Gap Year

18

"That's a surprise!"

I sighed, rolling me eyes playfully at him. I secretly loved surprises and now got really excited.

We listened to Ed Sheeran like most of the times and I noticed that we were on the way to the centre of Toronto.

Half an hour later Shawn stopped the car and we got out. We were in the middle of Toronto and I still had no idea what he had planned.

"Follow me!" he took my hand and started walking. After a few minutes we came around a corner to a big area where the big 'Toronto' letters are. In front of them there was a big ice rink where people were skating around and I immediately stopped in my tracks.

"Hey why did you stop? Come on it will be fun" Shawn told me.

"Shawn, no. I can't skate. I will break both of my legs on that ice. I'm so bad at this, i was skating maybe 3 times in my whole life. I can't do this Shawn, I'm sorry" I told him sadly.

"Oh come on, I will be there and help you. It's not that difficult. Just try and when you don't have fun at that we can go home if you want."

"Okay" I sighed and smiled lighly at him. He grinned back before leading me to a wooden bench and commanded me to sit down.

"I'm getting us some skates. You wait here okay? And don't leave" I laughed and nodded before he disappeared into the crowd. I noticed some girls with their phones out, looking into our direction. I felt a little uncomfortable and tried to ignore them.

A few moments later Shawn came back and handed me my skates. After we put them on we started walking to the entrace of the rink. Shawn took the first step onto the ice and started skating around a little, while I was standing at the entrace.

"Hey! Shawn! Come back, please" I called but he didn't hear me. I slowly stepped onto the ice, holding tightly onto the wall beside me. I was stumbling around and almost fell as I felt two arms holding me tight.

"Don't worry I got you. Come on, I'll help you" Shawn whispered into my ear as I turned to look at him. He grinned brightly at me as he took both of my hands into his and started skating backwards.

"Oh my god, Shawn slow down. Ahh help" I screamed as he started getting faster. He laughed and told me what to do. He showed me how to skate and we slowly made our way over the ice. After a while he let go of one of my hands and we started skating next to each other. I started to really enjoy it and even skated a little faster. We had a lot of fun on the ice and by the end I was able to skate alone without falling. But after a while my legs started to hurt and I got cold.

"Shawn I'm cold and my fingers are almost numb" I said to him so we made our way to exit the ice rink.

"Yeah, me too. Come on, let's get some hot chocolate before we head home."

We gave back the skates and put on our shoes. Then Shawn took my hand again and walked down the street. He stopped at a little café before leading me inside. I hummed at the warm room and we sat down at a table next to the window. We could still see the ice rink from here.

After we ordered our drinks I watched the people on the ice rink. There was a little girl alone in the middle of the ice, doing pirouettes which looked a lot like an ice dancer.

I was so deep in thought that i didn't even hear Shawn talking to me.

"Leia? Are you there?" Shawn was waving his hand in front of my face as I pulled out of my daydream.

"Sorry, what did you say?" I asked.

"Our drinks are here. What's up with you? You seem like you're not even here"