I didn’t know being hollow could feel cold, but it froze me from the inside out. There was a mountain; it was lushful, but covered in snow and frosted snowflakes that fell from the sky. At the bottom of the mountain range was a frozen-over lake with thin and thick ice. She glided across, collecting the winter seasonal low—her thoughts.

She was moving. I was moving. Turns, lifts; you could hear the skates still cracking the layer of frozen water below. Suddenly, I began to skate over the thin layer. I fell in deep. I was just a girl—life abrupted. Paused.

Suddenly, the bell for class rang. I was spaced out. I slowly got up, collected my things, and walked to lunch. She waited for me. We walked together and sat down at a table. It was loud. It was really loud. Talking the whole time, it was almost a normal day—until I got home.

I was communicated a message that my friend of six years was no longer the friend everybody perceived her to be. My heart sunk straight into my bones, through my lungs, producing tears on my bedroom floor. What did I do to deserve this? My thoughts were rushing, my heart racing, my lungs trying to catch a breath—but it just wouldn’t stay.

The skater began sinking into the lake. She didn’t try to swim up. She was too weak to try and save whatever bittersweet softness was left inside of her. It was that day I realized something: I never wanted to let a single person see me ever again—not the real me, at least.

I woke up. 6:20 a.m. The date showed January 16th, 2024—one day after the truth of a person, an angel, fell from heaven only to reveal their true self. The colors on a palette would no longer be colorful, just dark and grey. I could agree with the world on one thing: I was angry. I was hurt. I was no longer the version of me I was less than exactly 24 hours ago.

I got dressed and went to school. Everybody’s true colors began to show more and more, time and time again, repeating in constant cycles turning into melancholy and pure hatred. I wasn’t into meeting new people; I didn’t want to talk to anybody really. Everybody was just supposed to be a part of the cycle—the cycle where almost every single person had one thing in common: to hurt me, to use my kindness against me.

The skater slowly turned frigid. Trapped. Almost like watching everything from her eyes—but it wasn’t her. It was a shadow. Derealization slowly spread throughout my veins like a poisonous substance flooding my nervous system. The world was still. My life was put on pause. I would yell. I would scream. I would shout. That’s exactly what I did.

I was cold. Everything I said, I knew I did. Nobody could ever see me as sweet ever again.

Days. Weeks. A month passed.

I returned home one day—but it wasn’t just any day. It was the day after my 16th birthday. I returned home from school, and my mom was crying. I was confused. I was in a daze. She informed me that she had taken our cat to the vet that day. Surgery to help. No money on hand. He was put to sleep—not just any sleep, but the sleep where your eyes close and you never see daylight again.

The skater only sank more and more, deeper into the lake. Every single second that passed, I could feel nothing but a flame inside of me growing. The more I began to watch from my eyes, the more I wasn’t in control. I wasn’t me. I was surviving, not living.

Every day that passed, more and more friends I left alone. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk another. My relationships with everybody were distant; everyone around me felt like a ticking time bomb before they switched on me next. People began to always look at me first when I walked into the room—not because of how I looked, but because they knew I was brittle.

Nobody could predict what mood I possibly could have been in. Was I going to use my frostbitten personality to express the fire emotions seething from the bare-naked thoughts that were eating away and gutting every possible nice thing I could have thought to say? Or would I choose to tame the blistering, disconnected emotions into silence?

The skates weren’t moving. I could hear the echoes of people speaking. My body was vacant. I had nothing left to give, to offer; nothing inside of me was full. I was hungry—hungry to fill the thoughts of one word: Why?

Another month passed. It was March. I was raw. I was hoping nobody saw how much I was. One night, I put in my headphones, and my playlist ended. There was one specific song that opened my eyes underwater. I was drowning. I had been ignited on fire. But there was nothing I could do about it now. The wildfire had already been ablaze.

I still wasn’t me, even after seeing the damage I had done. I was a match to a burning flame—except I wasn’t the match. The people around me were matches. Slowly, the flame began to die. I realized something inside of me was dead. It wouldn’t come back.

Two more months passed. May.

The body under the ice was shallow; it was tender. It was changed in a way that could never be changed back. My body was soothed. A gasp. I slowly opened my eyes and sat up.

“Sand?” I said to myself.

You could see, feel, and hear the waves of the ocean. My memory was foggy. Where have I been? Where am I? Who am I? The questions lingered in my somber mind like the pause after a hurricane had finally passed. The sky was clear and light blue.

I was awake. I survived.

But where were my memories?

I slowly walked back to my parents. You could hear the seagulls squawking. The beach was half full, yet half empty. My friend was there too. We all went on vacation together. I sat down in my beach chair, opened my phone, and went straight to my camera roll. I scrolled through the last five months of memories. I was in a trance. Every single day compressed into a blur.

I survived.

My feet moved. I swam upward. My arms grabbed onto the ice. Gasping for air, I looked around. I thawed. I was new. I began to skate again.

I learned one thing: nothing is permanent. Everything around you will one day be gone. I never viewed friendships the same ever again.

But to this day, I still skate.

It taught me to stay afloat.

I’m. Still. Floating.