I lead her a few more feet at a time around the rink, and we fall, me falling with her, at least a dozen more times. By the time we finish one full lap, though, she’s grown steadier, her ankles finding their strength, and when she feels brave, she lets go of my hand and glides a few feet at a time on her own.
This is when her smile takes over ruling every single thing I do.
“Oh my god, Andrew…” she says, a little breathless and excited. “Oh my god! Look!” She moves one foot slowly, and her steps are choppy and awkward, but with me within an arm’s reach, she manages to scoot her way around a quarter of the rink, leaning forward when we finally make it to the entrance, clutching the gate and collapsing over the side, exhausted.
“Well?” she asks, twisting her body around to face me. “How’d I do?” she asks.
“Better than average,” I smirk, my eyes flitting to her hand, wanting to hold it again. She reaches up and smacks my chest once, but quickly grips the wall again when she feels her balance start to give out.
“You said average was eight falls. I’m pretty sure I fell way more than eight times,” she laughs, holding herself along the railing until she finds a bench to sit at.
“Yeah, but you fell…like…way better than most people,” I joke. She tosses her hair over her shoulder as she raises one leg to unlace her skate, and I get a little lost in watching her move. She leans forward to catch the line of my eyesight to bring me back.
“Show me what you can do,” she says. I bunch my brow, not sure what she means. “Out there. Just…I don’t know. Skate a lap or something? I want to see if my teacher is all talk.”
I laugh and shake my head, a little embarrassed by her attention, maybe a little nervous about flirting, too. When my eyes meet hers, she raises her eyebrows in expectation.
“Yeah?” I ask, not sure if showing off is a good thing.
“Please? Just one lap,” she says, and I’m struck by the word please. I’m pretty sure that’s all it would take for me to do anything for her—anything at all…ever.
“A’right,” I say, bending forward and pulling my laces a little tighter. A few girls have entered the rink, and they’re spinning in the middle, tracing lines and working on footwork. I’ve always been more impressed with what they can do. Me—I’m just fast. Those girls—they’re full of grace and beauty. Nothing beautiful about what I do at all.
I skate backward, watching Emma as she tiptoes to the glass to watch me more closely. My heart begins to race knowing her eyes are on me. I move to one corner and skid to a stop before shrugging my shoulders at her. This isn’t very impressive, but it’s what I’ve got, so I take off quickly to the other end of the rink, stopping fast and sprinting back to where I started, repeating the move again, then pausing at the other end. I wait a few seconds to catch my breath, then glide toward and away from her in circles, like I do when I’m playing defense, and eventually end back at the exit gate where she’s clapping.
“Okay,” she laughs. “That…was skating. I see the difference now. I was falling. You…you were skating.”
I laugh with her, sliding into the bench to pull off my skates. “My brothers were good teachers,” I say. There’s a simple smile spanning the space between the pink of her cheeks. It’s not fake or uncomfortable, but rather exactly the opposite—like the kind of smile you give someone who gets you and your story without even asking. I stare at it a little too long, though, and she starts to let her hands twist in her lap again, nerves creeping back in. It gets quiet when I slide my feet from my skates, and when I grab her blades to return them to the rental counter, she waits for me by the door.
I’ve only had her for an hour, and I’m not ready to give her up yet.
“You know, Illinois is way different from Delaware,” I say when I meet up to her again, holding the door open and fighting the instinct to put my arm around her as I did on the ice. “You should probably get the full tour of Woodstock from a local.”
“I was thinking the same thing. I wouldn’t want to wander into the wrong woods or something like that,” she grins at me from one side of her mouth.
“Precisely,” I mimic, holding the car door open, the muscles in my cheeks working hard to keep the excitement I feel—over the fact that she wants more time with me—from fully taking over my face. If I gave in, I’m pretty sure my feet would dance with anticipation.
I pull out from the rink’s parking lot in the opposite direction from the one we came, and I take us to the outskirts of town first, pointing out the lake that sometimes freezes over, the homes that are older than hers, if not quite as big, and the Old Town shops around the main square. After we hit the touristy stuff, I drive through a few of the woodsy areas, along the edge of the industrial strip and past the warehouse where my father worked. I don’t tell her about him then, but when I pull up to the edge of the Wilson Apple Orchard about ten minutes later, she asks.