There's a sound in the air, but no one can hear it
Grating and Cracking
Shattered and Screaming
There's a tear in my eye, but no one can see it
There's a scar on my skin, but no one can feel it
There's a lack in my smile, but no one believes it
There's a gash through my soul, but no one can know it

Catherine

                I could see my breath as we clamored out the front doors of the school to the ice rink. We were outside for P.E. today, raring to go and play broomball: a strange version of hockey where the goal was to hit a ball around with brooms and attempt to score a goal while slipping and sliding around on the ice. It was dangerous, it was chaotic, it was freezing, and we all loved it.

            “Catherine!”

            She turns as I sprint up to her. Everyone is milling around the track, red-faced and gasping for air still trying to recover from the mile test we just did. Her cheeks are flushed and her light brown hair is tangled haphazardly but that just makes her face all the more cute. We both grin at each other.

            “Piece of cake, right?” I give a dramatic flourish to the shambling mass of wheezing students behind us. “I don’t know what these guys are complaining about.”

            She laughs; her voice ringing in my ears and thrilling me to my core. “I don’t know! I think I actually got faster around that last lap.” She gives me a smile and a shove. “Next time I’m going to beat you though. I was literally right behind you!”

            We laugh and walk side by side back to the school ahead of the group.

            There’s really no safety precautions set into place when it comes to broomball. The teachers would just give a bunch of hormonal middleschoolers sticks and set them loose to battle vigorously over a ball out on the ice. Looking back, I’m surprised this was a thing that was done every other week. It was rare for there not to be at least one person sent to the nurse’s office during a game of broomball. Then again, we were Alaskans. As I experienced more about the rest of the world and visited other places, I began to realize that Alaskans seemed to be an entirely different breed.

            My heart thuds in my chest. My stomach feels like it’s suddenly gone suicidal and is trying to wrench itself apart. It’s really hard to breathe. My throat keeps constricting and I can only take shallow breaths. I clutch the two notes in my slightly trembling hands as I run out to where the other kids are getting on their buses to go home. Where was her bus? Where was it? I can’t miss it. Not today. Not right now.

             I suddenly see a swath of curly hair in the swarm. I freeze.

            Come on, I can do this!

            I force my feet to move. One step. Another. Left, right, left, right. Alright, there we go. I’m walking properly again. There she is. She hasn’t noticed me yet. I reach out and tap her on the shoulder. She turns. I take a deep breath.

            “Okay, I really like you too but I can’t date you because my parents say I can’t date till I’m sixteen, but I really like you thank you for your note I loved it here’s my note to you I’ll see you tomorrow bye!”

I walk away, my trembling a little more noticeable. The wrenching of my stomach seems to have lessened just slightly. My head feels light. A hesitant smile worms its way onto my shocked face. It rapidly grows into a grin. I just want to laugh. I brave a glance back. She’s just standing there. Looking at me. There’s a smile on her face showing her slightly crooked teeth. My gosh she looks beautiful.

            Have you ever tried to run on ice? If not, let me tell you about it. Before actually stepping on the frozen H2O it seems relatively simple. How much different can it be than running on solid ground? Sure it might be a little slippery, but surely I can handle that, right? It’s only when you step out and let go of the wall that was keeping you upright that you realize how out of your depth you are.

            “She shoots, she scores!” I announce as the basketball drops through the hoop. I quickly jump forward and grab the ball after it bounces once and run to the opposite side of the court. I give a little leap and release my captive. It bounces off the back board. I chuckle wryly as I collect the ball from where it scarpered off to.

            “I’m not doing so hot today.” I toss the ball back to where Catherine’s standing at the other end of the court. “I think the lack of people is throwing me off.”

            Catherine tucks the ball under her arm and shades her eyes as she looks across the empty court and field. The ice skating rink right next to us is missing the vital ice component. She gives a little smile and shrug.

            “There’s definitely a different feel around here during the summer, isn’t there?” I continue.

            “Yeah there is.”

            I wait for her to say something else, but she just stands there. Several seconds pass. Finally I clap my hands and jog towards her. “Alright, see if you can keep the ball from me.” She suddenly smiles and runs away.

            “That’s traveling!” I yell as I follow her.

            The brooms that we used weren’t your everyday, soft bristled, plastic stick brooms. Oh no, they were quite different. If you were to call the brooms usually used to sweep wooden floors flimsy then the only word to use for our broomball brooms is hefty. With a thick stick handle made out of a heavy wood and the bristles being so stiff you couldn’t move them if you put all your weight on it, these brooms were the weapons of Ragnarok rather than cutesy household appliances. If you were unlucky enough to get hit by one as it flails through the air at the hand of an over eager, acne ridden teen, you were guaranteed a battle wound for several days afterwards.

            She sits there quietly on the ground staring at nothing as our friends clamor around her. When she joins in, she always talks to someone else, never to me. I take a bite of my stale slice of pizza as I watch her out of the corner of my eye. She suddenly looks up at me and our eyes meet. I offer her a smile and she gives one in return. What do I say? What can I say? Seconds pass. I turn back to my pizza and she goes back to ignoring me.

            Sometimes I pass her in the halls. Sometimes we acknowledge each other, sometimes we don’t. Every time I see her I get a dark pit boring a hole in my stomach. Something’s wrong, but what? Every freshman in the highschool knows we have a thing for each other, but we never talk to each other. Why won’t she talk to me?

            If you thought violence in football or hockey was bad, take a gander at some broomball games. With the small ball traipsing across the ice with hordes of broom wielding hooligans slipping and sliding after it, some players opt for the simpler approach of throwing down their weapon and lunging at the opposing team. Keep in mind everyone on the ice is already unstable to the point that a simple nudge might cause a domino effect of toppling children. So when a gangly individual in the throes of a growing spurt flies horizontally into someone, there’s no hope of staying on one’s feet. You just had to hope a part of you didn’t get crushed when you were body slammed onto the ice.

            “See you later!” I wave at Emma as she walks down the hallway to where some of her other friends are eating lunch. Chuckling a little as she makes a face at me I turn and head to my friends in our little nook. As I approach I take a deep breath and fix the smile on my face.

            “Hey Cheyenne, how’re ya doing today?” I plop down next to where she’s starting to unwrap her sandwich. She glances at me.

            “Oh hey Mason. Pretty good.” She turns and immediately starts up a conversation with Renee. I pause in the act of asking her another question and close my mouth hesitantly. I turn to try and talk with someone else.

            No one gives me a good conversation. The most I get are three word answers. No matter who I talk to, their reactions confuse me. Gabi suddenly remembers somewhere she needs to be. Renee won’t look at me. The only person who will actually talk to me is Haley, but she’s only there half of lunch period before she has to leave.

            Catherine is nowhere to be found.

             Of course it has to be cold to play broomball. If it gets warmer than 32 degrees the ice will melt, and ice must be present otherwise broomball stops being broomball. Wards against the cold are taken with thick coats, sturdy boots, and enveloping hats, however gloves make it hard to hold the broom so many decide to go without. But when the cold bites the cold bites hard. Many an unlucky soul has been afflicted by frostbite as the cold burrows deep anywhere there’s exposed skin.

            My chest heaves as I sob into my pillow. It’s half drenched with tears and snot yet I clutch it to me like a drowning man clutches a life raft. The deep pit is back. It feels like there’s a coal trying to burn its way through the bottom of my stomach. My feet are tingling and there’s pressure on my heart like some sadistic ghost is reaching inside my chest and squeezing. There’s a pounding pain in my head that drives deeper into my skull the harder I cry. Mom sits beside me on the edge of the bed and rubs circles into my back.

            “I don’t even know why,” I blubber as she looks at me sympathetically.

“I just wish I knew why.”

            So there we were, a chaotic mass of children surging after an orange ball that was skittering across the ice. Our collective heavy breathing in the frigid air looked like the entire group was steaming. Lucas and I suddenly broke free of the entangled group at the same time and raced towards the goal. He reached the ball first and was using his broom to guide it in the right direction when a hulk from the other team smashed into him. Lucas desperately swung his stick as he went down and the ball came hurtling towards me. I started rushing the goal. 20 feet. 15 feet. 10 feet.

            WHAM!

            I stumbled back, barely staying on my feet as I watched my opponent hurtle to the ground. I hadn’t even noticed them in my way. Their hood flew back and I saw a shock of long, curly brown hair.

            I see her standing by the vegetables at the store. That’s the problem with a small town Wal-Mart. Everyone and their dog goes there. She looks up and our eyes happen to meet. I feel a quick sharp stabbing in my chest. How long’s it been since we last looked at each other? Quickly I wrench my eyes from hers and briskly walk away. The stabbing feeling fades slowly. When it’s simmered down to a barely noticeable throb, I look back, just for an instant. She doesn’t look at me. I sigh as I turn back and continue walking.

            “What the HELL?!” The girl glared up at me from the ice. I chuckled.

            “Sorry about that. My name’s Mason.” I reached out my hand to her. She stared at it, then back to me. The glare melted away from her face. She laughed a little and shook her head. I notice she has a slightly crooked smile.

            “Hey.”

She takes my hand.

            “I’m Catherine.”