Lessons in Love

by Carlyle, Clarissa

  “I thought as much.” Mark smiled.

  “You did?” Alex was surprised by his admission.

  “Yeah, well, Woodsdale isn’t an ice skating kind of town. You guys don’t even have an ice hockey team.”

  “You like ice hockey?” Alex queried.

  “Nope.” Mark shook his head. “I love it!” he declared, grinning. “I grew up in Canada,” he added by way of explanation.

  “I used to live near Vancouver.”

  “You don’t sound Canadian,” Alex noted.

  “My accent has been watered down a bit over the years since I left home,” Mark explained. “I should go back more, really,” he added guiltily.

  “Do you miss it? Home?” Alex asked gently.

  “Yes and no,” Mark answered ambiguously.

  Alex felt awkward about asking him further questions and so began to fiddle with his car stereo.

  “Would you miss Woodsdale if you left?” Mark asked Alex as the sound of The Smiths asking to get what they want filled the small space around them.

  Alex thought of her small hometown, which seemed to contain more bad memories than good ones. It was her ultimate goal to put as much distance between herself and the 7-Eleven where her father died as possible.

  “No, I wouldn’t miss it,” she answered boldly.

  “I don’t think people miss their hometowns when all that’s left there are bad memories and mistakes,” Mark mused aloud. “I guess you wouldn’t leave in the first place if you had it good?”

  Alex wondered what bad memories Mark had left back in Canada. She considered that maybe there was a girl there who had broken his heart so badly that he had to leave the country, but that notion made her blood boil uncomfortably. She shouldn’t care so much about Mark and his mysterious past, but she did.

  “If you plan to leave Woodsdale, the best way to do it is through college,” Mark told Alex wisely.

  “I can’t afford college.” Alex immediately scoffed, waving a dismissive hand.

  “No, but you’re smart enough for a scholarship. You should really think about it, Alex. It would change your life, and you deserve to have the same kind of opportunities you’d have had if your dad was still around.”

  At the mention of her father, Alex felt sick, like she’d been punched in the stomach. She turned away from Mark and rolled her car window down a little, grateful for the fresh air that came filtering in.

  Mark turned off the freeway, following the signs for Charlottesville. It was a town Alex had been familiar with when she was much younger. It was more affluent than Woodsdale and a great deal more cultured, containing theatres and hosting various music concerts and festivals. When she was younger, her father had taken her there to see a famous orchestra play. It had been a truly amazing night and was one of the memories of her past that she cherished dearly. Sometimes, when life seemed too unbearable, she’d try to remember the music of that night, how it had carried up to her seat as if on magical wings and taken her away to another world.

  “We’re here.” Mark entered the large parking lot for the skating rink. It was already pretty busy since it was a Saturday night.

  Mark got out of the car but paused when he noticed Alex hadn’t moved. He leaned back in and shot her a concerned glance.

  “Alex, are you okay?”

  “It’s been a long time since I tried anything new,” she admitted sadly, looking down at her hands, which were now folded in her lap.

  “I always used to do this kind of thing with my dad. He made me feel…safe.” Alex feared that she sounded pathetic but couldn’t shake the sensation that she was suddenly just a stupid kid who didn’t know anything and didn’t belong anywhere. Her father had been that stable figure who would coax her out of her comfort zone, assuring her that she was Alexandra Heron and she could do anything she wanted. It was ironic that as a cheerleader, what she really needed was someone to cheer her on, to be on her side, win or lose.

  “I’m here.” Mark came around and opened her car door, extending his hand out to her. “I’ll keep you safe,” he added sincerely.

  Alex took his hand and allowed herself to be guided out of the car. Mark wrapped a protective arm around her, and she instinctively leaned into it.

  “So any tips before we get on the ice?” she asked him as they walked towards the rink. Around them other potential skaters ambled across the parking lot, some having even brought their own skates with them.

  “Any tips?” Mark echoed as he paid for their admission and collected two pairs of skates, both in white. His pair was considerably larger than Alex’s, dwarfing them by comparison.

  They sat on a wooden bench and swapped their normal shoes for their skating boots. Alex laced them together carefully, fearing a boot might come loose while she was on the ice. She glanced at Mark as he put his own boots on, lacing them up with knowing speed. It interested her to imagine his life beyond the classroom, the sort of guy he might have been when he was still in high school.

  “I have only one tip,” Mark declared as he helped Alex get up uneasily to her feet.

  “Just the one?” Alex teased.

  “Yep, just lean on me.” Mark smiled.

  Alex struggled to keep her balance in her skates. Before they had even made it to the ice she had almost fallen over half a dozen times. It was a strange sensation, to try to balance all your body weight on the width of a blade.

  “It’s just like rollerblading,” Mark said helpfully as he led Alex towards the main rink.

  “I never rollerbladed,” Alex admitted as she teetered precariously beside him.

  “You didn’t?”

  “No, I wasn’t a rollerblading kind of kid. When everyone else would be outside having fun, I’d rather be sitting under a tree with a book.”

  “So you were a dork?” Mark teased.

  “I prefer intellectual,” Alex retorted just as they made it to the ice.

  Mark stepped down first, effortlessly making the transition from solid to slippery ground. Alex inhaled nervously before gently stepping forwards, placing her first foot down.

  “Don’t be scared,” Mark reassured her. “It’s much easier on the ice, I promise.”

  Around them much younger skaters eagerly entered the rink before zooming off, turning, skating backwards and even doing jumps. Alex felt completely out of her depth. However, under Mark’s guidance she felt brave enough to step out onto the ice. He’d been wrong; it wasn’t easier. It was actually much more perilous.

  Alex’s feet both wobbled frantically beneath her, threatening to buckle and send her crashing to the cold floor, but Mark instinctively grabbed both her arms and held her facing him. Then he started to gently skate backwards, guiding her with him. The further they went from the edge, the more anxious Alex became.

  “Can we stay by the rails?” she asked nervously.

  “Just relax, Alex. It’s okay.”

  “I don’t like how it feels,” Alex admitted. Towards the center of the rink they were circled by more experienced skaters, who weaved around the rink with ease. Alex watched them, admiring their graceful movements, but it also made her much more self-conscious of her own lack of experience.

  “You’re doing great,” the teacher in Mark told her confidently.

  “No, I’m not!” Alex scoffed.

  “You’re over thinking it.” Mark ceased skating so they were motionless. A static couple among a sea of moving skaters.

  “You just need to relax and trust me.” Mark looked deep into her eyes, as if trying to show her his soul and his sincerity. “As long as you hold onto me, you won’t fall.”

  “But what if you fall?” Alex challenged.

  “You’re a pessimist, you know that?” Mark laughed. “I won’t fall. I haven’t fallen on the ice since I was seven.”

  “What happened when you were seven?” Alex enquired.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Okay, well, I fell pretty bad and b
roke both wrists and split my chin open.” He noticed how Alex paled at the description of the accident.

  “I said that you wouldn’t want to know!”

  “Sounds painful,” Alex muttered nervously. As they’d been talking, Mark had commenced skating, and now her feet were moving forwards in a straight continuous line, rather than flailing beneath her. She was skating, and she hadn’t even noticed!

  “I’m doing it!” Alex declared joyously.

  “Ready for me to let go?” Mark asked. The thought of losing her security terrified Alex, and she lunged forward, clinging to him.

  “Don’t go!” she commanded him. Now with no distance between them, they were locked in an embrace. Alex thought that Mark might push her away, insisting that they might be seen, but he continued to hold her there, tightly in his arms, as they skated around.

  The other skaters began to melt away until it felt like they were the only ones there. A melody of the latest pop music was playing over the loudspeakers. Some of the songs Alex recognized from hearing in the corridors at school. It had been years since she last bought a CD or downloaded a song. She never got to hear anything new for long enough to decide if she liked it. There was a radio in the trailer, but Andy had set it to a rock music station, and Jackie had warned Alex about changing it.

  Alex missed hearing new music, finding new sounds that she could relate to. Music was always the soundtrack to anyone’s life, and she feared that her own soundtrack really should belong to someone much older. But then she felt old. When her father died, she instantly ceased being a child.

  “How are you finding it?” Mark asked as they skated around. They were so close that Alex could feel his heart beating in his chest, even through the green sweater he was wearing. It was beating fast.

  “It’s not so bad,” Alex whispered. She pulled away slightly so she could look into his eyes. Their faces were only inches apart. Alex found her eyes drawn to his lips. She began to feel breathless.

  “Get a room!” a young, obnoxious skater yelled as he sped past them. His words instantly broke the spell of seclusion, and Mark pulled away from Alex with such velocity that she lost her footing and went tumbling down to the ice.

  Her body bumped awkwardly against the hard ground. Her knees connected first, taking the brunt of the pain, and then her palms came crashing down. Wincing with pain, Alex tried to get up but couldn’t. Tears clouded her eyes from both shame and discomfort. Her knees and hands felt hot with pain and the promise of bruising.

  “Alex! I’m so sorry!” Mark came to his senses and helped her up.

  “You pushed me,” Alex snivelled, wounded.

  “I didn’t,” Mark objected helplessly, knowing that he had.

  “You pushed me away from you like I was a leper!”

  “I…that kid, he made me panic. I’m sorry.” Mark looked genuinely pained by what had happened as he glanced up and down Alex’s body for signs of damage.

  “Are you hurt badly?” he asked, his voice full of concern.

  “My knees and hands.” Alex raised her palms to him, and he could see how red and sore they were becoming.

  “Okay, we’re done skating for today,” Mark decided, wrapping an arm around Alex and helping her back towards the edge of the rink.

  “What do you say I get you a consolation hot chocolate, and you can berate me for pushing you while licking your wounds?” he suggested.

  “Sounds good.” Alex managed to smile through the throbbing pain.

  ****

  The warmth from the hot chocolate felt good against Alex’s sore hands. She held the mug between them, letting the warmth soak through onto her pained skin.

  “I thought you’d order a coffee.” She nodded towards Mark’s own mug of hot chocolate. “I thought all teachers drank coffee.”

  “True.” Mark nodded in agreement. “Most teachers are caffeine fiends. It’s one of the only legal vices you can entertain in public without being a pariah these days,” he joked. “But I’m not into coffee. Never have been.”

  “How come?” Alex asked before picking at some of the marshmallows sitting on a fluffy mountain of whipped cream atop her drink.

  “My dad is a doctor,” Mark admitted. “He brought me up to eat and drink healthily, and I guess it stuck.”

  “It’s good advice.”

  “Yeah.” Mark shrugged before taking a sip of his drink.

  “Your dad still around?” Alex asked awkwardly. She’d yet to meet someone who had also lost a parent.

  “He’s still up in Canada, yeah.”

  “You see him much?”

  Mark squirmed slightly at the question. “Not as much as I should.” He sighed.

  “You should see him more.”

  “It’s not that simple. He’s a complicated man, and we, well, never mind.”

  Alex noticed the distant look in Mark’s eyes and decided not to question him about his father further.

  “So do you think I’m a natural skater?” She smirked, changing the topic.

  “Totally!” Mark laughed. “I mean, I think there were at least a couple of seconds out there when you were skating unaided!”

  “I don’t think falling counts as skating.” Alex smiled.

  They sat in a Starbucks that was adjacent to the skating complex. It was relatively quiet, with only a few patrons occupying the seats in the lounge area. Alex had picked a comfortable-looking leather couch for them to sit on, which overlooked the parking lot. It was interesting to watch people come and go. The area was a hive of activity even on a Saturday night.

  “So what’s a normal Saturday night for you?” she asked Mark suddenly. She realized she was also vetting him to see if he regularly went on dates.

  “Hmm, let’s see…” He ran a hand through his hair, which messed it up slightly, making him look even sexier. “I’ve got some friends locally. One guy works in a bank; another is a tree surgeon. One guy is training to be a doctor, so we don’t see him much as he works crazy hours. We go out to bars, hang out at our apartments, that kind of thing. Saturday night used to be our poker night until the tree surgeon guy, Luke, lost too much money, and his girlfriend made him stop playing.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “They’re a good group of guys. I met them in college.”

  Alex nodded, though she felt like she didn’t understand what it was like to have good, true friends.

  “What about you?” Mark asked. “What’s a typical Saturday night for Alexandra Heron, head cheerleader?”

  Alex winced at hearing her full name in connection with her cheerleading persona. She didn’t like to put the two together.

  “Saturday night there’s usually a house party somewhere. But I don’t normally go.” Her voice trailed off, and she looked sadly down at the table.

  “Why don’t you go?”

  “Because it’s not fun for me. Getting wasted, hooking up with guys, that stuff seems, I don’t know, irrelevant. When I go to parties, I just end up feeling ridiculously detached from it all, and sit on the stairs with my only beer of the night. It’s as if they all party like the world will never end, but I know it will, so I can’t have fun with them.”

  Alex realized that she’d never before acknowledged that she felt that way, let alone shared it with someone else. She looked up at Mark, expecting him to be staring at her like she was a crazy person, but there was warmth behind his eyes, and also sadness.

  “It’s okay to have fun, you know,” he told her gently. “I know that you’ve been through a lot, and it must be strange to see people your age being so carefree. But at some point you need to allow yourself to stop worrying and start living.”

  Mark reached across and took Alex’s hand in his own. The gesture initially startled her, but then she felt both relaxed and titillated by his touch.

  “You carry so much weight on your shoulders that I wonder how you manage to walk around,” Mark told her.

  “I want to be fun, to get wasted and be like my friends.�
�

  “But you could do that. You pretend to be like them when you cheer, when you deliberately flunk your classes. Does being that way make you happy?”

  Alex shook her head. It all just made her feel like she was living a lie.

  “Do you think if you were yourself, you’d be happier?” Mark asked.

  Alex looked down at herself. At her jeans and sweater. She was still inside those clothes, the girl who loved old music, math and played the violin. She was still there. Alex had just neglected her in a bid to fit in at high school.

  “When my dad was around, and I was just me, I was the happiest I’ve ever been,” she admitted. She realized that while she had blamed the trailer, the lack of money and her father’s death for all her recent sorrows, she herself had a big part to play in her current unhappiness.

  “I want to be me again,” she told Mark, her eyes watering.

  “And I’ll help you get that back,” he whispered to her, using his free hand to softly stroke her cheek.

  ****

  “So did Mr. Simmons totally catch you out for cheating?” Claire asked as she wrapped a ribbon around her high ponytail.

  The girls’ changing room at Woodsdale High was a heady mix of perfume and hair spray as the cheerleading squad prepared for their Tuesday night practice. At practice you could always tell the juniors and sophomores from the seniors, who were more meticulous about how much effort they had put into their appearance.

  The younger members of the squad would wear the standard uniform, often creased, and rarely tied their hair up for practice. They wore the obligatory white Converse sneakers, but on weekdays they would be scuffed. It was only the seniors who really took pride in their uniform for practices, as they knew they were drawing closer to the inevitable day when they’d cheer for the last time. The seniors were trying to savor the experience while their younger teammates were still just taking it for granted, as they themselves had done when it had been them.

  “Yeah, totally.” Alex sighed, forcing herself to sound despondent.

  “He’s like a hot evil genius,” Claire declared, checking her reflection in her handheld mirror as she slicked on some red lipstick.