Summer Girl, Winter Boy

Twelve | Burnt Sugar

January started to wane towards a sunnier February and Wim’s week was superimposed with bouts of hopelessness.

Sometimes her heart hurt so much she felt breathless, floundering in a vacuum, helpless as outside forces controlled her trajectory.

She spent countless hours curled up on her knees in discreet corners, trying to dislodge the large metal clamp that squeezed her heart, threateningly slow, blowing warm air over her shaking fingers that were remembering cold, dark things unbidden, on their own.

She spotted Daddy several times on the edge of her vision, obscured by the lines of shadows of trees or walking ahead just out of sight.

She wished he’d stay and talk.

She really needed it now, this week, today.

Wim was distracted for three days straight and paid no heed to Coach Lance’s rants until the frustrated man banned her from weight training, frightened she would hurt herself.

On Monday Wim went to morning practice and fell back into bed burying her face in the sheets, still sweaty and sticky in her tracks.

She couldn’t handle the sight of people, it made her nervous and edgy. She just lay there in bed until it was time for evening training, afraid to stay awake but terrified to fall asleep.

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t have the energy to.

She texted her brother whenever she could, skirting around the obvious with random questions about the weather, his exam results – where he got all A’s, the nerd – and whether Chelsea or Real winning the Champion’s League would make them happier.

She envied her brother the three more days he had with Daddy that she didn’t.

She had spent the first six months agonising that it meant she was the less deserving child; the one who didn’t thank her father for shouldering all kinds of burdens while she got to live a carefree life; the one that didn’t know what she’d had until it was taken from her.

She woke up once in the middle of the night to realise that Daddy wasn’t in hospital again, he wasn’t dying again. The doctor wasn’t calling her at one in the morning to tell her that the man called her father had gone where she couldn’t follow.

Sweat plastered her hair to the back of her head in large, curly tangles. Her jumper was soaked through. She couldn’t feel her frozen fingers or her icy toes.

She dragged herself off the bed across the room to the door, pulling it open and sat, wrapped in her bed sheet half in, half out of her room and waited until the sun attempted to raise her temperature.

She got up to call her brother who complained drowsily that it was bloody late what the hell was wrong with her? He had college in the morning, dammit!

She listened, smiled, told him she loved him and dramatically threw the phone onto her bed, picking up her bag of toiletries.

Wim brushed her teeth five times and her hair another ten times, scowling at the mirror and counting the stress blemishes on her face.

She looped her hair into a half-hearted ponytail and shuffled into the kitchen with her head down.

‘You’re late!’ Barked Coach Lance, getting up to get her a meal from the microwave. ‘You’re not dressed warmly enough! No!’ He yelled when she turned to shuffle back for her anorak. ‘Eat your breakfast first!’

Wim eyed the steaming tomato soup and plate of hayashi rice with distaste.

Her teammates rose to clear the table. They were the only ones in the hostel this week.