CHAPTER SEVENTEEN i hurt myself sometimes, is that too scary for you?
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THERE IS VERY LITTLE ATTENTION paid to girls in skate parks, even when they have a skateboard tucked under their elbows like they know their stuff.
(And in actual fact, Violet does know her stuff. There are little things in life that she isn't certain of—important things, mostly—but when it comes to skating, it's the only thing she knows in its entirety. The only thing that would never abandon her, unless someone forcibly cut her legs off.)
When a girl walks into any skate park, the first thing she'll see is boys cruising in shark packs scratching up the concrete, thundering up and down ramps, wheels screaming with a cruel vengeance against the ground as they fly past on their boards. The first thing she'll smell is the imposing ocean of testosterone, aggressive waves of it surging against her skin. Sometimes, it gets overwhelming. Sometimes, they'll overshoot their landing and shave the pavement a little too close to you and carve a second before your nose hits their shoulders. Sometimes, you'll feel the need to back out and run towards somewhere less populated. Somewhere you're by yourself with nobody else.
But Violet, Sage and Kit barely feel the judgemental looks shot their way when they walk into Tillicum skatepark, throwing their skateboards on the ground to mark out their territory, a fearless sidewalk tribe of bruised knees and undaunted edge and shark-teeth cruising on their skateboards at a speed that should be throwing sparks from under their wheels. Nobody would chase them away. It was just them three and every bruise, every secret whispered into the void, every scratch and tumble, every hard fall and rolled ankle, every memory etched into scar tissue against the world. Until Sage almost fought a guy with her bare fists for cutting into her path while she'd been skating, ruining her line. In any other scenario, Violet would've knifed the guy there and then, or she might've gone the less primitive route and figured out his name, figured out what his father did for a living, ruined his life a little bit, but before she could decide on how best to exploit her father's power or indulge in her own violence, Kit had ushered them out of the park and dragged them both by the scruff of their necks like kittens towards her house.
(On the way, Violet had made up her mind: it wasn't worth it.)
"I don't get it," Sage said, frowning at Violet like she was a half-scrambled and virtually unsolvable thousand-piece puzzle on a coffee table. She sat on the top of the ramp, legs dangling over the edge, as she reviewed the video recordings of Violet and Kit's lines.
"It's not that hard," Violet said, kicking her skateboard back onto its trucks and planting one foot on it. "I mean once you get the angle right—"
"No, no, I don't mean, like, the kick-flip." Sage waved a dismissive hand. "I meant the other thing. Bella. She's kinda hot, just saying."
Even before Sage's clarification, Violet already knew what she was going to bring up. After school, after Violet's weekly therapy session with Dr Josten, and after the entire fiasco at Tillicum, she'd come to Kit's backyard skatepark with the intention of forgetting the entire situation. Just for a moment. Skating was always an in-the-moment thing. In the moment, she could think of nothing else, could do nothing else but let the mechanics of the next trick take over in muscle memory. There was no time to think when skating. Each moment critical to the balance and focus, and nothing else to distract her from perfecting a trick. That's what she needed now. A moment not to think about anything, to leave her own head for a little while. The last thing she wanted to talk about was Bella Swan and her involvement with Victoria.
