Page 97 of False Start

Over and over in a line, we’d just go with it, whatever we felt like doing, performing for the kids, teaching those boys exactly why skating was cool, and watching their eyes light up at our moves.

Tilly skated ahead of me, smiling at a cluster of kids she worked with, giving them a wink—the move distracting her just enough she miscalculated her speed when she jumped.

Her skate caught, she stumbled, but rolled, rolling to a stop across the track just past the padding in front of me.

Right in front of me. Too damn close.

If I jumped, I was never going to clear the padding and Tilly.

Her eyes widened and she froze.

If I went for it, for the whole leap and didn’t clear her, I was going to do damage, real damage. Broken bones kind of damage.

In front of a room full of kids.

Fuck.

I could hear my team yelling, Priest yelling, their hollers muffled and urgent.

Everything slowed, my blink impossibly long, the echo of my breath a jagged tear through my windpipe, the connection of her eyes and mine, the fraction of a second to make a decision and pray it was right.

Don’t move, Tilly.

I leaped, giving it everything I had, my thighs and calves flexing, my left foot digging in its edge, straightening my knee to launch me over the pads, and come down on my front wheels and toe stop in the narrow gap on the other side where I’d give one last push up on a double-toed hop and clear her.

If I didn’t time it just right, I’d hit her.

I had no idea how much space there was from this angle. Inches, maybe… but no more than a foot between the backside of the pad and Tilly’s body.

I focused on that gap. Willed myself to land in that gap.

My skate came down with a hard grind against the track. My wheel started to slip but stopped when my toe stop made solid contact with the Masonite.

At least I hoped it was the Masonite.

I couldn’t look. I didn’t want to know. If I looked and I was hurting her, I’d never clear the next jump over, the one right in line with her neck and shoulders.

Pushing one last time, I dragged in a heavy breath, and launched myself over her, swinging my arms, arching my back—anything to give myself more momentum.

Landing on the other side, I skidded and spun until I was aimed back at Tilly, my lungs heaving with the exertion it took to get over her.

She pushed herself up, stumbling to her feet, her face white and coated in sweat. Patting her hands up and down her chest, she grinned. “Fuck yeah.”

Her hand went up for a high five.

Relief surged through me leaving me light-headed.

Sweat poured down my face only to be soaked up by the strap buckled under my chin. A laugh burst free as I rolled toward her and slapped her palm. As naturally as I did the last time I high-fived her, I dropped my hand low to slap hers again on the underside, going in for a fist bump, and a finger lock followed by the hip bump we did as kids.

We both stared down at our hands, the tips of our fingers naturally interlaced the same way they had been so many years ago, a time when we were best friends, when we used to do this handshake a dozen times a day easy.

I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat. Past missing her.

“Thanks, girl,” she said quietly. The words relieved and heavy at the same time.

Thanks, girl.

The same way she’d said it when we were kids, and I got her a new pair of pants on the first day we met when she got stuck in the bathroom with a surprise period that obliterated her khakis.

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