The Happiest Smell I Know

APRIL

I stagger to the bench just as my legs give out, dropping me heavily onto the wooden slats. The knot in my throat swells dangerously.

Then, suddenly, I realize the court next to ours has gone quiet. I look up, silently praying I won't meet Eveline's eyes. Instead, I find Aram smiling at me from the other side of the green net. He's holding out his racket.

Before I can think twice, I'm on my feet and heading toward the entrance of Court 2.

Aram drops the racket into my hand. My throat is still too tight to trust with words, so I settle for a grateful nod. Then I turn around quickly, doing my best not to look in Eveline's direction.

When I step back onto Court 1, I catch Aksel rolling his eyes. But the look bounces off me and falls into the clay. I slip past him toward the baseline before his frustration has a chance to infect me. I can't let my first session end like this.

The training session from hell continues. I have one hour and thirty-five minutes left to prove to Aksel that the Nationals trophy isn't out of my reach.

***

I open the front door as quietly as possible. The smell of grilled fish drifts from the kitchen.

Grilled sturgeon?

My lungs fill with the happiest smell I know. I usually encounter it only once a year. Sturgeon is expensive, and my parents only grill it on my birthday.

My muscles are still throbbing from training, and whatever is left of me emotionally feels worn thin. Instead of sneaking past the kitchen, I walk in. Mom and dad are setting the table for what looks suspiciously like a feast. The moment they spot me, their faces light up, both of them waiting eagerly for my reaction.

At that moment, I would probably trade even grilled sturgeon for the chance to cover my face with my hands and cry. Instead, I gather the last of my strength and smile back.

—

After a training session from hell, the hot, juicy fish works miracles. The grilled potatoes and cabbage salad help too. Little by little, the food repairs not only my body but something deeper.

The table, however, tells me something I hadn't wanted to think about.

My parents and I had been carrying the same hope inside us all along. Separately, silently, we'd all convinced ourselves that Aksel's arrival might somehow change my life. That he would step into it like a good-luck charm.

The thought settles heavily in my stomach, right beside my favorite fish.

At least mom and dad didn't spend every day surrounded by the Academy's glittering crowd. At least they could still believe that somewhere beneath all that luxury and excess, there might be genuinely kind people.

But me?

How stupid did I have to be to expect Aksel to be any different after years of running headfirst into the Academy's endless varieties of arrogance?

And now I was stuck inventing increasingly creative ways to dodge every question thrown my way, all of them about the "new coach."

By the end of dinner, mom and dad had grown quieter. My evasive answers had probably told them everything they needed to know about my first day of training. Every now and then, their eyes drifted toward me before returning to one another, as though continuing some silent conversation over my head.

Dad kept refilling my glass with lemonade. Before I'd even finished one piece of fish, mom was already placing another onto my plate. It was helping. A full mouth is a useful excuse for silence.

Monday is dad's only day off. Every other day of the week, he works at the restaurant until late at night, which is why Mondays have become my favorite day. They're the only day when the three of us can sit down and have dinner together. 

But not today. Today, I wished it wasn't Monday. Today, it would have been easier to sit here carrying my embarrassment beside just one of them instead of both.

Eager to avoid any further conversation, I retreat to my room immediately after dinner and open my homework.

My parents have always managed to create an atmosphere of trust and love so strong that I've never felt the need to keep secrets from them. Ever since I was a child, my family has been the one place that shielded me from the pushing and shoving of the outside world. The three of us lean on one another. Within these walls, I was raised to believe that I was every bit as deserving of a better life as the people living behind gated fences, and that the line between possible and impossible was mine to draw.

And yet I have no idea how to tell them that my new coach seems to have written me off before our first session was even over.

How do I explain that Aksel greeted me with skepticism and sent me home convinced that I was nothing?

Trusting their understanding, I hope the subject of the "new coach" has finally been laid to rest and I force my attention back to the empty squares covering the page.

Then the lines begin to blur. The blue grid begins to bleed into itself.

After fourteen hours in custody and repeatedly denied release, my tears finally begin to fall.