Peace

x. Ice Skating

              Christmas came and went for Felicia in the same way it had the past ten years: uneventful and unremarkable. That was, of course, if she ignored the phone call she received that morning.

              At around — correction, at exactly 11:49 a.m. her landline rang. It was Peter.

              They exchanged numbers before parting ways after their date, both equally (and secretly, since they didn't dare to show it yet) excited to receive calls from one another during break. When they'd said goodbye, they told each other to "take care" at the same time, and then giggled about it simultaneously, too.

              So when the Christmas morning call came, Felicia skidded around her house's polished wood floors until she found the phone, which had not been touched in ages.

              "Hello?" She said, chuckling nervously already. She knew it was him.

              "Felicia?" It is him. She smiled. "It's me, Peter,"

              "Yeah, I know — I mean, hi," she replied, chuckling again and then clearing her throat. "How are you?"

              "I'm great! Hey, I'm calling to wish you a merry Christmas — I'm about to sit down with my family for our Die Hard rewatch, and I just wanted to call you first,"

              Felicia wanted to scream and throw the phone at the wall. In a good way. She blushed and bit her lip to stop another nervous laugh from escaping.

              "Thank you, Peter," she replied, nodding even though he couldn't see. "Merry Christmas. Have fun and say hi to Amy for me,"

              She heard him chuckling on his end of the line, "Will do. Talk to you soon, Felicia,"

              "Goodbye," she said quietly, grinning to herself like a fool as she hung up the phone.

              It was no surprise when Peter received a call just a couple of days after that, which consisted of Felicia enthusiastically asking him out again.

              "Hey, you've got any plans after New Year's?"

              "Other than sitting at home and putting up with my sister, no," he replied, and she could've sworn he was smiling. She'd started picking up on those kind of silly little details like his speech patterns. Felicia cursed herself internally for having grown far too attached to nonsensical aspects like that, but she really could not help it.

              "Would you like to go ice skating with me?"

              "Ice skating?" Peter replied, and this time he sounded a bit hesitant. "Oh, Felicia, you know I'm no good at sports,"

              "Please, Peter, it'll be fun — I promise."

              "I'll just make a fool of myself," he countered, laughing. "I don't know, Felicia, can't we just go for some coffee again? I really enjoyed that,"

              "So did I! But you have to be open to new possibilities," she insisted, "Try new things!"

              "They should hire you for advertising,"

              "Shut up." Felicia laughed. "Will you come with me or not?"

              Peter sighed, "What did I get myself into..." He muttered, chuckling afterwards. "Okay, I'll go."

              So on the second day of 2001, Peter arrived at the ice rink, shaking all over from the cold, nervousness and excitement. Someone tapped his shoulder a couple of times and he turned around. Felicia stood right there, wearing a flattering set with matching gloves and a beanie, grinning at him.