Who Knew?

Three more days until I could finally go back to my normal life. The night before had been a nightmare. Not just the part where I got slapped, and shit like that. But the entire evening.

Upside? I eventually found the gingerbread.

But that didn’t help heal the sting that the slap left on my face, and my ego. I couldn’t meet eyes with Grace for the rest of the night, even though I could occasionally feel her eyes on me. And all night, my mom was asking what happened outside, which I just answered with a simple ‘nothing’. I didn’t even have the pride to tell my mom that I’d got slapped. Anyway, Grace was behind me now.

No, not literally. I mean, the incident with her.

“Hey champ. Get dressed, we’re going ice skating” My mom said from behind me. I turned and gave her an incredulous look.

“You’re kidding me, right?” I asked, my eyebrow cocked upwards. She smiled and shook her head.

“You’re on Christmas holiday still, I want to do something together” She said, then tossed my old hockey skates at me. Yeah, like they would still fit. I sighed and got up, following her into the kitchen of my grandparents house, where we were staying for the duration of our trip.

“This is stupid.” I muttered as I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and uncapped it.

“What do you mean? You love skating” She said, her hands on her hips.

“No, I love hockey. Regular skating is stupid” I said, but sighed and walked out of the room as my mom pointed to the stairs.

---
So, it turns out that I had to rent skates. They were worn, and uncomfortable. But they were still skates, and honestly; if I didn’t wear them, my mom would most likely have forced me to wear my old ones which would have been worse.

“See, isn’t this fun?” She asked as we lamely glided along the edge of the ice. I just rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, just great.” I muttered, giving her a crooked smile when I met her eyes and saw anger flash through them. Sighing, I looked in the opposite direction, almost falling backwards when I saw none other than Grace.

She was hanging out on the other side of the rink with a group of girls. They were all laughing, pink noses and cheeks, glee in their eyes. So far, she was oblivious to my presence. However, only a second after I noticed her, she turned her head and we met eyes.

I looked down quickly, feeling another stab to my ego just by seeing her.

“You okay?” My mom asked. I lifted my head and nodded, shoving my hands into my pockets.

“Yeah, um… just um… Mind if I go get hot chocolate?” I asked, jerking my thumb in the direction of the little stand that sold hot drinks and snacks. She nodded and handed me some money, then smiled as I turned and went the other direction.

As soon as my skates were off, and my plain black Supra Society’s were back on my feet, I walked purposefully towards the little stand. In all honesty, I just wanted to be as far away from Grace as possible.

That’s why I was so upset when she just popped up beside me.

“How’s your face?” She asked cheerfully.

“Bruised” I muttered as I handed the man at the cart the money my mom had given me.

“And your ego?”

“Bruised”

Grace laughed, then grabbed the hot chocolate the man had been handing to me and walked off.

“Hey! Where are you going?” I called, jogging after her. She laughed again and then handed out one of the two cups to me. “The uh… That one is for my mom” I said awkwardly, gesturing to the cup still in Grace’s hand. How did you act around a girl who continuously put you down?

“I know. She said I could have it.” She said happily, as she brushed some snow from her hair. Part of me was wondering how the snow had even gotten in her hair since it was a clear day, but I decided to focus on her, rather than her hair… No matter howpretty distracting it was.

“So why are you talking to me?” I asked, standing awkwardly in front of her as she sat down on a bench.

“Why not?”

“Um… Last night?” I asked, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Again she laughed, and I was beginning to wonder if I was missing out on some joke.

“I figured that since you could actually admit that I’d hurt your pride, that I could keep you company while you avoided your mom. And don’t look at me like that, because I know that you’re avoiding your mom” She said, raising an eyebrow when my face got defensive. Giving up on trying to play defense with her, I sat down next to her and stared at the snow that was now caked to my shoes.

When I didn’t say anything, Grace just stared at me. As if she were trying to memorize all of my features, but I somehow knew that that wasn’t the case. She hated me, she had no reason to want to even sit with me.

“You know… No one saw, right?” She said finally.

“Hm?” I asked, as if I hadn’t heard her. Really, I had heard her. I just didn’t want to talk about that anymore. Grace sighed and sandwiched her hands between her knees.

“No one saw” She muttered.

“Doesn’t matter.” I said, not looking at her.

“What doesn’t?”

“The fact that no one saw. I’m not used to being rejected. It hurt” I said still not looking at her. When I did eventually look at her, she was chewing her lip, looking at her shoes.

“Maybe it’s time you got rejected then. Maybe it’s time everyone stopped treating you like a little fucking princess. You aren’t the greatest thing to walk this earth, so stop acting like it” She said, then stood up and walked off.

Great, now I was stuck with an even bigger bruise to my ego, and two now-cold hot chocolates.

Great day.