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HAVOC

S he drops the bomb on me, casually skating away like she didn’t just destroy my reality.

Asha is dead. Asha is fucking dead.

Asha, the only person in this entire world I felt closer to than family. Asha, the one who cared for me without judgment, who tolerated all my bullshit, my best friend who pulled me from the path of self-destruction I had so masterfully carved out for myself. Asha, who protected me when the world tore me down, the only person who truly understood me.

Asha, my anchor.

The buzzing in my brain intensifies, my heartbeat far too labored from the narcotics traveling through my veins at rapid speed. Skating high seemed like a fun idea. Skating twenty-seven laps with two crushed Roxicodones in my nose in under five minutes was borderline suicidal.

Star is saying something, but I can’t hear her past the chaotic noise inside my own head. My feet move beneath me, confusion, the need for clarification, and an unforgiving pattern of self-deprecation already taking root within. There’s no ballast to keep me stable; the current sweeps me underwater, and it pulls in one singular direction.

I feel a squeeze on my wrist, and I find Lady Yaga’s hand tight around me. “Just let her cool off.” The words are barely audible, but the shaking of her head is clear as I read her lips. “You can’t handle Maddox.”

We’ll see about that.

Shaking off one of my oldest friends, I make my way to the locker room. I’m drawn to this girl; whether it’s because I’m craving more pain or because I want to dish it back out to her, I can’t quite tell. Pausing at the door, I look back to see only anxious faces watching me. I roll my shoulders, raising one hand to the wall to combat the lightheadedness fighting to take me down.

With a trembling fist, I knock.

“Fuck off,” she barks immediately from the other side.

“I’m coming in,” I announce, like it would somehow make it better.

The girl named Maddox is sitting on a bench, legs spread wide with her elbows resting on the tops of her thighs. Her head is dropped, a dark spot staining the concrete where her sweat drips from her clasped hands to the floor.

With her helmet off, I can see her hair now, dark, short, and shaggy as it falls over her face, covering most of it from my view. It barely goes past her jawline, where black and gray tattoos begin. An eclectic array of anime figures cover her muscled arms, some I recognize, some I don’t, all the way down to her wrists.

Her chin raises slowly, her gaze narrow and hard, scrutiny blazing from them as they burn into me. I think they’re blue, but I’m not sure. They look red now.

She’s fucking breathtaking. Every sharp edge of her features is softened by the glow of her skin and the fullness of her lips. My heart drums faster when the furrow in her eyebrow grows deeper.

“What the fuck do you want?” Her nostrils flare, the two silver hoops glinting in the light.

Standing here now, I am well aware that my brain has abandoned me to my stupid decisions. I choke on the lump stuck in my throat.

“Asha?” It’s the only word I can manage coherently.

She doesn’t say anything, but the confirmation isn’t necessary.

“When?” It becomes harder to take each inhale fully, my lungs struggling to do the work.

“A few weeks ago.”

The words feel like cinder blocks around my skates; my knees buckle and beg to drop.

I brace myself, holding onto the wall and feeling the weight of them on me. “I-I don’t understand. She left me a voicemail?—”

“Don’t you have friends you can talk to about this?” She’s already up, skating towards the door, her shoulder bumping against mine and nearly knocking me the rest of the way down.

The door slams behind her, leaving me with the echo of her words in the damp room.

I let go, falling to my knee pads and letting the tears roll down my cheeks. Everything is wrong.

This isn’t the life I was supposed to come back to.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

Everyone has cleared out, only Star staying behind, knowing me well enough to suspect when a breakdown is imminent.

“You okay?” She tilts her head to the side.

I shake my head but skate toward her anyway, with no attempt to stop on my part as I crash into her. She’s strong enough to take it, lowering her center of gravity and wrapping her arms around me in an embrace. The tears fall, as if dehydration hasn’t already set in from the buckets I’ve sweat and the pills I snorted. A wail spills from my chest that I don’t recognize as my own.

My friend holds me, sinking to the ground while letting me have this moment of mourning without judgment or rush.

I cry until it’s no longer sustainable, until the tears burn my skin and my throat begs for water. It’s not enough to make me move; it’s only when the cold floor registers beneath me, when the headache begins to settle in, that I dry my face and stand.

Minutes pass, and I’ve gone silent, my lips splitting and cracking, when Star finally speaks again.

“What’s your plan? Come stay with me tonight?”

I look up at her, nodding with no hesitation. I’ve been staying at a dinky old motel on the side of the highway. It’s fine—nothing smells and it’s cheap enough not to leave a big dent in my savings, which is just enough for a couple of months until I can find a job.

In a big city, a BA in social work is a guaranteed promise of a job. Out here in Slaughters, though, where I detoured my entire life for what I can only label as a “call from the universe” to come home? I’ll be lucky to find work at a coffee shop, let alone in my designated field.

“Are you still living with your mom?” I smile, remembering how Star’s mother had been the first person to supply us with alcohol underage.

She chuckles like her mind is in that same memory, dropping her arm over my shoulder as we skate toward our things still on the benches. “Yeah, but she’s a cranky grouch now that she doesn’t drink anymore. She didn’t do too well after the liver transplant.”

“That’s…terrible.” I drop to the bench, undoing the laces on my skates and removing each piece of my protective gear. “Are you sure I should come by?”

“Yeah, definitely. She’ll be stoked to see you; she still talks about the night you got drafted.” She slings her bag over her shoulder, always much faster at removing her skate garb than me.

Grabbing my helmet off the bench, she gives it a once over. A giant smile stretches from ear to ear as she appreciates the fact that her Hit hard, Hail Satan sticker is still proudly displayed on it. It has been over a decade since she first slapped it on there, just moments after I completed my first speed test and became a jammer for the Murder Dolls Derby League.

She tosses the helmet in my skate bag and slings it over her shoulder, not taking any arguments from me as I try to convince her to let me carry it myself.

“Girl, you look like this bag would knock you the fuck over, no offense.” She side-eyes me. “Is there a story behind why you look like the Grim Reaper? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so…out of shape.” She uses the kindest words to say what we both know is true.

I’m underweight, I’ve lost muscle mass, I have more bags under my eyes than in my closet, and my skin is…doing none of the right skin things.

I take a deep breath, knowing I can’t hide the truth from my friend, but she’ll make far too big of a deal if I tell her I was already halfway through a mental breakdown and twelve days into a drug binge when I decided to drive to Slaughters.

She’d lose her mind if I told her this was my first time on skates in almost fifteen months.

“Lucy…” I try deflecting with the use of her government name.

“You don’t have to tell me now.” She lifts her hand up to stop me from possibly lying, the thing I taught myself to do when the truth is too uncomfortable to stomach or share. “When you’re ready, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I agree with a nod.

I try to argue my way into showering at the rink, for my own personal need to be clean as soon as possible, but Star is against it, promising me that her bathroom at home would be far more accommodating.

The drive back to her house is filled with silence when it should have been filled with memories and catching up. I missed my friend. Lucy—MorningStar—was one of my closest friends in grade school, and when Asha Fields opened Skatium, we were the first two in line for tryouts.

Right now, it feels like there are miles stretched between us, distance forged from years apart and too many secrets.

We pull into her driveway. The early 1990s style craftsman home is just as I remembered it: white siding stained by time and a picket fence that looks recently power washed. My brain buzzes with regret, second thoughts and insecurities drowning me with the need for reassurance, the kind I desperately sought from Asha.

She opens her door and begins climbing out, the action turning on the motion sensor outdoor lights that force her dog to appear at the window. Even his bark is recognizable.

“Jesus Christ, Monty is still alive?” I laugh, shocked that the miniature poodle is still kicking it this long.

“He’ll be sixteen this year. Don’t worry, he’s only a little incontinent.” She grabs her bag from the backseat and then reaches for mine.

“Actually…” I start. “I was thinking I’d come by tomorrow?” I lift a hesitant brow her way.

“I don’t think you should be alone tonight, Vera.” She gives me a look filled with concern, a look that says she knows better.

“I have all my things at the motel, and I have to run a few errands before I fuck off for the night anyway.” I try my best to awkwardly fumble my way out of this one, but Star gives up first, knowing that I can’t be forced into any social situation I don’t want to be in.

Even if it’s just a simple sleepover at a friend’s.

“Tomorrow, yeah?” She holds me to it, shutting the passenger side door but leaning into the still-open window.

“I promise.” I grin, nodding her way. “Star?”

She’s barely turned around when I call out to her, turning slowly to acknowledge.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t any of you tell me Asha was sick?” I wipe the tear at my jaw before it can drip down my neck.

Lucy’s breath is shaky, her fingers gripping the car with white knuckles when she shakes her head. “Don’t do that, Vera. Don’t ask me why I didn’t betray our dying friend’s wishes. You know damn well what Asha wanted, she got.”

I nod, not needing more than that to understand. The three of us had been inseparable all the way from primary until I left this town. Star’s pain was no less than my own, maybe just a little duller from time. She dries her face before letting go of the car and heading for her house. I’m not seeking out Lucy’s company tonight. Tonight, I need to crumble. I need to shred down every fiber of my being, decompose, and come back into my own by tomorrow morning, and there is only one person in town who can help me do it.