by Claire Adams
“Yeah,” he says, “you’re 20 years old. That’s too old to be wasting your time on guys with tattoos and skateboards.”
“You know, Dad,” I argue, “someday, I’m going to move out of here no matter what you do, and it doesn’t really make sense to me how you keep trying to make sure I never come back when it’s that very fear of abandonment—”
“My house, my rules,” Dad says, tapping his foot as if to indicate punctuation.
For a moment, I just glare at him as my fingernails bite into my palm, but it’s no use trying to reason with him. Once he’s got an irrational idea in his head, it’s impossible to get it out, so finally, I push past him and hole myself up in my room.
“I hate this place!” I scream as I slam the door, but the vitriol of my teenage years has grown weaker. I’m getting sick of fighting.
I don’t hate my dad, but I hate what he’s doing.
It seems like every time there’s the slightest indication that I might be starting down a path that could lead me out of here, though I’d say he’s overblown things between me and Ian to a pretty stupid level, he puts me on lockdown.
There’s nothing really keeping me in my room but the ever-building tension in my neck and shoulders, but Dad long ago trained me that the place for me to go when I’m upset is my room. I don’t know how it is that I never learned to storm out of a house, or at least have that in my mind as an option, but at a time like this, I only feel better in this stupid room with the door closed behind me.
Ian’s performance with my dad was actually pretty impressive. He snapped back at my dad, but he did it in a way that was still moderately respectful, and he didn’t devolve into shouted curses.
Ian just kind of had a smirk on his face the whole time, like he was amused that my father would dare to argue with him, but he kept his tongue pretty well in line. The whole thing kind of seemed to be beneath him, though I’m having a little trouble picking out exactly what it was about what he said and the way he said it that’s giving me that impression.
I look behind me to make sure that the door’s locked before I walk forward and fall on my bed.
This is so stupid.
I’m 20 years old. It’s not that I think I’ve got everything in the world figured out or anything, but I’m not some precious gem that needs to be protected from everything, either.
It’s all about Mom.
I remember my dad being a lot different when I was younger. My dad was—until Mom left, at least—the one that encouraged me to see if there was a sport I was interested in, and even when it turned out that sport was skating, Dad was all about it.
He even bought me my first board.
I never really got along with my mom. It seemed like she was always in a bad mood.
That said, she’s still my mom, and even though I don’t actually have any measurable amount of respect for the woman, there’s still a part of me that just wishes she’d come home already.
That day I came home from school and Dad sobbing on the front step, though: that’s when everything changed.
It was obvious something bad had happened, but I had no idea it was what it was. Mom had been a little extra withdrawn, but there was no clear indication that she was going to up and move.
I didn’t even know about the boyfriend until I got ahold of the note she left a few days later. It wasn’t long, but it pretty much covered all the necessary bases.
“Alan, I’m leaving you. I’ve been seeing someone else. Tell Mya I’m sorry.”
Yeah, she misspelled my name in the last communiqué I’d ever see from her.
That was Mom, though. Even as a kid, I wasn’t all that surprised.
Let’s just say she was a less than inspiring person.
What was inspiring, though, is the way that Ian stood up to my dad without managing to cross any serious lines.
I saw something new in him today. It was restraint.
Before now, I just thought he was one of those people for whom patience and tact were not understandable concepts, but he really surprised me today. I half expected fists to start flying, but he was decent.
Still, though, there was that look of danger in his eyes, a warning not to push his kindness too far.
The motion is so instinctual that I don’t even realize I’m doing it until my hand is slipping under the top of my pants.
What am I doing?
Oh, who cares?
When my fingers touch my center, I’m already wet. Maybe what I’ve been finding so distasteful about Ian isn’t that he’s so different from what I’m looking for, but that he’s so nearly it.
The first major criterion, some palpable interest in skating, is more than met. I haven’t seen him skate since that competition a month ago, but the replay has been branded inside my brain.
He’s smart, although he tries really hard to avoid letting it show most of the time. Yeah, he’s immature, but that skater’s build of his, lean, but firm…
The pad of my middle finger circles my clit, and I’m okay choosing the fantasy of Ian over the reality of him for right now. Not that the reality is all that bad.
In my closed-eye theater, I’m at the skate park with Ian. It’s dark and there’s nobody around.
His board is off in the background somewhere, but we’re not there to skate, and his lips are eagerly moving over the skin of my neck and he feels my breasts through my shirt.
A few times, I try to imagine taking off the ever-present beanie of his, but for whatever reason, my brain doesn’t allow it. It doesn’t seem to have any issue imagining the firm ridges of his upper body, though.
My mind doesn’t seem to have any trouble whatsoever imagining him without his shirt, pressing against my body as he removes my own top in a single, passionate motion.
I’m slipping the first knuckle of my middle finger into me, and the fantasy dissipates for a brief moment as I take a hot, gasped breath.
When the tape starts rolling again, we’re on the ground naked as he puts himself inside me, kissing my mouth. I look up at him and I can almost see those dark eyes against the phantom backdrop of the night sky.
My hand moves over my pussy, and I’m back to focusing on my clit as my mind flashes images of Ian on top of me and beneath me and behind me, and I have to hold a pillow over my own mouth as I quiver with ecstasy.
My heart is beating so hard it almost hurts, and I’m still breathing into the pillow as the jolt of endorphins settles throughout my body.
Well, that’s new.
Chapter Six
Turn on, Tune in, Drop In
Ian
“You’re mindfucking yourself out of it, man,” Rob says as we stand at the top of the wall. That’s what it is, it’s a fucking wall with a tiny little curve at the bottom that’s supposed to make everything magically better.
Maybe I am mindfucking myself out of it. I wasn’t exactly sure what he means by the phrase, but whatever it is, I think I’m doing it now.
“Yeah, man, just drop in and let your body react the way it’s going to react. If you have any problems after one run, you can address them on the next. You’ll have this thing down in no time, man,” Nick says.
I take a deep breath and look over at my friends, my skating partners, my comrades in arms. “I really wasn’t expecting you guys to be so cool about this,” I tell them. “It’s kind of nice to know I can come to you when I need help, you know. Thanks.”
“Whatever, shit brick, now let’s get you comfortable dropping in so the third-graders stop making fun of you,” Rob says.
“Oh man, third-graders are mean as shit,” Nick adds.
“Really, the two of you are just spectacular,” I tell them, rolling my eyes.
“All right, so you know where you went wrong last time?” Rob asks.
“Yeah,” I answer. “I panicked as soon as the board started going down the side and I curled into a little ball to lessen the impact.”
“I think you curled into a ball before
your second foot was even on the board,” Nick says. “So, what are you going to do this time?”
“I’m going to pretend like I have a pair of balls and I’m going to stop being such a little bitch about it,” I answer.
They’ve made that my personal mantra.
“That’s right,” Nick says. “Now put your front foot on the board and guide your weight forward onto the board. You don’t have to fight gravity, just work with it. You’ve rolled up higher banks than this. Just try to remember what your body does when you’re coming down from that. It’s the same thing, just with a lip at the top. It’s half the work, really.”
“All right,” I answer, and I look down.
I don’t know why I ever look down. I’m actually starting to create a fear of heights where none existed before.
“Don’t think about it, just go,” Rob says, and I try to separate my mind from itself long enough to focus attention on what I’m doing as I put my front foot on the board.
I’m putting more weight on the board and it’s tipping downward. So far, I’m doing all right, but as the front wheels slap against the concrete, I’m back in my head, trying to remember whether I’m supposed to crouch down for the curve or whether I was supposed to have already been doing that, so I end up somewhere in between.
My front wheels come to the curve at the bottom and it looks like I might just pull this—and I’m on my ass.
“You know,” I call up to Rob and Nick, “you don’t have to laugh every single time.”
It takes them a full minute to respond.
“It looked better that time,” Rob wheezes when he can finally manage some modicum of control over himself.
“Yeah,” Nick says. “It was like a building being demolished in slow motion.”
“Do you actually have anything useful to add?” I ask, getting to my feet and stomping the tail of my board, catching the nose in my hand.
I really wish we had the park to ourselves, but I’m doing my best to ignore all of the people getting a bonus to their entertainment by watching me humiliate myself.
I’m clenching my teeth as I climb back up to the top of the wall.
“It’s not a question of skill,” Nick says, still fighting random bursts of chuckling. “You know what you’re supposed to do, you just freeze up when it comes time to do it. You’re in your head, man. You need to get out of it.”
“Yeah,” Rob says, “have you ever considered taking up hard drugs? From what I hear, if you get the right stuff, it’ll take you out of your head and put you in a different reality altogether. Now that I think about it, I don’t know if that would really help you drop in, but you’ve got to try something. The competition’s not that far off and you’re not even to the point of putting together some ideas of what you want to do, you’re still worried about being able to start the fucking round.”
“Thanks,” I tell Rob. “I was in my head before, but I have a feeling that’s going to do wonders for my confidence. Really, you’re a humanitarian,” I tell him.
“Yeah, whatever,” he says. “I’m just trying to get you mad. When you get mad, you get determined, and when you get determined, you stop being such a little bitch about everything. That’s when you get work done.”
“So the only time I’m not a bitch is when I’m mad?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Rob says. “Now go prove me wrong, bitch!”
Not being much for pads or, well, playing with inflatable balls—let that phrase sink in for a second—I’ve never had the big inspirational locker room speech. I still haven’t. At the same time, though, I am feeling a renewed sense of purpose.
I have to get this down, but I’m not going to think about that right now. Right now, I’m just going to see myself doing it in my head.
I visualize putting my front foot on the board and leaning in. I see the board coming down onto the concrete and rolling down the side of the incline. I see the board coming to the curve and, right where I usually bail, I see myself hurtling toward the cement, unable to do anything to stop the impact, and my imagination goes dark.
“Well, that’s disturbing,” I mutter.
“What was that?” Rob asks.
I don’t answer. I just focus on the sound of my own breath, controlled, purposeful.
I’m out of my head.
It doesn’t even bother me when Nick nudges my arm and whispers in my ear, “You know, I’ve seen Hawk dropping into a halfpipe with his kid standing on the board between his feet.”
I am my foot coming down on the front half of the board, and I am the board as it tilts downward once more. The wheels roll between the wood and the hard surface beneath it, and I am all of these as I come up to the curve at the bottom.
I am my body crouching down to better facilitate the transition from vertical motion to horizontal motion, and I am the trucks responding to the changing angle of the obstacle, and now I’m the soles of my shoes as I ditch the board and run out of it, managing to stay on my feet until I come to a complete stop.
“Well, that was just disappointing,” Nick says.
“Yeah,” Rob bats back, “if you’re going to bitch out, the least you could do is give us the pleasure of watching your body colliding with the ground at odd speeds and funny angles.”
At least this time I stayed on my feet.
I’ve done the math, and no matter what kind of score I get in the street round or in the best trick competition, if I don’t reach at least the middle of the pack on the vert ramp, it’s going to be mathematically impossible for me to come away with the win.
The worst-kept secret about this competition is that Iliad is going to sponsor whoever comes away with the goal. I’ve gotten minor offers for sponsorship, and I’ve even taken a few people up on their offer—that’s why I’m never out of fresh beanies—but Iliad would be the game changer.
Not only would I get that sponsorship, but I would get invites to the next round of pro contests and exhibitions. It’s basically the career-maker special.
All I have to do is figure out how to drop in.
I’m not even worried about what happens when I come back up the other side and catch air. I’ve caught plenty of air off of straight vertical jumps. That’s not a problem. I’m as comfortable with that as I am with anything.
Maybe that’s it.
When I climb back to the top of the wall, I’m just as tense, but it’s a different kind of tension. It’s the tension of anticipation.
I think I’ve figured it out.
“You ready to get this right?” Rob asks.
I just nod.
I’m in my zone now. Rob was wrong. It’s not anger that pulls out the determination in me: it is epiphany.
Every time I’m trying to get a new trick and it’s just not clicking, I run into a veritable brick wall time and time again until something clicks in my head and I finally understand the process behind what I’m trying to do.
“I’m not going to drop in from the lip this time,” I tell Rob and Nick. “I’m going to jump in.”
“That doesn’t seem like such a good idea,” Rob says.
“No, it is. I know how to land on something like this. I’m just all fucked up about the long roll in after adjusting from the lip,” I tell him. “If I can get it through my head that dropping in isn’t really different from landing something like this, I’m golden. Then I can start focusing on my all around work instead of parking my brain at the top of this fucking wall all day and night.”
“If you think it’ll help,” Nick says. “I’m with Rob, though. I think you should get first to easing in before you start trying to be Captain America.”
Rob and Nick spend a few moments discussing whether or not the character Captain America was ever on a skateboard, but neither of them being comic book fans, the debate dies pretty quickly.
Me, I’m transfixed, and unfortunately, it’s not on my little moment of clarity.
On the other side of the park is a group of people about my age,
some of them skating, but most of them just sitting back and chatting together. I’ve been to this skate park countless times. I have never seen her here, not once, and the one time she decides to show up, it has to be right now, while I’m standing on top of this wall with these two douchebags, getting ready to jump in and probably leave a pint or two of my vital fluid on the concrete below.
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to this.
I’m trying not to make it obvious that I’m keeping an eye on Mia out of my periphery, making sure she’s not looking as I approach the side of the wall. I’ve got to stop thinking about this as a wall and start thinking of it as a vert ramp, but as I look down to plan my drop in, all I can think are those four letters: W-A-L-L.
It’s okay. This is going to be okay.
Things are a little awkward between Mia and me ever since her dad came in while we were talking and decided I was the antichrist. Maybe dropping in will give me the confidence to skate over there and see if she’d like to try to find a time to delegate out responsibilities for the rest of the project.
Not that I’m really thinking about the project right now.
I’m not thinking about what I should be thinking about, either, which is taking a flying leap down the side of the ramp and coming out at the bottom, still on the board.
Don’t think about it. Just do it. Don’t think about it. Just do it. Don’t think about it. Just do it.
My board is hanging from my hand vertically, and one foot, and now the other foot, is in the air. I get the board under my feet and my body angled for the ride down. Before the wheels even touch the upper portion of the ramp, I’m already feeling more comfortable doing this.
I do this a few times and then practice dropping in from a smaller lip and I’ll have this thing figured out in no time.
That’s the last willed thought that goes through my head as the wheels come down against the flow of inertia and, although I try to correct the angle, the board comes out from beneath me and I’m still halfway up the ramp.
The rest is just a deceptively long journey into the inevitable.
I manage some version of the tuck and roll and, although I don’t come out on my feet, I’m generally spared a harder impact. Still, when I hear the gasping, for a moment, I think it’s coming from me and I almost lose what’s left of my head until I realize it’s the sound of neither Nick nor Rob being able to get enough air to laugh at me properly.