrist. “What's your new job?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Andy!”

“I'm working post-production at a reality show about babies, okay? The job is fine, but I spend almost my entire day hearing whiny women talk about their problems. And it's made me really fat, which is why I'm lonely and miserable, and I'm taking it out on you. I'm volatile when I'm fat.”

This makes me smile. “Are you done?”

“No. Then you called and brought me here to this black hole of Chinese sadness to scream all your problems at me over the jukebox, which reminded me that no matter how bad I might think my life is, you believe yours is worse, and therefore you're still a more miserable human being than I could ever be.”

It takes a certain kind of lifelong friend to have not only the courage but the right to talk that way. Andy is such a friend.

“I'm sorry, Andy.”

“That's all you have to say?”

“What do you want me to say? I'm
really
sorry. I'll be a better friend. I'll stop talking about my problems all the time. I'll ask you about your life. No more being selfish. Okay?”

Andy drains his drink. “Do you really think
that's
what I wanted to hear from you?”

Then it hits me. “You're not fat.”

His grin is a relief. “Thank you.”

I
'm bent over my skates, untying and retying them, hoping to make it look like I'm experiencing an equipment malfunction when really I'm just trying to catch my breath long enough to stop being nauseated. I'm guessing my little trick is no longer working, because Bang-Up skates right up to me.

“Broke-Broke, are you going to sign up for the Rookie Rumble?”

“I don't think so.”

“Why not? You should.” She isn't wearing a helmet today, and her long brown hair is flowing over her shoulders, making her look like a roller-skating pinup from the seventies. I heard that Bang-Up is a kindergarten teacher by day. Every time I see her, I think of her making kids get ready for nap time, breaking up fights, and snuggling weepy children. I hope she doesn't make her little ones do push-ups when they spill their juice.

I was supposed to have signed up by now, but I don't want to without Francesca. She's skipped the last two practices. She still won't return my calls. If Andy was sick of how I was treating him, I can only imagine how furious Francesca is
with me. It's kind of ironic how she's ignoring me the way Jacob's been ignoring her. Or maybe she learned it from him, how to ice someone out until they're going crazy. Either way, it's working. I thought for sure I'd see her here tonight at the track. She's never missed a practice for as long as I've been coming here, and now she's on her third.

“I'll think about it, Bang-Up,” I say.

“Don't think.” She points at a clipboard on the nearby bench. “Go sign up. The rumble's in three months. I want to cheer for you.”

Trash calls me from the track. “Broke-Broke! Come up here and do this drill.”

I shrug at Bang-Up. “Gotta go!” I say, skating away.

It's a jamming drill where I'm the Jammer, and I've got to break across two Blockers. There are just the three of us on the track, so they have time to plan a formation before I get to them. I skate hard, but they surround me, taking me up to the rail, effectively getting me to a standstill. No matter how much I try to dance around them, one or both of them find a way to stay in front of me. I can't get past this wall of ladies.

Bruisey-Q is one of the girls I'm trying to pass. Her warm smile does not match the fact that she's got a shoulder block so severe I've had a bruise on my upper arm for the past week. It's gotten to where I've asked her to sign it, just so I can show it off properly.

“Come on, Brokey,” she says. “You can get past us. Find the hole.”

I slow down and let the two girls get some distance in front of me so I can figure this out. I just have to find a hole, a space they aren't guarding. I decide to come at them like I'm going to go high, and then shoot down low, hoping I can
pass them on “the pink,” the pink line at the very edge of the track, the last edge of fair space just before the infield.

I try to bolt in that direction, running on my wheels, but I still feel clumpy in my skates. I'm as graceful as an elephant on a beach ball. With all the work I put into moving, you'd think I'd go much faster.

The Blockers are slowing down, their heads cranked back to watch me, to anticipate what I'm going to do next.

Now.

I make it look like I'm going high, pumping my elbows, stomping my skates. It works, and the Blocker on the in-side takes a stride toward the rail. I turn and arch down to the infield, lifting one foot so I don't step out of bounds as the other Blocker throws herself toward me, but she's too late; I've already passed her. I saw the hole and I got through. I can hear the girls in the infield cheering, and I pump a fist in the air because everything went just as it was supposed to.

Who's a winner?

I look back, fist still in the air, to see my adoring crowd.

And that's when I lose my balance. I'm falling forward, but I don't want to land on my face again, so I yank my body back, arms flailing. I tuck my feet under me, but I don't just land on my knees. I somehow fall even harder, slamming my butt right into the metal underside of my skates.

When they say you can hurt yourself badly enough to see stars? You really do. Everything's sparkly and white and dotted and your tongue swells and your throat tries to close up and kill you so that you don't experience any more of the shooting pain that's taking over your spine. My hands wiggle, making me appear to be finishing an elaborate dance number.

I know my fall looked absolutely hilarious. So I'm even
more impressed when Bruisey-Q and Trash rush over to me with comforting words, and wonderful ice packs.

“Shit, Broken. That must have hurt,” Bruisey-Q says.

I'm not crying, but tears are streaming down my face. My body has completely abandoned my head and is operating on its own now. “I think I broke my tailbone,” I say.

Trash nods, the corners of her mouth turned down. “I'm positive you did. Way to earn your name, Hard Broken.”

Bruisey-Q is shoving an ice pack down the back of my tights. “I did the same thing when I first started. You bent your knees too far, so instead of your knee pads taking the impact, your ass did. Into your skate.”

I couldn't possibly care any less
why
I just broke my ass. I only want it to not have happened.

“You might want to see a doctor,” Trash says as she unlaces my skates for me.

It takes half an hour for me to get out of the rest of my gear and ease myself into my car. When I sit down, my body screams in pain. It hurts so much I can't even see. I don't care if I'm still technically at practice because I'm still in the parking lot. I lean my head against my steering wheel and break down in sobs. I don't want to not be able to skate.

There's a knocking on my window. I see Bruisey-Q waving at me, her face flushed and sweaty, her black Hot Wheels hoodie wrapped around her shoulders like a cape. She's biting her lower lip, concerned.

Instead of lowering the window, I open the door. Bruisey-Q stands in the crook of it, leaning an elbow onto my roof as she observes me.

“I know,” I say, wiping my face. “There's no crying in roller derby.”

“Dude, you broke your
ass.
You get to cry. And take lots of drugs. I mean it.”

“Every time I think I'm doing well at this, I immediately hurt myself. Maybe I don't belong here.”

“Yes, you do.”

“But I hurt all the time.”

“Yeah, welcome to roller derby. We all hurt all the time. Look, I can't even extend this arm anymore because I jacked up my elbow so badly.” She extends both her arms, and indeed one is curled slightly at the joint, sending her forearm in the wrong direction.

I shake my head, letting tears roll under my chin, down my neck.

“Come on, you know it's fun,” she continues. “You go fast, you hit hard, and you do something most people are way too chickenshit to do.”

“Well, maybe those other people are the smart ones.”

“They're pussies. Open your hand.”

She drops five Vicodin into my palm.

“That's just a starter pack,” she says. “But take them. Do yourself a favor.”

“Thanks.”

“No need to thank me. Put your booty on ice and rest. Call a doctor, but he'll probably tell you the same. Just promise you'll come back when you're all better. And listen. Pastor will be back. Give her some time.”

I must have looked shocked, because she laughed and added, “Oh, yeah. We all talk. You think we don't know anything about you? We know everything.”

“Good to know.”

“Word on the street is people think you're pretty cool.
And if you want to know the truth, I already have kind of a girl-crush on you. Drive safely.” She turns around, her skates strung over her shoulder, banging against her back. As she walks away, I hear, “And I'm really sorry about your divorce. That sucks.”

They may not know my name, but they know my secrets.

After she's gone it takes a few minutes for me to figure out that I can drive if I roll over onto my hip. I'm pretty much sitting sideways, but it works.

After I get home, I leave Francesca a miserable message filled with self-pity, begging her to be my friend again. I tell her I don't want to skate without her, and that I miss her more than she can imagine. I hang up and learn it hurts to do anything other than breathe.

I may not have any more Lexapro to numb me from my body, but I have Bruisey-Q's Vicodin. I pop one and shuffle over to the couch. When I can't find a good way to watch the Fuck You Television on my stomach, I give up on this mistake of a day and fall asleep with an ice pack stuffed in my underwear.

H
ere's something you can't do when your tailbone is broken: sneeze.

Unfortunately, you also can't
not
sneeze, because holding it back means your body sneezes internally, forcing you to take it through your spine. That sneeze will travel all the way to where your tailbone is currently a boiling hot welt of fury.

One sneeze. Just one sneeze and you are done. It brings on such a massive, body-wide spasm of pain that everything else in the world stops. It's like in cartoons when a guy gets his head smashed between two cymbals, and he rises into the air, a quivering mess. That's what a sneeze does. You just sneeze and then cry.

A broken tailbone never stops hurting. Before I had no idea just how much
sitting
I do in an average day. I've now missed three days of work because if I go anywhere near a bucket seat or a hardwood chair, I will start whimpering. I can't drive, not just because it's unsafe to drive on one hip, but because potholes and speed bumps are evil. I refuse to buy one of those doughnut hemorrhoid things, as I'm still clinging to some false sense of dignity, but I'll admit there
have been times when I've fashioned a fake doughnut out of a jacket or a few pillows just so I could sit down. About the only place to sit that doesn't overwhelm me with pain is the toilet, and I find that to be the saddest fact in the world.

Crueler still, it's even harder to stand up. I find myself grabbing for anything I can use to yank myself upright. I can't take a bath, I can't sit on the floor to put on my socks, I can't take a quick break to watch television. Sometimes I forget and drop to the couch, tucking my foot under me in the process, thinking, “
Tra-la-la I'm normal
,” only to immediately scream with regret.

It hurts to sleep, it hurts to wake up, and it hurts to live. It hurts to put something down, move something over, or push something aside. It hurts to laugh. Not that I'm finding things to be all that funny these days.