the violin & the clarinet

5

Venti drags me to Starbucks the next day, slamming his hands down on the table.

"What do you mean you went out with her? Like a date, like.. Jesus, Xiangling, you gotta give me more than that!!" He takes an obnoxious sip of his coffee, then stares at me expectantly. I haven't said a word the entire time.

"Come on, come on, tell me! Did you, like, kiss or something? What did you do?!"

"I made a fool of myself," I mumble, and Venti sighs as dramatically as always. He's insufferable. "I went up to her after the concert and took her to McDonald's, and we just.. sat outside and talked about stuff."

"Like your feeeeeeeeliiiiings?" he asks, making puppy eyes at me. I've never wanted to punch him more.

"Just.. stuff. And.. she gave me her phone number. It was really nice to just sit there and listen to her."

Venti grabs my hand and smiles at me, a real one this time. "You finally did it," he murmurs, grinning like I've won some kind of trophy. "I bet she can't stop thinking about you."

The thought makes my face so red I bang my head on the table. "God, Venti.."

He just laughs. "I bet you five dollars she's super excited when she sees you at school on Monday."

🌶

Actually, I don't have to wait until Monday.

My phone rings in my room later, waking me from a short nap. Xinyan's name lights up the screen and I hit answer quickly, holding the phone to my ear. My breath catches in my throat.

"..Hello?"

"Xiangling!!" She's loud, catching me off guard, and there's some kind of music in the background threatening to drown her out. Is she at a party?

"You aren't busy right now, are you? I was s'posed to go skating with these guys, but they're boring as fuck so I was gonna ask you to hang out instead! I'll buy ya a soda or something." I can practically hear her smile through the phone as she speaks and it spawns butterflies somewhere in my chest.

"Yeah, I can probably come," I tell her. "I'll ask my dad to drive me. Where is it?"

"Just the uhhh, the roller skatin' place in town I think? I'm pretty sure there's only one. See ya soon!" She hangs up quickly and I just stare at the phone, the butterflies flapping their wings madly.

My dad doesn't take much convincing, and I'm standing outside the place before I know it. I walk in and give the guy at the desk enough money for a pair of skates, looking around for Xinyan. We spot each other at the same time and she skates off the floor and over to me, the same grin on her face as the night before.

"You actually showed up! I wasn't sure!" She grabs my hands and nearly drags me over a bench so I can put my skates on. "They didn't have a place like this where I used to live. How do ya not go here every day?!"

"Because it costs money," I laugh, doing my best to stand up. I don't feel like telling her that I've never touched a pair of roller skates before. Maybe, with any luck, I'll be able to learn fast enough she won't notice?

However, as soon as I try to actually move, it proves harder than I expected. I have to hold onto the wall so I don't fall straight on my back and even then I'm not sure how to do it. I can already feel my face growing red with embarrassment, waiting for her to laugh any second.

"Xiangling, haven't ya ever skated before?" she asks me, barely any emotion in her voice. It makes me panic for a second, thinking she's going to leave me, that I'm going to bore her-

"Well jeez, say something next time! Here." She takes my hands off the wall and squeezes them in hers. "No worries, I'll teach ya. Just don't let go!" She pulls away and I almost trip again, but in her grip I manage to awkwardly glide across the wood floor.

"..How do you do this?!" I ask her, struggling terribly to keep up.

"Ah, well.. Just sorta.. push against the floor with the skates I guess? Not too hard, but.. enough to keep ya movin'. And don't lean too much cuz you'll fall." She demonstrates on her own, letting go of my hands and skating a circle around me before coming back.

We keep going like that for a while, trying to get me where I can go for more than a couple "steps" without almost falling on my face. It's dark inside the rink and a disco ball spins slowly in the center, colored lights turning around on the walls. The music is loud and everyone else is talking but all my senses are too full of her to notice.

I take a break to go to the bathroom (it's nearly impossible to even get there, let alone in one of the stalls) and when I come back, she looks completely different.

She does laps around the wooden floor, in the center, by the wall, zigzagging around smaller children so she doesn't run into them, backwards for a while until she falls. Her eyes land on me and she speeds up, crash-landing into the wall and nearly catapulting herself over it. I wave a little nervously and she comes out to grab my hands again.

Her hands, I could hold them forever. Her fingertips are rough from something- music, job, I wouldn't know. Her hands are warm and mine are cold and she squeezes them tightly, even though we aren't skating and she doesn't need to. The sleeves of her hoodie cover her hands and she has to keep pulling them up so I don't lose my grip.

She drags me back to the floor and tells me to try skating by myself. I hold onto the wall and expect the same failure as before, but-

I actually manage to get an entire lap around the floor.

I come back to her with my hands shaking and she nearly tackles me in a hug, her excitement washing over me like a wave. "Ya actually did it!" She wears the same grin again, squeezing my hands and then reaching up to poke me in the forehead. "Get in here more often and you'll be a professional in no time," she jokes.

I wait for her to get back on the floor and we go around together, again and again. Sometimes I hold the wall and sometimes I hold her hand, and sometimes I slow down and watch her fly on her own.

Time passes by and then my dad texts me, saying he's coming to pick me up. Xinyan waits outside with me and we sit on the ground, trying to break gravel into smaller pieces.

"Is it just you and your dad?" she asks me, inspecting a sparkly rock in the light from the sign over the door.

"Yeah," I reply, somewhat muffled from looking straight at the ground. "For as long as I remember."

"I live with my two moms," Xinyan says with another grin. I'm becoming so familiar with her smiles and they make the butterflies come back every time. "I think they'd really like ya. Mama especially."

I don't have time to respond because the headlights of my dad's car nearly blind us, and I have to go. Not to mention my voice is stuck in my throat again.

"See ya at school, Xiangling!" she calls after me.

I replay that night in my head over and over.