Young Writers Society

He admired the way her hair caught the light when she raised her hands above her head and let the beat pounding in her ears take her away. It was like she was dancing, but he secretly wished that for once she didn’t need to be so independent. For once, it would be nice for her to need a partner.

The girl’s eyes flicked up from the concrete and caught him watching her. She made a face. “What, I can’t be the only girl that likes to dance on her skateboard? It’s called enjoying the moment, which isn’t what I see you doing.” Her head gestured towards him and he knew that she was poking fun at what he called ‘practical riding’, which basically consisted of nothing but propelling the skateboard forward.

“No, I’m sure there are plenty of other girls out there pretending their board is a dance floor.” He yelled his snide remark to her, which incited a half smile that revealed the dimple on her cheek. Then she leaned forward, kicked off the ground at a rapid pace, and weaved through the crowd, leaving him behind.

“There must be several million other boys out there who are as stiff as a pole.” She called back, mimicking his remark towards her. Then she shot him a look that said are you coming or what?

He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes and only opening them once he realized he almost ran into a pedestrian. “Sorry!” His voice carried over the wind as he zoomed past the hordes of walking people trying to catch up to the girl he had been attempting to tell the truth to after the past 12 years. His hand went into his pocket and pulled out a pack of ice breakers that he proceeded to shovel in his mouth like a polar bear that had just experienced a severe bout of thirst and decided to go bite on an iceberg to relieve it. Out of the corner of his eye he could see some girls passing by on the right giving him disapproving looks, which he avoided by switching his view to the left side. Instead, there were girls now admiring him. Not much better according to his standards. There was just one girl he wished he could get through to.

With a noisy gulp, he swallowed down all the ice breakers. He felt like a dragon—except one that could breathe out nothing but mint scented frigid air, not fire. After a few more apologies to people he almost rammed into and several million more deep breaths, he had caught up to her.

“Chrissy, if I didn’t know better I would think that you enjoyed letting me make a fool of myself all alone back there. “

“Then I would say you don’t know me too well, Dan, because I did.” She smirked. “Did you run into another defenseless old man again? You should be more careful. Maybe even wear a helmet.” She fake scolded him, her finger waving ridiculously in the air in her attempt to portray his overprotective mom.

He shook his head, rolling his eyes. “I get that enough at home. No need for you to turn into a clone of my mom.”

They lapsed into playful conversation. It was enough for Dan to forget what he was planning to do for a few seconds. Somehow with her he didn’t have to second-guess himself or worry about what other people’s opinions would be. She was the missing piece of the puzzle, the last piece he needed to really be himself—the part that he could never show anyone else.

The sound of their skateboard wheels changed as they skated into what they had nicknamed the Tunnel. Every possible surface was covered with graffiti art, but a few more steps down the menacing space and you were inside of a homey pie shop furnished with plushy armchairs and vintage wallpaper older than most people’s grandmas. With each clatter of the wheels hitting the surface of the floor, Dan’s hands became progressively clammy. Clenching his fingers in a fist didn’t help his effort to calm himself and neither did his blushing face, which was warm enough to fry an egg in a second flat.

As soon as Chrissy foot braked her skateboard to a stop, his mind came to an absolute halt. That accounted for him skidding across the floor of the tunnel and scraping his knee on the asphalt. He could hear ringing in his ears, but he soon realized it was the sound of her laughing.

“I-I’m so sorry I just—your face!” She couldn’t even formulate a full sentence, that’s how hard she was laughing. But she wasn’t laughing hard enough to stop her from helping him up.

If his face had previously been warm, he was now sizzling. “I’ll-I’ll go to the, um, bathroom. Yeah, I’ll be right back.” He stared at the ground as he grabbed his skateboard and walked as normally as possible until he disappeared from view. That was when he sprinted, threw his skateboard he had earned by doing life-threatening manual labor on the floor like it was a dirty tissue, and frantically began straightening himself.

He mentally berated himself for being so clumsy. He’d already ruined the perfect moment. Wiping up the blood from the gash on his knee, he couldn’t stop replaying the possibilities of all the different ways he could have asked her to go on a date with him. That possibility was already gone, he reminded himself. One by one he cracked his knuckles, realizing that he just couldn’t do what he had set out to do.

It would have to wait another year.

Yet another deep breath later and he realized that the threat of rejection had passed. A smile spread across his face. He had waited twelve years already, what difference would another one make? If there wasn’t any difference at least he had one more year to convince himself that there was a chance she liked him too.

She watched him come back, a megawatt smile on his face as he offered to go buy her favorite slice of pie, an order he’d always had memorized since they were kids, no matter how many times she changed it.

The smile on her face faded a bit as she stood up to watch him walk to the store, and it saddened her that Dan hadn’t noticed.

It was bad enough that he’d never realized her feelings for him.