Karen had always loved ice skating, the slip-slide of infinite inertia carrying her forward. Her mother first brought her to the rink when she was five, setting her loose on the ice like un-tethering a toy boat in a water-front marina. She’d perfected the art of falling falling falling, until she got so frustrated with the sharp sting of expectations colliding with her tailbone and her mother’s pursed lips from the sidelines that she willed herself to get better. She had to be better.

Karen began getting coached professionally at age seven, when she could glide past the older boys with ease and her mother only offered smiles through the glass. She stopped complaining about the shiny outfits of fuchsia and teal only after a year of slipping them on (they’d always felt more like a straight-jacket), instead of wearing her bulky overcoat and mittens, because there was this boy. It may be how all Hallmark stories start, but he was funny and smiled at her in the halls and she felt like she could really talk to him. But then there was this competition. She guesses it would have been the climax of the sappy movie where the violin’s notes would stretch beneath the scenes and she’d perform an impossible feat that only the Olympians dream about, and after the boy would come running out on the ice and kiss her.

But she fell at the last minute. He didn’t ever ask her out and her habit of coming to the rink every day after school tapered off.

It was only until just before graduation that she found out that boy, the one that played her handsome love interest, was gay.

*

Their gloved fingers intertwine, knit stuttering against knit as their feet coast along the ice and Jim’s finally smiling. (She glides)

They drank coffee from the automatic machine in the sitting area as she laced up her skates and trash talked his skills. He’d laughed, really laughed, for the first time since they’d moved back to Scranton and it almost made the coffee in her Styrofoam cup taste not quite so bad.

But after a few minutes, when it becomes clear that she’s far superior at the sport and she skates off independently from his sluggish feet and messy hair and careful smile, his eyes go dark, like he’s returning to a different time that she’s shielded from because it’s not her right to see it. Karen slides back with an apologetic smile and an open palm, but Jim still stares vacantly at the hockey score board too long for it to just be thinking and she can almost see the reflection of curls in his eyes. (She falls)

*

Karen should feel good. She should feel satisfied and confident and every other strong emotion that should follow seeing one’s ex-boyfriend make a fool out of himself as the minion of an incompetent idiot. She should, but she doesn’t.

She drives herself to the rink at six o’clock, after filing the paperwork with corporate explaining the broken copier and requesting the funds to buy a new one, smiling bitterly to herself in the rear-view mirror. Of course he’d come swooping in and made her feel like the stupid one, like the crazy ex that’s jealous and illogical and mean. Because she never ended up being the charming one in the relationship, which meant that inevitably she’d become the bad guy. Or girl, which is the more situation-specific term.

The blades to her ten-year-old skates clatter together in her bag, reminding her that despite all her warm fuzzy feelings toward them, their power to make her feel invincible, they could still be used as a deadly weapon if she chose. Or a make-shift sword to fall on.

Karen notices her mood lift considerably once the cool blast radiating off the rink whips across her face, waking up a long dormant piece of her past and compelling her forward. Despite the fact that she’d made special note of the rink when she’d first moved to Utica, Karen had never come until now, mostly because skating was her contingency plan. It held far too many negative connotations to become a habit again, but it was that little boost she needed when she needed it.

Her skates land with a muffled gasp under her on the ice as she straightens her spine, letting the continuous pull of gravity to drift her forward.

She places the first foot in a stride, then the next.

Jim is an asshole. An immature, insincere, stupid idiot. He isn’t worth even her consideration.

Karen doesn’t reach out for the railing, feeling her way around the circular rink, weaving around the small children with pillows strapped to their backs.

She’s successful. She could have taken any offer from any company in any city, but she’d stayed at Dunder-Mifflin because she could. Because it wasn’t like she was afraid of him. She wouldn’t run away with her tail between her legs just because some guy she’d dated once could never figure out what he wanted.

She’s moving faster now, the haughty grin of speed and agility carving a proud pattern into her face. (She glides)

But she tastes the salt on her tongue before she feels the wetness on her cheeks and suddenly she just wants to slow down, stop, go somewhere where the bright glow of the incandescent ice isn’t illuminating her face for the whole world to see. Suddenly she doesn’t feel so invincible because her mind can’t even convince her own heart that she’s fine.

Her torso halts but her feet aren’t responding and, just like that time when she was a kid and the whole audience was watching her, her feet slide out from under her. (She falls)

But with an abrupt tumble it doesn’t matter whether the other skaters are watching or judging or pitying because she can’t tell which she’s more concerned about: the blood from where she nicked her finger on the blades or the soft hiss of her warm tears hitting the freezing surface. 

And it’s just like falling all over again.