Chapter 4
CARSON
Iam roller skating alone to “The Thong Song.”
One perk of my verbal breakdown in front of Dan was that by the time I climbed into the car with Gabe, my Hinge date/punishment from Satan himself, I wasn’t the least bit nervous.
Which was great, because it left me free to notice every single red flag that Gabe pulled out of his pocket, unfurled, and waved around like a high school color guard champion.
First he took me to a burger place near the skating rink, where he ordered for me and picked the veggie burger and a side salad because—and this is a direct quote—“I know you’re probably trying to stay in a calorie deficit.”
Red flag.
He spent the entire meal telling me all about the customized features of his truck, including how much they’d cost.
Bright red flag.
He did not ask me a single question.
Red flag under a red spotlight.
He didn’t even listen when I talked, and I know this because even though I told him I’d been roller skating many many times, he still said he’d “teach me the basics.”
Red flag dripping with the blood of my enemies.
And you know what? He didn’t even teach me. I could have played dumb for an hour and had a cute little lesson from him, maybe even one that ended with our hands all over each other before we raced out of the rink to tumble into his bed (I really really need to get laid).
But no. He couldn’t even follow through on being condescending.
When we got to the roller rink, he threw on his skates (which he’d brought from home, leaving me at the counter alone to rent my own) and immediately took off.
He began to sprint around the rink, showing off his jam skating skills like he was nine and I was his mommy.
I could tell all he wanted was for me to tell him how great he was.
Meanwhile, my knees are shaking and by back is screaming, because okay, yeah, I’ve roller-skated a lot, but not since Jenny Milford’s birthday party in the fifth grade when I tried to do the limbo and split my pants.
But after a few laps, it starts to come back to me.
I’m getting comfortable, and since I’ve been left to my own devices, I decide to focus on being good at this.
Why not brush up on my skills? Get in a little exercise while I’m at it.
Not because I need to lose weight, Gabe, but because moving your body is good for you.
It’s why I start every morning in my kindergarten classroom with a little dance party.
So despite the fact that this date absolutely will not be ending with me in Gabe’s bed—which I’m sure is a twin mattress on the floor with a navy-blue fitted sheet and a single pillow, no case—I’m determined for the night not to be a total loss.
I’m just starting to attempt wobbly crossovers in the corner when I look up and realize Gabe has left the floor.
“Looking for your date?”
The voice comes from just over my shoulder, making me jump. I nearly go down in a heap as a five-year-old in Rollerblades whizzes by, but I right myself at the last second.
“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to scare you,” the voice says.
Then the body connected to the voice appears in front of me, skating backward.
It belongs to a tiny punk-rock pixie with a purple bob, a septum ring, and a black-and-white striped referee shirt hanging over a tattered black denim skirt.
She’s skating backward as easily as I might walk down the street.
“Your date—he’s on his phone over by the snack bar. ”
She points, and I spot Gabe right away, the neon nachos sign reflecting off the sunglasses he’s got perched on the back of his neck. Sure enough, he’s hunched over his glowing phone.
“Seems like a real dill hole,” she says, doing backward crossovers as we enter the turn. “Tell me he’s not your boyfriend.”
“Hinge date,” I tell her, embarrassed that I’m slightly out of breath.
She very impressively mimes vomiting into her cupped hands and throwing it in his direction, then glances down at my wheels. “Nice crossovers,” she says with an approving nod, then executes a little jump spin and takes off after some teens who keep doing baseball slides in the skating lane.
I feel like one of my kindergarteners who’s just been told what a good job they did finger painting. Her compliment fuels me.
I skate a few more laps. Once I decide to forget my date and focus on my skating, my skills improve.
Feeling a little more comfortable, I try to channel the speed skaters I’ve seen on the Olympics when I hit the turns, my legs crossing over, my knees bent as I lean.
I pick up more speed, managing to keep pace with a group of middle school boys.
(Granted, they skate half their laps backwards, but I’m still calling it a win.) I’m starting to sweat a little with the effort, but I don’t care.
Gabe isn’t going to be peeling these jeans off of me, so there’s no point in worrying about my appearance anymore.
And then Gabe reappears, bobbing to the beat of 50 Cent as he skates, his phone still clutched in his fist.
“Not a big skater, huh?” he asks, doing a few little spins around me that put me off balance. He holds out a hand to steady me, but I decide in that moment that I’d rather fall face-first onto the wood floor than touch this man.
“Not since fifth gra—”
He nods like he’s listening but then immediately cuts me off.
“Hey, listen. So, I don’t want to be a dick or anything, but, uh, I got a text from my ex?
We’ve been on and off for, like, three years.
We broke up in April because I spilled a Big Gulp on her laptop after eating a gummy and I, like, laughed?
She was so mad. I probably love her, but I don’t know.
” He pauses, like he’s actually trying to figure it out.
While on roller skates. On a date. With me.
And apparently he doesn’t, because he shrugs.
“She wants to talk, so I’m going to run over to this bar down the road to meet up with her. ”
And then I do fall. Hard. My feet fly out from under me, and I land right on my butt.
“Holy shit!” Gabe says, slamming on his brakes and skating back to where I’ve collapsed in a heap. He reaches down a hand, but I ignore it and climb to my feet.
It’s not until I’m upright that I manage to say anything.
Unfortunately, it’s not a hearty eff you, which is what he deserves.
I make it a point not to swear much during the school year—it keeps me from slipping up in the classroom when a student inevitably drops an open jar of paint on the carpet or throws up onto my lap.
But there usually comes a point during summer break when I start to get lazy, and out come the f-bombs.
Luckily for Gabe (and unfortunately for me), the school year ended only two weeks ago, so I haven’t accessed my treasure trove of curse words yet.
So instead of dressing him down, I say, “You drove me here.”
He scrubs at the back of his neck, having the sense to look at least a little sheepish about ditching his date to meet up with his ex.
“Yeah, you could, uh, Uber? Or, like, if you can’t get one, just message me on Hinge when you’re ready to go. I could, like, come back and get you.”
My mouth drops open. “Oh, really? You’d do that? You’d leave a bar meetup with your ex-girlfriend to pick up the date you ditched and drive her home? Wow. Wow. You’re, like, such a good guy.”
Gabe’s nose wrinkles. “I’m sensing a little sarcasm.”
That loosens the lid on my personal swear jar just enough.
“Sense this, asshole,” I say, and then shove him right in the chest with both hands as hard as I can. His feet fly up damn near over his head, and he lands flat on his back with a dull thud, a shockingly high-pitched oof escaping his lips.
Seeing him on his ass, small children leaping over his splayed legs, doesn’t wipe about the fury I feel.
But it helps a little.
“Hey, we okay over here?” The skate referee comes skidding over, assessing Gabe, who is still flat on the floor.
“She pushed me!” he cries, sounding for all the world like a small child.
“I was talking to her, ya jackwagon,” skate girl says, then turns to me. “Want me to eighty-six him?”
I glare down at Gabe, who looks like if they made Morgan Wallen-branded Zyn pouches.
I try for a moment to find even a hint of the guy I matched with.
I can barely remember what it was about his profile that made me swipe right.
Maybe it was the dimples, or the fact that there were no fish in any of his photos.
I remember that he messaged me using full sentences and punctuation, which seemed promising.
My god, the bar is in hell.
“He was just leaving anyway,” I tell her.
“Oh good.” She grins down at him like she wants to eat him for lunch. “I love when the trash takes itself out.”
“Bitch,” Gabe mutters as he climbs to his feet and skates toward the exit.
“Do you think he meant me or you? Oh, I hope he meant me. I collect pathetic men calling me a bitch like Pokémon cards.” Skate girl grins and sticks out her hand. “I’m Violet, by the way.”
“Carson,” I say, then groan. “Crap. I’ve got to get an Uber.”
“Nice to meet you, Carson. But why are you leaving?” She nods down at my rental skates. “You were just starting to get good.”
“Well, my date peaced out to go on another date, so it seems like a good time to call it a night.”
She scoffs. “Do not let that skid mark masquerading as a man ruin your evening. You’re wearing roller skates on a Friday night, and you’ve got nobody to answer to but yourself. Be your own date.”
And then, like a little punk-rock fairy godmother, she disappears.
Well, actually she races over to a kid who’s about to skate onto the floor with a fountain soda, herding him back off the hardwood.
I nearly follow her, imagining thunking my skates onto the counter and sinking into the back seat of the nearest Uber.