by Dean, Ali
“What about you?”
“It’s the same for me. I won’t be a student but it will be home base for me.” I thought she knew this. Sure this summer I’ll be on the road, or planes, for a few months as I compete, but that’s not my norm. This travel has been in the works since before I met Jordan, when I announced I was taking a hiatus. My sponsors wanted some confirmation I’d be back and when I returned, I needed to go big.
Jordan doesn’t seem to be caught up in our conversation anymore. She puts down her board and places her foot on it like she did earlier today. Except this time she doesn’t look down, she looks out at the park.
“Can you go stand over there and wait for me?” she asks, pointing to the other side of the park.
I don’t answer, just get on my board and head to the spot she’s asked. She’s got a plan, and that’s a start at least. I can see the determination in her stance, the set of her shoulders. Jordan wants to break through that frozen state before her friends show up.
When she kicks off like she means business only a few seconds later I want to clap and cheer with excitement. It’s silly, because what she’s actually doing on her skateboard is probably something she could do by age seven. But I know this means she’s coming back.
Jordan stops for a hug but then she’s off again, a smile on her face. This time, she hits a small grind box, and continues around the park.
“You think it was the beer?” she asks, when she circles back to me. The grin on her face is contagious.
“I think it was you. You just had to get out and do it, and now that you know you can, it’s all good.” I don’t know if it’s quite so simple, but I’m hoping I’m right.
“Yeah,” she says, staring across at the bigger ramps.
Maybe it’s too much too soon. Maybe I’m pushing my luck. But with the way things have been going, I have to put it out there. “Hey.” I get her attention and my hand moves around her waist, pulling her closer.
“You can come with me if you want. When I leave in a couple days, it doesn’t have to be goodbye.”
Her face lights up a little more, and since I was expecting outright rejection, I want to kiss her just for giving me this.
Jordan’s arms wrap around my neck. “That would be… a dream come true, I think. But one I’m not ready for yet.”
Even though everything in me wants to fight her on that point, I can’t deny she might be right. Jordan’s tough as hell, but she’s sensitive too. And there’s no denying what joining me on my competition travels would be like. With Shred Live about to air, it’s not going to be anything like right now, this moment. No one around, the two of us at a skatepark not caring who sees us.
“I’ve got online classes that I need to finish so I don’t get too behind. It’d be hard to do those while traveling. I’ve got my job. And, I’m not ready to be hitting skateparks where the pros are competing, even if I’m not in the contests. I need to hide just a little bit longer, Beck.”
“I get it, Jordan. Coming with me is the opposite of hiding. When you get back to Summerside, you can ease back into things. I just wanted you to know the offer was there, yeah?”
She nods. “Yeah. And believe me, it’s tempting. Everything about you is tempting. You know that’s why I signed with Brazen in the first place, right? Maybe I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, but I was willing to do something I didn’t think I wanted if it meant being closer to you.”
“And now?”
“I’ll still do some things I might not think I want in order to be with you, Beck. But I can’t lose myself either. It’s so confusing. I didn’t think I wanted to compete again. But just now, getting the feel of the skateboard underneath me again, I was already thinking about how I might want that. It might help motivate me to get out of this funk, if I’ve got some goal, some contest on the calendar.”
I can feel her coming back to me, little by little. Fuck that, she’s coming back in giant leaps. My lips are on hers before I even process that I want to kiss her. It’s crazy to think of all the things that have already tried to pull her away from me. The concussion drove her somewhere dark, but before that, the stalker and online bullying. The Shred Live contract. It’s not over, but it feels like somehow, we’ve come out on the other side. We can do this.
“Aw, I’m so glad my best friend finally got to learn about how awesome kissing can be.”
We break apart to find Phoebe standing right near us, grinning. The guys are close behind her, and we didn’t even hear them coming.
“We’ve got the place to ourselves!” Levi claps his hands together.
“Lights will go off soon,” Devon informs us. “So let’s make the most of it.” He skates closer. “By the way, would it be weird if I asked you to sign my board?”
Levi groans. “I told him not to, Jo Jo. Sorry.”
Jordan laughs. “It’s fine.”
“I don’t have anything to sign with,” I admit. “But yeah man, of course I’m happy to.”
Devon pulls a Sharpie out from his pocket and hands it to me before getting off his board.
Jordan laughs again, and skates after Wyatt and Phoebe without thinking twice about it. Yeah, she’s coming back. Pretty soon, we’ll have to be holding her back.
Chapter Fifteen
Late July – three and a half months later
Jordan
I spot Zora’s hair first as I ride down the escalator at the airport. It’s hot pink again. Lucy and Ellie are beside her, and I’m tackled by all three as soon as I step off the escalator.
They start talking at once and I try to keep up. Lucy’s telling me about the condo we’ll be living in together, Zora’s admiring my shorts, and Ellie’s asking whether some hot guy she just saw getting off the escalator was on my flight.
I’m trying to keep up when I spot a fourth girl who looks vaguely familiar.
“Hey, I’m Sydney.” She puts her hand out. “Thanks for introducing us, guys,” she scolds the others.
“Right! I’ve heard a lot about you. It must be fun to be home for the summer with these crazy girls.”
Lucy loops her arm through mine and starts guiding me toward baggage claim. I actually haven’t heard a ton about Sydney, only that she’d been their other close friend from Newdale, a town not far from Summerside. They’d mentioned her a couple times this summer over the phone. Lucy had a picture of all four of them at high school graduation as her computer background picture for a while, and that’s how I recognize her.
As Ellie contemplates approaching the guy she’d spotted, who was apparently on my flight because he’s waiting at the same baggage claim area, I hold back my questions about Taylor. She broke up with him a couple of months ago, but I never got much of an explanation.
“So where do you want to go first?” Lucy asks.
“I’ll go wherever you guys want. You all took the day off to hang with me.” I assumed they’d have a plan, and apparently I wasn’t wrong.
“Good, because we already promised Naomi and Summer we’d visit them at Stargaze on the way back from the airport.”
That makes me grin. I love that my college friends have taken my high school skater girls under their wings. While I was gone this past semester, they’d all hang out sometimes together without me.
“Since I can’t ditch you to skateboard just yet, I guess that’s second best,” I tease with a dramatic sigh. I’m back to skateboarding every day, the addiction as strong as ever. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some hesitancy about hitting my old spots around here.
“Yeah, yeah. We know as soon as Beck gets back in town you’ll be ditching us left and right.”
My timing on returning to Summerside might have been slightly strategic. I just finished up my online classes, but I could have come back sooner and stayed with one of the girls until our new place was ready. I figured coming out a few days before Beck’s return was ideal. I’ll get some time to hang and catch up with just the girls, and then, like Lucy
said, I won’t feel quite so bad about ditching them.
We pull up to Stargaze and for an instant I’m brought back to the night of my eighteenth birthday. I’d been so confused about Beck and what he wanted from me. I get it now, he had plenty of reasons for the way he acted then, and the inner conflict he experienced isn’t totally foreign to me anymore. It’s always been clear we want each other, that’s not the problem. But now I’m the one uncertain if it’s so simple. At least, I was a few months ago. I thought long distance would make us grow further apart, but somehow it’s made me more confident we can make this work. When I broke up with Beck all those months ago, I told him I needed to grow up a little bit, and I’m starting to think I might have at least been right about that. Or, I needed to get more comfortable with who I’m growing up to be, maybe that’s more accurate.
The scene inside the rink’s a little different from that Saturday night at the beginning of freshman year. It’s late afternoon on a Thursday, and an eight-year-old’s birthday party is finishing up.
“Jordan!” Summer calls my name and I catch a flash of blonde hair before she comes around the desk and greets me with a hug.
“We’ve missed you so much!”
“And I’ve missed you. Naomi’s here too?”
“Yep. We get off in an hour. Do you guys want to skate and then maybe we can get dinner?”
I glance at my friends, who are already taking off their shoes. “That’s the plan!” Ellie confirms.
Naomi comes through the doors from the rink and I get another tight hug. “We don’t even get to keep up with you on social media since you basically live off the grid now.”
“Not being on social media is living off the grid nowadays? I didn’t realize I was so alternative. Can you get me size eight?”
I don’t even like talking about social media, or my absence from it. I think all my friends figured out it was sort of this touchy thing for me after the crash in December. Even if they didn’t realize the bullying indirectly caused the crash, I made it clear it was a big reason why I wanted out from Brazen, competitions, and even my relationship with Beck. I know I wasn’t in the best head space then, and it makes me feel like a loser to admit it. After all, everyone my age is on social media. Now that I’m feeling more like myself, I’m starting to wonder if I can ignore it forever, or even if I should.
“You still haven’t watched any of the episodes?” Naomi asks quietly.
I shake my head. “No. Beck already told me he suspected they’d try to make it look like he was involved with other people, so I know it’s not going to be fun to watch.”
Naomi watches me closely. “Yeah, he didn’t warn me, and when I first saw some of that I flipped out on him.”
I sit down and start taking off my sneakers, not wanting to think too hard about what she saw.
“I’ll grab your skates. One sec.”
Sydney slides down the bench until she’s closer beside me. “You really haven’t seen any of Shred Live yet?”
“No. I’m guessing it will just mess with my head and make me mad.”
“And you’re not on any social media?”
“Nope,” I confirm, uncertain how much the others have filled Sydney in on the saga of my life.
I finally lift my eyes, and find Zora and Lucy shooting daggers at Sydney.
“That must take a lot of willpower. I’d be too curious,” Sydney finally says after a long pause.
I can’t help but laugh softly. “That’s one way of looking at it. But I know how much social media can skew reality so I can’t even imagine how much Shred Live will alter to get good numbers. It’s not worth the head games for me. I’ve had enough of those.”
“Good for you, girl,” Ellie says, reaching over for a fist bump.
Naomi returns with skates for me and Sydney while Summer delivers some to the others.
“Well, I can tell you that the show is the third most viewed on Netflix right now. Griff’s at least happy Beck’s suffering is helping get Brazen off the ground,” Summer informs me.
“Off the ground? It’s going to be the next Vans pretty soon at the rate it’s going. He can barely keep up,” Naomi mutters like she’s talking more to herself than us.
“Wait, it’s on Netflix? Seriously?” I don’t know how I missed that.
Summer’s eyes go wide. “Yeah, that’s why it aired early. Another reality show got cancelled so they had an opening I guess.”
“They didn’t release all the episodes at once though like they usually do for binge-watching on Netflix. Maybe they didn’t get enough time to edit the footage beforehand, I don’t know, but we have to wait a week between each episode,” Ellie grumbles.
“Sounds rough,” I muse.
Naomi puts a hand on her hip. “You don’t even go on Netflix? All right, damn girl, you really are off the grid.”
I can watch TV now without getting all messed up, but I’ve never been real into it anyway. “My mom likes home shows and my dad watches sports. Between the two of them bickering over who gets to watch what when, I didn’t really bother with TV while living with my parents.”
“You kill me sometimes, Jordan,” Zora announces as she stands up on her skates. “But no judgment that the rest of us are all addicted and watching it, all right?” She says it lightly, but I know she’s genuinely seeking my okay.
“Yeah, of course. Is the skating footage good at least?” I wonder.
“Yeah, it’s good,” Summer confirms. “The drama is even kind of good too,” she says with one of her big smiles. “But they do try to make it look like Beck isn’t moping over you, which is kind of annoying if you know the truth.”
“And actually, for us, since we do know it, it’s a little bit funny,” Zora says, holding her thumb and index finger to show just how little.
“Okay gossip train, we gonna hit up high school social hour or what?” Lucy announces. She’s still shaky on her skates as she stands up, but promises she’s gone a few times since our last outing and totally has the hang of it now.
“You can still hold onto me when we walk over there,” I assure her.
She doesn’t hesitate. “Okay good, I didn’t want to faceplant before getting to the rink.”
Zora loud-whispers on my other side, “She did that last time.”
“Whatever, Coby should have caught me. I thought surfers had better reflexes than that.”
Things are solid between Coby and Lucy at least. He graduated and I guess is working for Griffin, who is hiring like crazy to keep up with the growth and demand for Brazen products.
My phone rings as I step onto the rink.
I’d ignore it but there’s a small chance it’s Beck so I slide it out of my back pocket. An image of him competing at a contest in Tokyo last month pops up.
I must have a smitten grin on my face, because Lucy asks, “It’s Beck, isn’t it? Tell him we say hiiiii.”
“Hey, isn’t it midnight or something in London?” I ask him.
“Yeah, almost 1 AM actually.” He sounds tired.
“What are you doing up so late?”
“Are you scolding me?”
“Yes, I am. Even if it’s nice to hear your voice. But aren’t you competing tomorrow?”
“Not until the afternoon. We were up late skating. Besides, I’m all messed up switching time zones. I don’t think my body even knows what time it is.”
“I’m at Stargaze with the girls. It doesn’t seem right to be on roller skates without you.”
Beck groans. “Don’t torture me, Jordan. Do you know how many nights I thought about you on your roller skates in that storage closet?”
“Yeah, because I was doing the same thing.”
My throat feels tight for a moment as I think about all we’ve put each other through since we met. Being back in California, and at this place specifically, brings back all kinds of emotions.
Not wanting to go there, I ask how the guys are doing.
“Griff’s beat. He needs
a break. He says being at the contests and networking for Brazen energizes him, but I think he’s just trying to push through while everything’s so hot. It’s like all his dreams for the company are coming true and he’s afraid to slow down.”
“He’s coming back with you too, right?”
“Yeah, the next competition isn’t for another month and it’s local. It’s good to see Moses again. He took some time off after filming ended so this is his first contest in a while.”
“Taylor?”
“The guy’s still bummed out about Ellie breaking up with him. We all went out to a bar after skating tonight, and that’s usually Taylor’s scene. He came back to the hotel alone with me though.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like Taylor. I guess I would expect him to be all about the rebound, but you know him better than I do.”
“Well, tomorrow’s a big contest for him. Maybe he’ll perform better if he’s not up half the night with some random chick.”
“What about you?” I can’t help but ask.
“I’m missing you, but not much can bring me down, Jordan. After our week together in Connecticut, I’ve basically been riding a Jordan Slattery high this entire tour.”
Cue the girly giggle that only ever comes out for this guy. “Me too. Everything’s been getting better since then. Today will be the first day I haven’t skateboarded since I saw you.” I don’t mention I’m still shying away from anything challenging, because I have faith now that will come. Okay. Not total faith, but I’m hoping skating with Beck and the others again will help.
“Okay, time’s up,” Zora zooms by and snags the phone out of my hand. She stops by the wall a few feet away. “We get her to ourselves for a few more days. Say goodbye, Beckett!”
She hands me back the phone. “Get some sleep. Good luck tomorrow,” I tell him.
“Love you. Can’t wait to see you in a few days.”
“Love you too.”
Zora starts skating backwards. “Whoa!” I call after her. “When did you learn to roller skate?”