Call Me Crazy

Friday after school, I went straight to Alexis’s house to get ready. The plan was to go to SuperSkate and stay there until it closes at midnight. Apparently, before I had moved back here, the four of them used to go to SuperSkate once a month to hang out and skate, obviously. I, on the other hand, have never put on roller skates before in my life, and considering my blatant lack of balance this could be interesting.

“You probably wont want to wear jeans; it’s easier in shorts,” Alexis explained to me.

“Oh, do you have any I could borrow?” I asked, not wanting to go home and change.

“Sure, go pick some out, I really don’t care,” She said with a smile, motioning towards her dresser. After picking a pair of ripped up, white denim shorts, I made my way to her bathroom to change. Luckily, the shorts fit, and I began to fidget with my black tee and my hair, which due to the humidity, I had left in its waves.

“Ready to go?” Alexis asked me once I exited the bathroom.

“Sure. What time does this place open?” I asked. It was five currently, and I was curious if we were going stop somewhere to eat first.

“It doesn’t open until six, but the guys said they were ordering pizza to John’s house, so I think we’re going to hang there until then.”

“Sweet,” I said as we entered her 1997 Volkswagen Jetta. The ride to John’s house was only a few minutes, and we arrived just as another car was pulling up with a Domino’s sign on top.

“Score! Food!” I screamed, jumping out of the car and running up to the poor pizza boy who was approaching the front door. It looked like he didn’t know what to do with me, so he kept turning away and shielding the pizza. I sighed and rang the doorbell profusely.

“God dammit Niki, stop ringing the doorbell!” John swore as he answered the door.

“Hurry up and pay for the pizza so we can eat it already!” I demanded, while staring longingly at the two boxes of pizza the pizza boy was clutching on to for dear life.

“Yeah, you might want to John,” Alexis said coming up behind me, “She’s been after that pizza since we pulled in your driveway a minute ago.” John mumbled something about patience and pulled out some cash from his wallet, and handed it to the pizza boy.

“I think you traumatized him, Niki,” Kevin told me once we had closed the door.

“I don’t care, we have pizza now so I’m fine,” I said, lunging at the pizza boxes, which were in Ben’s hands. Instead of letting me have them, he raised them above his head, so I couldn’t reach them. I growled.

“Nope, you’ve got to kiss me first,” Ben said with arrogance. I rolled my eyes and reached up to peck him on the lips.

“Now give me the pizza.” I stated, smiling like a little kid. Ben sighed and let me have the boxes. I ran with them to the kitchen and set them down on the table. I opened one of the boxes, took two slices, and began stuffing them down my throat. As I ate, the others grabbed food for themselves.

We were eating in silence, until John joked, “Hey Ben, I hope you know that Niki is using you to get pizza.” I promptly slapped him

“Don’t say that,” I scolded, “I’m using Ben for other things too, like a chair,” I said, getting up from where I was seated to sit down in Ben’s lap.

“Thanks Niki,” Ben said from underneath me.

“Any time!” I chirped, grinning.

After pizza, we watched John beat Kevin’s ass at Guitar Hero until it was time to leave. We all piled into John’s car and drove to SuperSkate. I had the lovely pleasure to be stuck in the middle of the backseat between Ben and Kevin. And John’s car isn’t exactly big either. The ride there was about twenty minutes, and the whole time, Kevin was arguing with Ben about who was better at Guitar Hero. I hadn’t seen Ben play, but after seeing Kevin, I had a feeling Ben would win, because Kevin was absolutely terrible.

Alexis nearly pulled my arm off as she pulled me inside the building. She seemed ecstatic to show off ‘her’ skate rink. After paying the rental fee for skates, we sat down at a table to get them on, and I looked around. The rink was centered in the large room, and all around it were arcade games and a concession stand. There were a lot of kids our age were hanging already out on the rink. I had expected a bunch of little kids to be here, but the youngest kids I spotted seemed to be in Junior High, and even then, there weren’t many of them.

The lights were slightly dimmed and a disco ball hung over the center of the rink. I turned my attention back to my skates and began to lace them up. Once I finished, I noticed that everyone had been waiting for me. I stood up, and immediately felt off balance.

“Watch yourself, Niki,” Ben joked, grabbing my arm to keep me from falling.

“This is harder than it looks!” I shrieked, looking out at the people on the rink, gliding around the rink effortlessly.

“Once you get the hang of it you’ll be fine,” Alexis assured me. I sighed and attempted to make my way across the floor to the entrance of the ring. Even with Ben holding on to me, I still managed to fall.

“Come on, I’ll help you up,” Ben was looking down at me, and offering his hand to help me up. I sighed and took it.

I made my way to the entrance of the rink, wobbling the whole way, but nonetheless, I made it. Now came the real test, the actual skating part of it. People were zooming past us as Alexis, Ben, John, and Kevin all tried to help me stay vertical. My goal was to make it to the DJ booth on the other side of the rink, that way I could request a different song.

“Hey! You got it!” Kevin exclaimed. Sure enough, my feet were moving in the right movement. The only problem was that I was going the pace of a snail.

“Here, we can make a chain, that way you won’t fall, and we can gain speed,” Alexis offered. I accepted, taking Kevin’s hand in my right, and Ben’s in my left. Alexis was on the other side of Kevin, and John on the other side of her. Before long, we were near the speed of everyone else on the rink.

The music I had heard playing overhead so far had been Kanye, Fall Out Boy, Metro Station, and some hip-hop songs I couldn’t identify. So considering what they had already played, I doubted they had much rock or metal, but it didn’t really matter, this type of music was okay for dancing to, and I guess that made it okay to skate to as well.

“Do you think they’d have any Atreyu?” I asked Ben, motioning towards the DJ booth as we sped by it for the second time.

“No, I’ve asked before and they didn’t have it,” He told me, “Most of the stuff they have is mainstream—”

“They have some Avenged Sevenfold though,” Kevin cut in, “I’ve requested it before.”

“Okay, cool,” I said, and then directed at Alexis and John, who were in their own conversation, I asked, “Is it okay if we stop by the DJ next time we pass them? I want to request something.”

“Sure, sounds good,” Alexis smiled before going back to her conversation with John.

“What songs did they have?” I asked Kevin.

“They had Beast and the Harlot and Almost Easy. They really didn’t have much though, mostly hip-hop,” He told me. I nodded and prepared to stop, which proved harder to do that I had thought. Once again, I ended up on my butt, and this time, I accidentally brought Kevin down with me. Somehow, Ben had managed to stay up, as well as Alexis and John.

“Sorry!” I yelped, embarrassed.

“It’s fine, Niki, I’d like it if you got off my leg though,” Kevin said with a goofy smile. I nodded and stood up. I managed to shuffle the two feet over to the DJ booth and support myself on the ledge.

“That was quite a spill you took,” The college aged DJ said, holding in a laugh. I blushed and put my face in my hands.

“So…Aaron,” I read off of his name take, “May I request a song?”

“Sure,” he replied.

“Beast and the Harlot by Avenged Sevenfold,” I told him.

“Okay, I’ll put it in the cue.” I nodded and turned to leave.

“While I had been at the stand, John and Alexis had gone off on their own, as well as Kevin, so it was just Ben and I. He grabbed my hand and pulled me along. We skated to Girlfriend by Avril Lavine among other pop songs, so when I heard the beginning of my requested song, I jumped, and ended up falling down. And this time, I brought Ben down with me.

“You’re such a spaz,” Ben joked from where he lay beside me on the floor of the rink. I was carefree in that moment, completely not caring about the people racing by us and having to swerve in order to avoid from a collision.

“Yeah, pretty much,” I laughed, “But that’s why I’m your girlfriend. You like my spazzyness.”

Ben grinned back at me. We heard loud shouts coming towards us, so we sat up and looked around, noticing John and Alexis skating towards us. The halted just before us, and shortly following them came Kevin.

“What the hell are you two doing? Are you crazy?” Alexis shrieked.

“Yeah, you’re going to get run over if you don’t get up,” John agreed. Kevin nodded.

“But I like it down here,” I replied, trying to keep a straight face.

“Crazy!” Alexis laughed before skating off with John and Kevin. Ben stood up and attempted to help me up as well. Once I was up, he led me over to the edge of the rink so we wouldn’t be in the way anymore. Due to that episode, I realized I had missed the whole song, as I heard the last few notes of Beast and the Harlot fading from the speakers. It was replaced with Lil Wayne.

“Well that was fun,” Ben said, smiling down at me.

“Yeah, let’s keep skating though,” I suggested, pulling on his hand into the flow of other people. Once again, the two of us were lost in the swarms of teenagers on roller skates, and this time, I wasn’t wiping out.

A few songs later, the lights dimmed, and the DJ announced, “We’re going to slow things down,” and as he said this, Hey There Delilah started to play. I watched as couples formed all around us, and I turned to Ben.

“Is this what we’re supposed to be doing?” I asked, completely serious, and he chuckled.

“Yeah, it’s called Couples Skate,” Ben said smiling, “So do you want to keep on skating?”

“Sure,” I replied, enjoying the feeling of his hand in mine. We went with the flow of the other skaters, until I slipped, again. It sent Ben and I down, along with a half dozen people around us. There were moans of discomfort and I instantly felt bad.

“Sorry!” I called out meekly. I buried my head into Ben’s shoulder, embarrassed.

“It’s okay, Niki, the song is still playing, so the world’s not over,” He reassured. I smiled, confused as to how his reassuring statement was supposed to comfort me.

“Okay, so I’m a spaz and a klutz, but am I crazy?” I asked Ben, intensely studying his face.

“Yes,” He replied, and with that, his lips met mine.

The other people who had fallen down had long since gotten back up and the rhythm of the roller skates was humming in the background of the final verse of Hey There Delilah. Everything disappeared as we kissed, our lips in sync, as we remained next to each other on the smooth floor of the rink.

We pulled away and I studied Ben’s face. He was grinning like a fool. He stood up, and then offered his hand to help me up. I accepted, and that’s when I noticed which song was playing.

“Whoa, why are they playing Parkway Drive?” I asked, surprised. After hearing mostly radio friendly tunes for the past few hours, I was surprised.

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Ben admitted, “But I’m not complaining.”

“Neither am I,” I replied, then an idea hit me, “We should start moshing.”

“On skates? Are you insane?” he asked

“Yes, we’ve already gone over this, I am crazy,” I said, smirking. Ben rolled his eyes.

“Yes, yes we have,” He replied mockingly.

“Ha-ha,” I fake laughed, “Now let’s go!” I exclaimed, pulling his hand.

Less than three minutes later, we were outside in the parking lot. After Ben and I had started our attempt at moshing, Kevin, John, and Alexis joined in. Nearly everyone on the rink besides us ended up strewn across the glossy floor. We were rocking out in the center of the rink when security decided to crash our party. And that is how we ended up out here.

“That was so much fun,” Alexis sighed.

“It was stupid,” John replied, “but fun.”

“It was insane,” Kevin replied.

“Crazy is more like it,” Ben chuckled, smiling knowingly at me. I grinned.

We piled back into John’s car and began the drive back to John’s house. It was still early, not even 11:00 yet. In the backseat, I lay my head on Ben’s shoulder, and closed my eyes. I began to reflect on everything that has happened to me, from moving back here, to homecoming and my immature desires to get back at Mackenzie. Since then I’ve grown and I’ve matured. I know who my friends are, and I’m keeping them close. They are the only ones who can handle me. Because quite frankly, I’m crazy.