The heat in Georgetown pressed down like a hand on the back of Nyah Baptiste's neck. It wasn't the dramatic kind of heat people talked about when they wanted to sound poetic. It was practical. Suffocating. The kind that soaked into clothes before you even stepped outside.
The kind that made breathing feel like work. Nyah stood barefoot on the cracked tile floor of her parents' living room, the fan clicking uselessly in the corner. Its blades turned, slow and tired, pushing warm air from one end of the room to the other like a bad joke. Sweat gathered along her spine, slid down, disappeared into the waistband of her shorts.
She was ten. Maybe eleven. The year blurred now. What stayed sharp was the feeling. Her toes were pointed. Not deliberately. They just were. The muscles had learned the habit before she had words for it. She lifted one foot, balanced on the other. The floor was uneven. The tile bit into her sole. She adjusted, arms floating outward, elbows soft, wrists loose. In her head, the floor wasn't tile. It was ice clean, white, endless. The air wasn't heavy. It cut. It woke you up.
She turned. Slow. Controlled. One rotation, then another. Her skirt an old T-shirt she'd cut and knotted at the side fluttered. She felt it before she saw it: the wobble. The loss of center. The imaginary blade slipping. Nyah corrected, jaw tight, arms pulling in. In her head, she landed the spin clean. In reality, her heel caught the edge of a loose tile. She went down hard.
Her hip struck first. Then her shoulder. The sound echoed bone on floor, sharp and final. The fan kept clicking. Somewhere outside, a car horn blared. Life moved on. Nyah didn't cry. She lay there, staring at the ceiling, breath shallow. Pain radiated outward in dull waves, but it was manageable. Pain always was. What stung was the interruption , the way the world insisted on reminding her where she was. Guyana. No ice. No rink. No cold. Just heat and gravity and a body that refused to float.
She sat up slowly, fingers digging into the floor for leverage. A dark bruise was already blooming along her thigh. She pressed it experimentally, welcomed the ache. Pain grounded her. It proved she was still here. From the kitchen came the sound of plates clinking. Her mother's voice followed tight, irritated. "Nyah. How many times did I tell you, don't play foolishness in the house?" Nyah didn't answer.
She stood, brushed dust from her palms, adjusted the knot in her shirt. Her reflection stared back at her from the dark screen of the television: skinny limbs, coiled hair pulled into a puff, eyes too serious for her age.
"You going to break something one day," her mother continued, louder now. "And don't expect me to run you hospital."
Nyah finally spoke. Her voice came out quiet, controlled. "I wasn't playing."
Marcia Baptiste appeared in the doorway, dish towel slung over one shoulder. She looked tired. Always did. Her face was lined in ways Nyah hadn't seen on other mothers creases carved by work, by worry, by things that never got said. "Then what you call it?" Marcia asked. Nyah shrugged. A small movement. Defensive. "Practicing."
Marcia scoffed. Not unkindly. Not kindly either. "Practicing what? Falling down?"
Nyah didn't look away. "Skating."
The word landed between them, fragile and exposed. Marcia's expression shifted not anger, not surprise. Something closer to resignation. "There is no ice here," she said, as if explaining the sky. "You know that."
"I know," Nyah replied.
"Then why you wasting time on nonsense?" Nyah's fingers curled at her sides. Her nails bit into her palms. She focused on the feeling. The sting kept her from saying too much.
"It's not nonsense," she said.
Marcia exhaled, long and tired. "Nyah, you need to focus on school. On something real ,Books , Exams , A future that make sense." The word sense echoed. Nyah wanted to tell her that nothing made sense. Not the way her chest tightened for no reason. Not the way her thoughts raced at night, sharp and loud and impossible to slow. Not the way the world felt unbearable unless she imagined herself gliding across ice that didn't exist. Instead, she nodded. That was her first real skill: knowing when to fold herself small.
Marcia watched her for a moment longer, then turned back to the kitchen. The conversation was over. It always ended that way unfinished, heavy, like something left on the stove too long. Nyah waited until the clatter of dishes resumed before moving again. She crossed the room, careful this time, and sat on the floor beside the couch. From beneath it, she pulled out a notebook creased, dog-eared, hidden from casual inspection. The cover was plain. Inside, it was anything but. Pages filled with diagrams. Stick figures mid-jump. Arrows marking rotation speed. Notes scribbled in the margins: Triple toe entry edge matters. Center of mass don't fight it. Breathe out on landing.
She ran her thumb along the paper, grounding herself. She had never been on ice but she knew skating. She knew it the way some kids knew scripture memorized, internalized, unquestioned. She watched competitions on borrowed phones, in internet cafés when she could afford it, rewinding grainy videos until the owners yelled at her for hogging bandwidth. She learned the names before the moves. The physics before the beauty. Ice skating was precision disguised as grace. That mattered to her , Grace felt like a lie and Precision felt honest.
Outside, the afternoon sun dipped lower, turning the dust in the air golden. Nyah closed the notebook and leaned her head back against the couch. Her eyes slid shut. Immediately, the rink formed. Cold air kissed her skin. The ice stretched wide, flawless. She stepped onto it, blades sharp, balance perfect. The noise in her head softened. Her breathing slowed. For a few precious seconds, she wasn't a girl in a country that couldn't hold her dream. She was moving and movement, she would later learn, was the only thing that ever kept the dark thoughts from catching up and not forever but Just long enough.
School smelled like chalk dust, sweat, and old books that had given up on being useful. Nyah learned early how to take up as little space as possible. She walked the corridors with her shoulder angled inward, backpack hugged tight to her chest. She wasn't bullied in the loud, cinematic way people liked to imagine. No one shoved her into lockers or stole her lunch money. What she got instead was quieter, side glances, half-smiles that meant weird and whispers that didn't bother lowering their volume. "Why she always walking like that?"
Nyah heard it as she passed the stairwell, shoes squeaking faintly against concrete. Her feet moved carefully, heel to toe, as if the floor might disappear if she misstepped. Years later, she would recognize it as habit edge control practiced on land. Another voice followed, sharper. "She think she better than people." Nyah didn't turn around. She never turned around. Classroom chairs scraped as students settled. Ceiling fans hummed overhead, uneven, one blade wobbling like it might give up at any moment. The teacher droned on about colonial history, dates and names stacking on top of each other without meaning.
Nyah copied notes anyway. Her handwriting was small, neat, precise. Control mattered. Even when her mind wandered, her hand stayed disciplined. In the margins of her notebook, she sketched Not faces , Not flowers but Bodies in motion. A jump broken into phases , approach , Takeoff , Rotation and Landing. Someone nudged her elbow. "Nyah."
She flinched. Amaya Clarke slid into the seat beside her, hair braided back neatly, eyes sharp with quiet humor. Amaya always smelled like soap and citrus, like she paid attention to small things.
"You zoning again," Amaya murmured, lips barely moving. "You miss the question."
Nyah glanced at the board. Hadn't heard it. Her chest tightened.
"What question?" Amaya leaned back, chair tilting dangerously. "Something about sugar plantations. You good. He isn't calling on you." Nyah exhaled slowly. "Thanks." Amaya's gaze flicked to the sketch in the notebook. She didn't comment right away. She never did. She let things exist before touching them.
"You drawing that skating thing again?" she asked eventually. Nyah stiffened, then nodded. "Yeah." "You ever going to show me properly what it is you seeing in your head?"
Nyah hesitated. The images were fragile and showing them felt like tearing skin.
"Maybe," she said. Amaya smiled, small and real. "I'll wait." The bell rang. Chairs scraped again. Life lurched forward. Outside, the sun had grown meaner. Nyah and Amaya walked side by side, steps matching without effort. They didn't hold hands. They didn't need to. Proximity was enough.
"Your mother still on your case?" Amaya asked. Nyah shrugged. "Same."
"You tell her you serious about it?"
"She knows." Nyah paused. "She just doesn't believe me."
Amaya kicked a pebble across the pavement. "Parents believe what convenient." Nyah huffed a short laugh. "You sound old."
"I am old," Amaya replied. "Spiritually." They parted at the corner. Amaya waved, two fingers lifted casually. Nyah watched her go until the crowd swallowed her. Home waited. The house felt smaller at night. Walls pressed closer. Sounds carried. Her father sat at the table, shoulders slumped, radio murmuring news he didn't really listen to. He nodded when Nyah entered. That was the extent of their exchange. She ate quickly, retreated to her room.
Darkness brought the thoughts.
They came uninvited, slipping in through cracks she couldn't seal. A whisper at first. What's the point? She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling fan as it cut slow circles in the air. Her chest felt heavy, like something sat on it. You're wasting time, You're embarrassing yourself and You'll never leave. Her throat tightened. Breathing became manual. Nyah rolled onto her side, pulled her knees to her chest. She pressed her forehead into the pillow, fabric damp with sweat then she moved.
Slowly, carefully, she extended one leg, traced an invisible arc. Her arms followed, carving space. She pictured the rink again the sound of blades biting ice, the hush of cold air. The thoughts didn't disappear but they stepped back
Enough for her to breathe. Enough for her to sleep. By the time Nyah turned thirteen, the notebook had doubled in size. So had the distance between her and her parents.
"You need to pick something realistic," her father said one evening, voice flat, eyes fixed on the table. "This… obsession. It won't feed you."
Nyah stood across from him, spine straight. "I don't want it to feed me. I want it to be me." Silence followed. Heavy. Final.
That night, she added a new page to the notebook. At the top, she wrote: Leaving is not betrayal. She underlined it twice. She didn't know how and didn't know when. But the idea took root and once it did, it refused to die.
The idea of leaving did not arrive gently. It slammed into Nyah's life the way panic did sudden, overwhelming, impossible to ignore. She was fourteen the first time she said it out loud.
"I want to leave Guyana."
The words tasted sharp, metallic. She said them standing in the kitchen, barefoot again, hands braced against the counter as if the floor might tilt. Her mother was peeling plantains. The knife paused mid-slice. "To go where?" Marcia asked without turning. "Anywhere there's ice."
The knife came down harder than necessary. A dull thud, Another slice and Another. "You think ice just waiting for you somewhere?" Marcia said. "You think money grow on trees?" Nyah swallowed. Her heart kicked hard against her ribs. "I can work , I can study, I can..."
"You a child," Marcia snapped, finally facing her. "And you talking foolishness." The word hit harder than the knife ever could. Foolishness.
Nyah's hands trembled. She curled them into fists, nails biting skin. "It's not foolishness to want something." Marcia laughed then Not loud ,Not cruel and Just tired. "It is when that something doesn't want you back." Nyah left the kitchen before the tears came. She shut her bedroom door quietly, as if noise might confirm she was wrong. She slid down until her back hit the door, knees pulled in tight. Her chest burned and the thoughts surged, louder than usual. She's right. You're stupid. You're nothing without this stupid dream.
Nyah pressed her palms flat against the floor, grounding herself. She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. Slow. Controlled. She stood. In the narrow space between her bed and the wall, she began to move ,No music, No audience and Just repetition. Edges she didn't have, Jumps she'd never done and She practiced footwork until her calves screamed. She spun until the room blurred, dizziness clawing at her skull. When she lost balance, she corrected. When she fell, she got up. Again, Again and Again.
By the time she collapsed onto the bed, sweat soaked her shirt, limbs shaking, the noise in her head had dulled to a low hum. Pain had won and Pain always did. At school, the gap between Nyah and everyone else widened. She stopped pretending she wanted the same things they did. Parties bored her. Gossip felt useless. She drifted through hallways like a ghost with a notebook clutched to her chest. Amaya noticed. "You disappearing," she said one afternoon, leaning against the gate outside school. Nyah adjusted her bag strap. "I'm here."
"You're not." Amaya studied her face. "You sleep?" Nyah hesitated. "Enough."
It was a lie. They both knew it. Amaya sighed. "Come by my place later." Nyah nodded. She always nodded. Saying yes was easier than explaining the no. Amaya's house felt different lighter
somehow. Less tension in the walls. They sat on the floor, backs against the couch, legs stretched out. The TV played quietly, ignored. Nyah pulled out the notebook. This time, she opened it. She showed Amaya the diagrams. The notes. The obsessive detail. Amaya flipped pages slowly, carefully, like touching something sacred. "You really serious."
Nyah's throat tightened. "I don't know how not to be."
Amaya closed the notebook and handed it back. "Then don't stop."
Nyah looked at her. Really looked. "Even if it ruins me?"
Amaya didn't answer right away. Her gaze dropped to the floor. When she spoke, her voice was steady but softer.
"Some things ruin you whether you chase them or not." Nyah felt that settle somewhere deep. That night, alone again, the ceiling fan hummed its tired song. Nyah lay awake, staring into darkness. She thought about airports she'd never seen. Rinks she'd never touched. Cold she'd never felt. She thought about staying. The thought scared her more.
Her chest tightened, breath catching. The familiar spiral began images flashing too fast, heart racing, limbs buzzing. I can't stay, I can't stay and I
can't stay. She rolled onto her side, hugging herself. In her head, the ice appeared. She stepped onto it barefoot this time. It burned ,It cut but it held. She skated anyway. By the end of that year, Nyah had stopped asking for permission. She started planning in silence and silence, she would learn, can be louder than screaming.