Mia Wang, ’26.
I looked at Flynn, then the rutted ground. Slowly, I lifted my right foot, placed it down. I
wobbled, then stood still. I subconsciously reminisced about the first time I went skating. I had a
pair of pink skates, cartoon pattern imprinted onto the plastic, just like any 5 year old girl would
have asked for. We went up the staircases of a building 30 minutes from home, up to the third
floor. I don’t remember much about the lesson itself, but while we were getting ready to go
home, I saw the other children speeding across the rink, hand in hand with their parents so that
they wouldn’t crash. I begged my parents, and they agreed. Except my dad somehow let go, the
same way he did in the years to come. I went home having suffered a nosebleed and losing a
tooth. The shackles of dependence rooted me every time I thought about asking for help. I would
not allow Flynn to carry me because I could not skate, the same way I would not let anybody
help me buckle my skate boot because I could not tie them well enough, the same way I’d
refused when my friends offered to lend me their unlimited credit cards during the weekend trips
because my parents only gave me 20 dollars, the same way I’d refused Luke when he wanted to
help me with high jump because I could only jump 4 feet. I would crash, knees skinned and face
bruised, so that I would learn how to get past it, so that in the next handful of times that we’d
come here, I wouldn’t even consider Flynn’s offer.
My other leg had already relocated itself. I swung it next to my right and stood still.
Flynn was off his skateboard. He had passed me – he didn’t look back to see if I had killed
myself or got run over by a car. And I hated getting left behind, so I pumped my feet without
hesitation and my wheels took me out of the cracked patch of land. Those few seconds were
shaky, but I kept my legs bent, beads of sweat dripping off my forehead and the strands of hair that had escaped my helmet. My wheels sped up, past Flynn, past the first house on Wells Street,
so fast I almost forgot how to brake.
redinkmag 