December

It had been December’s idea to go ice-skating. I wondered if she knew I sucked at it and just wanted to get back and me for tricking her into going on a date with me. I was sure to sustain more injuries on the ice-skating expedition, and maybe that had been her intent to start with.

I had to dig through all the piles of junk in my garage to find my old skates. They were in disrepair and the blades would probably snap. I took them with me anyway, slinging them over my shoulder as I walked to the river in the middle of town, where I was supposed to meet December at the main bridge.

She was waiting right where she said she would be. I had expected her to bail on me. After all, I kinda got the vibe that she somewhat despised me and was only going to all this trouble because she’d broken my nose and still felt guilty. If that was the case, I was going to use that to my advantage.

I swear I’m not an asshole. I know that’s how I sound. But I swear to you, I’m not. There was just something about December that made me act that way. When I was around her, I spat out the first words that came to mind, not bothering to think before I did. I soon discovered that doing so led to a broken nose.

I remember the exact look on her face when she saw me walking towards her. She had her eyebrows arched, a look of annoyance on her face. The wind blew her brown hair into her face and she pushed it away quickly. I couldn’t help but smile at her. She was pretty in that girl-next-door sort of way.

“What are you so thrilled about?” she’d said, hostility blatantly clear in her tone.

“You showed up,” I said, my smile growing wider. She just rolled her eyes and hitched her backpack further up her shoulder.

“Let’s just fucking skate already.”

And we did. Well, she did. I was hopeless. I could barely skate a few meters without falling on my ass. December found it highly amusing. I don’t think she ever stopped laughing. Her laugh was too loud – the kind that made people stop to wonder what was so funny. It wasn’t controlled, not at all. It was in-your-face and kind of aggressive. Just like her.

I soon gave up on skating. This only amused her even more. I yanked my skates off and trudged off up the river bank, plopping myself down on a cold park bench. She stayed on the rough ice of the river and skated in circles, her eyes closed, her face tilted up towards the sky.

I remember thinking that she looked beautiful just doing that. She looked like she was dancing on ice. For a moment, I forgot how hostile and aggressive and impossible she was. On the ice, she became a completely different person. After a while, she stopped skating, turning to look at me.

“Gabe!” she called out. “What are you doing?”

I smiled. No one ever called me Gabe. It was always Gabriel. No one ever bothered with nicknames. I was finding that I liked that. I liked it a lot.

“I suck!” I hollered back at her. She laughed her too-loud laugh before she came up to sit beside me. We sat in silence for what felt like a long time. I thought it was a comfortable sort of silence, and I found myself wondering if she thought it was an awkward sort of silence.

“You’re not as bad as I thought you were,” she suddenly blurted out.

“What?” I nearly choked on the word, taken completely by surprise. Wasn’t it my job to blurt out rude statements? December just laughed at me and punched me playfully in the shoulder.

“You’re alright.”

“Am I supposed to be overjoyed that you think so?” I asked.

“Don’t make me change my mind,” December countered, narrowing her eyes at me.

I smiled and she smiled right back at me as it started to snow. A large snowflake landed right on December’s nose and she scrunched up her face in response. I watched her as she tilted her head back, closed her eyes and opened her mouth. She stuck her tongue out, catching snowflakes.

I smiled at the sight of her, and found myself laughing at what she was wearing. I only had on jeans and a hoodie, but December was dressed as though she was prepared for a blizzard of epic proportions. Her jeans were tight and I think she was wearing at least three sweaters with a jacket over the top.

Guys like me seem to like it when girls wear minimal clothing. That’s often the way it goes. But December was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen that day, and she was under more layers of clothing than a fucking arctic explorer.

“You’re beautiful,” I said, because it was true. She snapped her eyes open and sat up straight, turning to face me.

“Are you joking?”

“Why would I joke about something like that?”

“To have sex with me,” she said. I snorted in laughter at her bluntness. Then, before she had time to react, I grabbed a handful of snow from the ground below the bench we were seated on and hurled it at her. It splattered all over her face and she blinked rapidly, her mouth agape, obviously in shock. She regained her composure and wiped the snow off her face with the back of her hand.

“Don’t start a war you can’t win,” she smirked.

I got up from the bench and ran. I’d taken the liberty of changing back into my shoes. December was still in her skates, giving me a huge advantage. I took off down the riverbank, running at full speed, my feet sinking in the wet snow.

December was never one to go down without a fight. I felt a snowball hit me in the back of my head and looked over my shoulder to see where it had come from. December crashed into me, sending us both hurtling backwards, arms and legs flailing. We landed in the snow, a mess of tangled body parts. She'd skated along the river to catch up with me.

I looked up at her, still completely stunned. She pinned me down, holding my arms on the ground above my head, sitting on my chest. “Gotcha',” she smirked. I pushed her arms off of me and sat up, grabbing her face in my hands. I kissed her before she had time to protest, our frozen lips instantly warming at contact.

We broke apart and she just looked at me, shaking her head.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve.”