Thrown Axle

Before I could turn around, the snowball exploded against the back of my head. That explained Mia’s sudden giggle fit. I rolled my eyes. She was lucky that I hadn’t turned around. If she had hit my face, I wouldn’t have been so lenient. Some of the snow melted down the back of my neck, making me shiver. This calls for revenge!

I pulled out the candy bar I had purchased for her from the rest stop vending machine as a special treat and held it above her head. She jumped up, fingers just barely making contact, and smacked it out of my grip. She’s fallen for my plan hook, line, and sinker. I knew she could reach it. We’ve skated together too often for me not to be acutely aware of her jump height.

The candy fell into the 10-inch deep snow and sank under its cover. Mia got down on her hands and knees and started digging around for the bar with her fuzzy white mittens. Right when her hand closed around it, and she was about to stand up in triumph, I enacted my plan. I pulled her jacket and shirt collar out and dumped a handful of snow down her back. She shrieked in surprise and started hitting my chest with her fists. I could hardly feel the blows through the padding of my jacket.

“Don’t dish out what you can’t take!” I said, laughing.

“This isn’t fair turnabout. I didn’t shove snow down the back of your shirt, Cole.” Mia pouts.

“Well, don’t start a battle you aren’t willing to see to its end,” I said.

She rolled her eyes and raced back to the car, arms wrapped around her now-shivering body.

When I got back, she had claimed the Bluetooth and was playing her favorite Kpop songs.

“Not this nonsense again. Your music sucks. You should listen to some good tunes.” I said.

She rolls her eyes at me. “Shut up. You have no taste, bro. You might have inoculated yourself against the crap you listen to, but my poor, untarnished ears need a break.”

I knew how to switch the Bluetooth back. Before the trip started, I had connected her phone to my car. I made no move to stop her music. As her older brother, it was my sacred duty to give my little sister a hard time. Kpop music didn’t bother me; I even thought some of it cooked. She knew I could turn it off, too, but as my little sister, it was her duty to be annoying. That was just how the world worked.

“I think I might die if we don’t make the pre-Olympics,” Mia said.

“Don’t worry, we will. We’re one of the top duos in the country.”

“But what if my mind goes blank and I forget how to skate?” She tugged at her hair.

I rolled my eyes. “You never have so far. Chill out; you worry too much.”

Even though she never finished lower than third, my sister always felt stressed before competing. Mia began skating when she begged our mom for lessons and made me bring her along to the rink for practice. She was an absolute prodigy. I started skating for Renee, a short, muscular girl with thick curly black hair and even thicker thighs. She needed a skating partner, and I needed to get a life. I practiced every day, hoping to impress Renee. Thanks to my “dedication”, I became quite good. When Renee had to move away. I started training with my sister, filling in for her, so that we could crush our last competition. Our instructor walked in on one of these training sessions and learned what I already knew: we made a killer duo. Renee could not make the last competition. Mia went with me instead. We swept and made regionals. I leveled up from being the best pair in my state to being one of the best in the country.

My headlights turned on. We didn’t want to be driving this late, but yesterday’s storm forced us to stop. We were supposed to arrive at the most important competition of the year tomorrow morning. It was being held in Pittsburgh; we hadn’t made it past Ohio. Thankfully, the weather today had been sunny and beautiful. The snow was beginning to melt.

“Get some sleep, you’re going to need it if you want to land a throw triple axel,” I said.

“Fine, but wake me up if you need to switch off. I don’t want you falling asleep and driving us off a cliff.” Mia killed the music and grabbed her pillow and blanket from the back. She got comfortable and drifted off to sleep.

I wasn’t planning on waking her up. I shouldn’t have needed to. We were only 4 hours out, an easy distance to finish with the aid of caffeine. But then a storm hit, and a loud crack of thunder startled her awake.

“Agh! Is it—thunderstorming?” Mia asked.

“Yeah, but it’s pretty chill. Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up if it gets any worse.” I said.

The drizzle turned into a heavy downpour. The car shook, and leaves ripped off surrounding trees pelted my windshield due to the sheer force of the wind. It was as though the storm intended to disprove my words.

Mia had a white-knuckle grip on her blanket as she said, “I think we should pull over.”

“It’s only a mile to our next exit. I’ll pull over at the first public building I can find. It’ll be safer than a car,” I said. “This wind is making me nervous, and I don’t want a branch through my windshield.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Mia said.

Right as we were about to take the exit, we spotted it. A tornado was heading straight towards us. I slammed on the brakes, stopping in the middle of the road.

“We need to get out now!” I shouted.

“Wait!” Mia rifled around in the glove box before pulling out 2 emergency ponchos. “Pop the trunk.”

“There’s no time for this!”

“Staying safe also means not freezing to death.”

I popped the trunk, then pulled on my poncho. Mia consistently planned ahead. It’s part of what made her such an excellent partner on the ice. She held her bag in one hand, walked around to the trunk, and handed me the emergency kit with her other hand. Then, we carefully climbed down into the ditch alongside the road.

I pulled out my phone, unable to operate the touchscreen in the heavy rain. There was no cell service. I was unsure what emergency services would have done, or if I could have shielded my phone enough to be usable, but now we were truly alone. A heavy weight pressed upon me. I had to ensure Mia survived.

I noticed my sister shivering, then realized I was too. She opened the emergency kit Mom had insisted we bring and pulled out tightly packaged plastic emergency blankets. We wrapped them around ourselves, wrestling with the wind that was tearing at us from every direction, trying to snatch them away from our grasp. At least it served as a distraction from the terror of the approaching tornado.

I looked up, hoping and praying that the tornado had changed directions. It hadn’t. Mia was still shivering, and so was I. I opened my arms, holding tight to my blanket, resembling a bat. Mia huddled up against my chest, wrapping her own blanket around me as well. The heat of 2 bodies under 2 blankets helped. I clutched my little sister against me, as though I could help to keep the tornado from blowing her away.

“I’m scared,” Mia yelled over the roar of the wind.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This was all my fault. I should have known better than to—”

“Then to what? Drive overnight through beautiful weather? You’re always so hard on yourself. We’re a team; we’re in this together. Both on the ice and off. We can’t win the Olympics if we don’t work together.”

“We can’t win the Olympics if we die!” I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. I wasn’t trying to scare Mia any further.

Mia hugs me tighter, laying her head on my chest. “I know. A few hours ago, I was obsessed with the competition, but now I just want to live. Skating is my passion, but it’s not more important than my life. Maybe this competition was a mistake. We should never have come.”

“Shhh.” I rub her back. “You’re right; we couldn’t have known this was going to happen. It’s pointless to dwell on ‘what ifs’.”

The tornado was mere feet away from my car now. I had to hold myself back from scrambling up the hill uselessly to stop it. I couldn’t reach it in time to drive away; it would be stupid to try. We were stuck here now. Instead, I focused on Mia.

“We need to crouch down; the tornado is right above us.” I tried not to let the panic in my throat creep into my voice.

Mia nodded, and we sank to our knees in the freezing slush, not letting go of each other. Time seemed to slow as we watched the tornado lift my car into the air. Mia’s grip tightened against me, and I could feel her hot tears soak through my shirt. We both jumped as the tornado threw my car into the ditch we were hiding in, mere yards away from where we were crouched. Then the intense shaking began. I couldn’t tell who was shaking whom, but we gripped each other tightly as we waited for the tornado to pass.

Within a few minutes, the tornado disappeared, leaving only the rain and its destruction behind. I stood as though in a trance, walked over to my car, and inspected it. The impact smashed the hood in and bent the axles. Opening the door, I noticed the airbags had deployed, and the seats were now covered in a fine white powder and smelled like chemicals. With a gloved hand, I brushed the powder off as best as I could and climbed into the car, grateful for the respite from the wind. Without thinking, I reached up and pressed the start engine button. It worked. I might not have been able to drive my car anywhere, but at least I could stay warm.

Mia opened the door. “What are you doing? Your car is wrecked.”

“Brush the powder off, get in and close the door; you’re letting the heat out.” My voice came out sounding glazed.

Mia did as I asked. “You okay, bro?”

I shrugged. “What do we do now?”

Mia pulled out her phone and called our parents, 911, and a tow truck.

Once the police arrived, we grabbed our stuff out of the car, and they brought us to the nearest hotel. We each took a brief shower, changed clothes, and slept in until late afternoon the next day, waiting for our mom to arrive.

I woke up first, but made no move to get out of bed. If I stayed in bed, then maybe I could fall back asleep and avoid thinking about what happened, about everything we lost, about how hollow I now felt inside. Then I heard movement from the other bed.

“We lost our biggest opportunity. Why am I not more upset?” I asked as I rolled over to face Mia.

“Being alive is way more important than a stupid competition,” she said.

“All our work down the drain, and I just feel numb. It’s like it wasn’t important to begin with.”

Mom knocked on our door then. Mia opened the door and threw herself into Mom’s arms, sobbing. I sat up on the bed, my head still feeling dazed.

“I started driving as soon as you called. I was so worried about you! ” Mom said, tears streaming down her face.

“We almost did, the car landed and nearly crushed us! I was so scared.” Mia’s voice is muffled against Mom’s chest.

“It did?! That’s terrifying.” Mom squeezed Mia tighter. “I’m so grateful to be holding you in my arms right now. I couldn’t stand it if anything had happened to my babies.”

“We’ll need a ride back home, and I’ll need to go car shopping. I’m sorry the competition didn’t work out, Mia.” I said, my voice robotic.

Mom gave me a watery-eyed smile. What was going on?

“Your insurance policy covers storm damage; they’re giving me the runaround, but don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get what you pay for. Dad is already car hunting for you. I’m sure he’ll be spamming you with options soon. In response to the tornado, the organizers pushed the competition back a day. We can take my car to Philadelphia if you still want to go.”

Mom’s words took a moment to register because the competition felt so pointless now. Why would I care about the Olympics after nearly dying? There were more important things than skating. But then I looked over at Mia. The biggest smile filled her face. I’d been excited about this competition before the storm. Could we both be right? Undoubtedly, skating isn’t the most important thing. But did that mean I should give up on my dream? No, I decided. I’d go back onto the ice.

From that day on, competing was different. It wasn’t easy to get into a competitive mindset after the near-death experience, but we put our best foot forward, relied on all of our practice, and made the pre-Olympic team. After that, we poured our hearts and souls into our craft. During our off time, we were often hanging out with family and friends. We left for future competitions earlier and advocated for better weather delay policies.

Eventually, we settled into our new normal, no longer feeling like we were going to lose everyone and everything we had ever invested in. Feeling confident that we could balance our passions and our obligations. We became the Olympic hopefuls to beat, affectionately nicknamed the whirlwind for our unmatched throw triple axel.