“Are you sure I’m not going to die?” You ask your boyfriend Ben as he holds your hands.
“Yes, (Y/N),” he laughs. “You’ll be fine.” He helps you take a step further, but you stop, still four feet from the ice.
“But sometimes people die while ice skating, I looked it up online last night-” He cuts you off with a gentle, reassuring kiss, and you look up into his eyes.
“We’re in an ice arena, the ice won’t break and you can’t fall through it, or anything else like that. Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” he says calmly, and you reluctantly let him push you the last few steps toward the ice. You carefully put you foot on the ice and it slides a little. When you finally get it to stay still, you take a deep breath.
“Okay, now the next foot,” Ben says, his hands firmly under your arms, waiting to catch you, like a child learning to walk.
“I don’t know how you do this,” you shake your head, discovering a new respect for hockey players, figure skaters, and anyone else who has to do anything on ice. Carefully, you lean forward onto your one foot that’s already on the ice, and Ben tightens his grip on you. You smile up at him, as if to say ‘I got this,’ even though you really, really, don’t. It wasn’t helping that he looked concerned, almost scared, that you were going to fall and break your head open. You kept picturing it over and over again; as soon as your second foot hit the ice, you’d lose balance and fall over, almost definitely breaking something.
But nothing happens when you finally place both feet on the ice. You feel like you’re hovering on water, gliding through the air in a way you shouldn’t be. Ben smiles proudly down at you and you lean in to hug him, wrapping your arms around him for support, and out of sheer adoration.
“Want me to pull you around a little?” He asks and takes both of your hands. You nod, and hold onto his hands tightly as he begins to slowly skate backwards, pulling you around the edge of the ice. You try to move your feet, mimicking what he’s doing, but every time you start to pick your foot up you get scared.
“You’re doing great, (Y/N)!” Ben smiles encouragingly, and you stare at your feet, trying to make them move. “I’m going to let go, okay? You’ll be fine.” He lets go of your hands, and hold them out in case you fall. After taking one shaky step, you fall forward into his arms.
“I suck at his,” you sigh impatiently, and look up at him.
“No, you’re doing really well, it just takes practice. Here, hold onto this,” he moves you over a few feet so you can reach the goal posts. You pulled yourself over to the middle of the goal and looked down at the blue paint below the ice.
“This is where you play,” you smiled up at him proudly as you clung to the crossbar.
“You look good in goal,” he laughs, and you know he’s teasing you.
“Shut up,” you take a step away from the goal to hit him, letting go of the bar for the first time. You realize this, and stop, or try to at least, before running into Ben.
“Hey, you’re doing it! That wasn’t so hard,” he takes you in his arms before you fall, and leans over to kiss you.
“Thanks for talking me into this, sorry I was so reluctant to try skating,” you say after you break away from the kiss.
“So you’re actually having fun?” He asks with a smirk and you nod. “See, I promised you wouldn’t die skating, and you haven’t.” He laughs, and you roll your eyes.
“Yet,” you reply sarcastically, and he pulls you toward center ice where you spend the rest of the hour trying to skate (and not dying!)
-Lila
