may shatter on impact (tronnor)

56. Return & Remember

The white skates lay discarded at my feet, wool socks barely keeping my shoeless feet from freezing. I have both my hands wrapped around a cup of hot chocolate, my eyes closing slowly as I leaned against Connor's shoulder. His head rests on mine, both of us watching a toddler stumble over his shoes and a teenager girl glide gracefully across the ice. Little fairy lights glow around the rink, bigger blue lights above them turning the moonless night bright and bluish and beautiful. Trees cast their shadows across the concrete, the wind tossing around their branches and moving the dark shadows across the floor like a puppet show in which Connor and I are the audience.

Connor takes a sip of his hot chocolate, the steam fogging up the air between us. "It's getting late out," he says.

"Yeah. I don't really want to go home, though."

"Me neither."

So we just sit there, watching the girl turn and spin, her skirt twirling around, cutting through the cold air majestically, with her arms wrapped around her chest then swinging out like a bird riding the wind.

"Can you do that?"

He laughs. "I wish. I used to take lessons here, but I quit after switching to Oak Hill."

"Do you miss it?" I sit up and look at him as he watches the girl spin in an elegant circle.

He shrugs, taking another sip of hot chocolate. "A little bit. But it's not exactly the kind of thing I can just start doing now. Since I live at Oak Hill and never see my family and have no money, anyways. But yeah, I did love it." I nod at that, and simply watch his faraway gaze as he watched the girl laugh, remembering us barely spinning on the ice, him dancing on the ice. "Did you? Like doing this, I mean," He asks suddenly, focusing on me.

I smile at him, my lips pressed to his cheek for a split second. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."

"Excuse me? The park is closing now, so I'm sorry but you're going to have to, um, return your skates and stuff," a boy interrupts, standing nervously in front of us.

Connor looks up. "We'll be right out." The boy walks away and he stands up, reaching his hand out to pull me up. I take it, stopping only to grab both of our skates from where they had been dropped next to our feet. "I guess it's time to go."

"I guess so."