Ugly(100)

“Ice skating?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve never ice skated in my life. I don’t want to do it.”

“You have to. It’s a rite of passage for every American.” I stare are him. He didn’t stutter once.

“It is, is it?”

“Yup,” he confirms. “Come on. I’ll t-teach you. I won’t l-let you fall.” He grabs my hand, and pulls me behind him as he goes to the man in the booth at the edge of the rink and pays for us to rent skates. We both tell him our shoe sizes and the guy gives us skates. Max leads us over to where we can sit and put them on.

I put on mine, and can barely stand as I slowly walk behind Max to the rink.

“It’s really f-fun. Here, let me sh-show you.” He demonstrates how to stand and skate, pushing one leg back while finding balance on the other leg.

“Looks really easy,” I tease as he skates back from the opposite side of the makeshift rink. It’s quite busy, with people skating around as if they’re professional skaters. By that I mean, no one is falling on their butt making a fool out of themselves. “Yeah, really easy,” I mumble to myself.

“Come on. I’ll hold your hand so you don’t f-fall.” He extends his hand to me, and I look down at it, contemplating taking it.

I decide I can’t just hold onto the side of the rink for the next hour or so, I have to try and do this. Finally, I take his hand, and Max wraps his arm around my waist, trying to keep me in an upright position. He’s not succeeding. I keep tripping over my feet, trying to walk as opposed to skate. “You’ll get the hang of it. Like this.” He tries to show me, while still keeping hold of me.

I begin to laugh, because I must look like the funniest sight to any poor bystander watching me. My left leg goes one way, my right leg another, and I end up crashing into Max. He’s laughing but he catches me, and doesn’t let me fall to the ice.

“Like this,” he says again, trying to show me for the umpteenth time how to skate. I pick it up and we start to skate around the rink. Okay, I may be stretching the truth a little when I say I pick it up. More like I manage not to fall over.

“This is good fun,” I say as I kick off from Max. He lets me go and I manage to skate more than three feet without falling over.

“It is, when you just let go and go for it.” I look back at him, and manage to trip over my own feet. This time my feet go in opposing directions again, and I end up sliding on my butt.

I’m in hysterics, because I haven’t had this much fun in I don’t know how long. I’m laughing so much, I have happy tears streaking my cheeks.

Max skates over to me, and kneels. “Oh my God. Are you h-hurt?”

I shake my head, and try to stand. My feet don’t cooperate and they slide everywhere. I’m laughing so much I can’t even manage to stand. Max helps me up, and in my clumsiness, I entwine our legs and take his out from under him. I end up on my butt, laughing so hard I can’t control myself, and Max ends up sitting on my lap. He’s horrified and trying to move, but the ice is making it impossible. “I’m no good at this,” I manage to say between gales of laughter.

“No, you’re not,” he confirms. Max finally gets off me, and offers me his hand. “Here, let me h-help you.”

I grab onto it, and finally pull myself up, with Max’s assistance, and we head toward the bench where our shoes are.

As I sit and take off my skates, I start laughing again. “I’m not cut out for ice skating. I have no coordination on the ice.”

“Hmmm,” Max mumbles. “You really do s-suck.” He looks at me sideways as he’s nodding his head.

That’s all it takes to set me off again. We walk over to the guy and hand in our skates, and we start walking back to the restaurant. “Thank you, Max. Although I’m terrible, that really was so much fun.”

“You’ll g-get b-better.”

“I’m not doing that again. I think I was lucky I didn’t lose a finger. So I’ll quit while I’m ahead.”

“I’ll wait for summer and take you roller-skating.”

I smile at his words. Just the fact he’s planning on sticking around, makes me smile. But it makes me sad, too. “Max,” I say in a small voice. God, I don’t want to lead him on, so I have to be as up front as possible with him.

“Yeah?”

I stop walking under a street light, about a block from the restaurant, and turn to face him. “I can’t be with you.”

Max tilts his head to the side, in question. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not ready to be in a relationship, and I’m too broken to be able to give any part of me to you. I wouldn’t be able to give you what you need. It’s not fair to you, if you think this,” I point to me, then him, “will go anywhere. I’m not like other girls. I’ll never work right. I have too many issues to deal with, and I don’t want you to hang around in hope that one day, I’ll be okay for you. Because, I don’t ever think I’ll be normal.”