by Natasja Eby
I actually haven’t been doing too badly at saving some money, but here’s a shocker: Julian and I have agreed to split the cost of some boxing equipment with Dan. He says he’ll pay half if we do, and then maybe after the tournament, we can try to sell them off again if neither of us wants to keep it. I wanted to make enough money to go back to Hawaii for spring break, but with training and working, I know it’ll have to wait until school is over. Still, it seemed like a good idea, and I can get some of the money back later. We’ve decided to start small and just get a punching bag, a dummy, and of course our own helmets and gloves.
There’s a girl ordering from me now. She keeps pausing to look straight into my face, like she’s trying to figure me out or something.
“Are you all set?” I ask, hoping that that’s it.
She nods and then says, “Are you Elika…”
Instead of watching her grapple, I say, “Elikapeka. People just call me Elli.”
“So, you’re the boxing newbie?” she says, with an unmistakable tinge of admiration in her voice.
I shrug and say uncertainly, “I guess so.”
“You should probably come drop by the club at some point, then,” she informs me. “We meet every Wednesday and every other Thursday in the weights room.”
As soon as she says “weights room,” my eyes are immediately drawn to her broad shoulders. She has an athletic build and lean muscles. Her short, brown hair is up in a ponytail, and it occurs to me that I might actually have to fight this girl eventually.
I can feel my forehead creasing as questions form in my mind. “Why would you want to help me?”
She looks surprised at my question. “Because you’re new and we’re a nice group of a gals… Oh, I know what you’re thinking.” She probably does, because I probably accidentally thought out loud. “Look, we’re not all like Red. Boxing is a fun sport, that can actually be pretty social. But that guy just takes it way too far.”
“I see.” What?
“I do feel sorry for Julian VanderNeen, though,” she says, genuinely looking a little sympathetic. Then she giggles. “I’m Emily, by the way. I always forget to introduce myself, always getting to the point too soon. Anyway, I hope you’ll drop by, Elli.”
She seems so nice that it would be stupid not to take her up on the offer. I nod. “I will. Thanks, Emily.”
Later, when I have almost an hour left of my shift, Cherry comes to see me. I dread what she has to say to me, but then I’m surprised when she greets me with a friendly smile. Is this some kind of a trap?
“Ella,” she says, leaning against my counter. “Ella, Ella, Ella. Let’s go skating when your shift is finished.”
It’s not exactly an apology so I’m not exactly ready to say yes. “Won’t the rink be closed after the game?”
She shrugs and gives me a sly grin. “For the regular people, yeah.”
I clear my throat and am saved from having to answer by the person behind Cherry who wants three pretzels, two large cokes, and an order of poutine. Poutine, I’ve learned, is a heart-attack inducing dish made of fries drowning in gravy and topped with cheese curds. It’s disgusting and delicious all at the same time.
When the guy walks away with his order, Cherry turns back to me with an expectant look. Hmm, still not prepared to let her off the hook just yet.
“I guess you don’t hate me anymore?” I say to her. My co-worker takes this as her cue to start cleaning the popcorn machine that is the farthest away from us.
Cherry sighs, a guilty expression appearing on her face. “Okay, I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m not…a good person, and I overreacted. But then I talked to Julian and he told me about how you stood up for him, then he stood up for you, then suddenly you guys were negotiating a battle and it was like…wow. You know?”
I stopped listening after “I talked to Julian.” This is a new development! “You talked to him?” I ask excitedly, forgetting all about being mad at Cherry.
“Yeah,” she says, looking a little shy. “But only about that. Don’t get any ideas, Ella.”
“I have no ideas in my head,” I say to her. I hope she doesn’t get mad at me again.
“Yeah, sure you don’t.” She’s teasing. That’s good. “Anyway, I am sorry. And also, I realized you were right about maybe trying to help instead of stop him. And I want to help you too, which is why you should come skating with me.”
I loved and hated skating with her last time, but at the moment, I feel like skating is irrelevant. “How would that help me?” I ask.
“It’ll help you build stamina, work on your balance and coordination, plus it’s a good workout,” she says. Her eyes are shining. She must really, really love skating.
“I’m already jumping rope,” I huff.
She waves a hand like all the work I’ve done so far is nothing. “Yeah, but skating is different.”
I hesitate, longer than I know Cherry wants me to, and only because it’s my own little payback. Then finally, I say, “Alright, I’ll come,” because obviously I want to go.
As soon as my feet hit the ice, it’s like I’ve completely forgotten everything I did last time. I’m unsteady all over again and I’m starting to wonder why I wasted my time jumping rope at all. But then Cherry takes my hands and starts skating slowly backwards and I feel a little better.
“I’m going to let go now, okay?” she says, when she sees that my feet are where they should be and my legs have stopped wobbling.
“This is kinda fun,” I say slowly, because concentrating on words and moving my legs at the same time is hard.
“Yeah it is,” she laughs out, as she does some fancy footwork making crisscrossing patterns in the ice.
“You know what else is fun?” I have to move a little quicker now to keep up with her, even though she’s still skating backwards.
“What?” she asks. Now she’s twirling around and doing sideways moves that probably don’t even have names.
“Talking about boys.” I’m practically shouting it, since she’s gotten quite far away. I’m glad we’re alone, because I never would have shouted that to anyone else.
Cherry purses her lips and does some spinning around, as if she’s looking through the stands. I try looking too, but I can’t quite spin like she can. Besides, there was no one here when we came on the ice. It’s fine.
“Okay, which ones?” she asks.
I shrug, and that slight movement almost throws me off balance. “I don’t know any boys here but Julian.”
“Do you like him or something?” she asks, coming in to skate a little closer to me when she sees me start to flail after shrugging, of all things.
Once I’ve regained my balance, I tell her honestly, “He’s a little geek chic and kind of cute, but no. I don’t like him like that. Not like you do.”
“Shut up,” she mumbles, without the characteristic fire I know she always has. “Are you sure he’s the only boy you know?”
I looked down at my skates with the pretense of concentrating on them, but I hesitate a little too long. Suddenly, Cherry’s shouting, “McDuff!”
Why is she shouting? What the—?
“Get on the ice!” she calls, and now I see that there is actually someone in the stands. And it’s Adrian. Of course.
He looks a little embarrassed to have been caught, and surprised now that Cherry’s ordering him around. But then he’s sitting down and whipping off his shoes while simultaneously trying to open his gym bag.
“Cherry, what are you doing?” I whisper furiously into her face. “Don’t do that. He’s just going to bug me about how I’m not wearing gloves.” How much of our conversation did he hear? Oh no! He’s seen my terrible skating.
“Adrian’s a very good skater,” Cherry says in a loud, over-exaggerated way as we come closer to where he is. She is completely ignoring my protests, as you can see. “But not a very good hockey player.”
“That’s a lie!” he exclaims, giving Cherry a narrow-eyed, stern look. His
fingers, which are expertly tying his skates, never even stop when he looks away. He sees me, smiles, and then finishes tying his skates in record time. At least, I’m sure that’s got to be a record.
Suddenly he’s skating up to us and Cherry has let go of my hand, and then Adrian’s shoving a pair of gloves at me. They each take one of my hands and start moving together as though they had planned on giving me a head rush tonight.
Finally, when I feel as though I’m going to pass out, I yell, “You’re going too fast!”
Adrian stops first but doesn’t let go of me. Cherry slows down, dragging my hand behind her before finally letting go. She skates backwards toward one of the doors and waves briefly at us. This is payback for nagging her about Julian, I just know it.
“Take care of her!” she calls to Adrian just before shutting the door behind her.
I realize I’m still gripping Adrian’s hand tightly so I let go of it. He doesn’t complain. We start moving forward again and I try to keep steady so that I don’t have to hold on to him.
“So,” he says.
“Soo…?” Gah, how long was he watching us? Did I fall? I can’t remember if I fell.
“Wanna go, like, really super fast?” he asks me, the enthusiasm in his voice making him sound so young and sweet.
I laugh nervously and answer, “I just tried that, remember? I think I’m good like this, thanks.”
“Wanna try going backwards?” he tries again.
He starts taking my hands without really waiting for an answer, and I think, sure, why not? “Okay,” I say slowly.
He grins as he comes around to face me and then starts pushing me gently backwards. I let out an embarrassing little yelp, which makes him laugh, which makes his dimples magically appear, which makes me almost lose my balance.
“You need to make a little swishing pattern with your feet,” he instructs when he sees that I’m not actually moving them at all. “Like, make a V with your heels at the point, and then switch so that your toes are the point. Like this.”
He attempts to illustrate this by using his hands, but they just look like fish to me. I stare at him blankly, because what? How am I supposed to get my feet to do that?
“Watch,” he says. And then he pushes off backwards, going very slowly so I can watch his heels and toes flip back and forth between each other.
“Oh, I get it,” I say.
It doesn’t look too hard, so I try it. At first, it’s hard to get it coordinated just right, but then when I do, I realize I actually am moving backwards. It’s a little bit jerky, but I’m doing it! Adrian gives a delighted little laugh and comes forward to take my hands again. Once he’s holding them, my footwork miraculously evens out and we move at a steady pace.
“So, boxing, eh?” He says, after a couple minutes of silent concentration.
He’s staring straight at me and doesn’t once look down. Oh! It’s a question. “Umm, yeah. It sounded like fun.”
He inclines his head at my ridiculous explanation. “Right.”
“Okay, okay,” I say. “I’m doing it for a friend.”
“Yeah…so, okay,” he says. He drops one of my hands so that he can use his to rub his head, effectively ruffling his dark hair into a sexy mess. “The rumours are that Julian’s going to fight Red in the boxing tournament because he’s in love with you.”
I stop in my tracks and then burst out laughing, because I can’t believe that the gossip has actually gone that far. It’s also a very incredulous story since that is absolutely the farthest thing from the truth. I realize I’ve been laughing a little too hard because now Adrian is giving me a frustrated look.
I take a deep breath and then say, “That’s ridiculous. Julian fights for himself. I’m just trying to help out.”
“So, he’s not in love with you?” Adrian asks with a little too much hope in his voice.
I sigh audibly. “I wish people would stop trying to figure out why Julian’s doing it, and start figuring out how to help him do it. I mean, isn’t anyone else at school tired of Red picking on other people?”
“Yeah, but have you seen the guy?” he asks. He’s still frowning with that little crease between his eyebrows.
“And also,” I say, completely ignoring Adrian’s dumb question, “Julian’s the only person I’ve ever seen stand up to Red. Other than myself, but they won’t let me fight a guy.”
Adrian’s eyes grow big now. “You can’t fight Red. He’ll—he’ll—”
“Pummel me,” I fill in for him. “Yeah, I know. I’m not even that good a boxer. But you know, Julian’s actually kind of okay at it.”
“Really?” he asks in surprise.
“Yeah, he is,” I answer.
“He’s not exactly the athletic type,” Adrian points out oh-so-helpfully.
“No, he’s not,” I say. Then I smile at Adrian in what I hope is a very persuasive way. “But he could probably use some help from someone who is the athletic type.”
I’m looking all over Adrian’s body which, if I haven’t mentioned by now, is very athletic. He’s got broad shoulders, strong hands, muscular legs, and that kind of energy that you only get from working out a lot. He blushes when he notices me noticing him, but recovers quickly.
“I don’t know much about boxing,” he says. “But…I could try to help him. Maybe do some weight training with him or something.”
“Really?” I practically squeal.
He laughs. “Yes, really, if it makes you happy.”
“Yes, that would make me really happy,” I say. Then I surprise both myself and him by coming forward to give him a little hug. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome,” he says warmly, like he actually means it.
“You know,” I say as we start skating forward again, “I don’t really know that much about you.”
Adrian shrugs with a little frown. “There’s not much to tell. I play hockey. It’s pretty much the only thing I’m good at.” He shrugs again, but I feel like that’s just his way of being modest.
“But you’re really good at it,” I say.
That gets a smile out of him. “Thanks. The truth is that I really love it and even if I were terrible at it, I’d still play. Probably not in my league, but still. What about you? I mean, other than your newfound appreciation for boxing.”
“Hockey? No, not me,” I joke. He chuckles. I know what he’s really asking so I say, “Honestly Adrian? Back home, all I ever did was hang out with my friends and go to beach parties.”
Adrian laughs. “What a life.”
Either he’s being really nice or he didn’t read between the lines and figure out that I have zero passions in life. “Really, this is the first time I’ve taken up a hobby that requires so much…”
“Work?” he fills in with a cheeky grin.
“Yes,” I admit with a smile. We’ve stopped skating or even pretending to skate for the sake of doing something other than just talking.
“Boxing will be good for you, then.” He smiles. Then in a very serious voice, he says, “Elli.”
“Yes?” I respond, curious at his tone.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
Butterflies swarm through my stomach and race up into my heart, clogging my throat until I can barely breathe. I swallow once, and then I say, “If you can catch me.”
And then I break apart from him and start skating as hard as I can without thinking too much since I’ll trip and fall if I do. And I know he’ll catch up to me soon because he can probably skate twice as fast as I can.
A couple of seconds later, he catches me around the waist, spins me around, and starts to lean in. But before his lips reach mine, a loud horn startles us both apart. The Zamboni guy is here, and he’s apologetically telling us that we need to clear the ice so he can clean it.
Adrian and I both laugh awkwardly and make our way off the ice. He helps me untie my skates, which is good because my hands are a little cold and shaky now. Neither one of us says anything
about our almost-kiss, but instead stick to safer topics. He offers me a ride home, but I decline because Cherry told me she’d take me. I just hope she hasn’t forgotten and left already.
Luckily I see her down the hall, hanging out by the vending machines with a book in her hand. Adrian waves to her and she waves back at us.
“I’m going to collect on that kiss,” he whispers to me just before he leaves.
Then there are butterflies all over again, and Cherry asks me how it was. I tell her about skating backwards. But not about Adrian and his lips, and how they were so close to mine.
CHAPTER fourteen
Emily has introduced me to the rest of the boxing squad. As soon as they opened their loving arms to me, I wondered why I never tried to find them before now. I mean, they’re all so nice. They totally break the athlete girl stereotype.
Emily herself is awesome. While she’s the newest member of their group, she seems to be the most friendly and outgoing. All the other girls flock to her, I guess because she’s the one that brings them bits and pieces of the outside world. Plus, she brought me along, and they’ve apparently been dying to meet me.
Now I feel doubly bad for Julian, because it’s not like he’ll have the chance to hang out with Red like this. I left him with Dan today. My uncle was surprisingly supportive of me doing my own thing with the other female boxers. And then I found out it was because he thought it would be good to check out my competition. I had to remind him that I’m not really in this to win it, at which he scoffed and told me to get back to my rope jumping.
However, I’m happy to say that the wonderful and adorable Adrian has made good on his promise. Yesterday he stopped by our lunch table to tell Julian that he goes running every morning except Thursdays, when he volunteers as a crossing guard for the elementary school down the road. So cute, I know.
Julian, of course, replied, “So?”
For someone who’s so articulate and bright, he certainly didn’t do himself any justice.
“So,” Adrian said, looking at me for the briefest of moments. “Come with me. It’s getting nice out now, and it’s good for you, and it’ll help you with your boxing.”
