H2O | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Three : Bad Thoughts On Ice

Mesi let out a small laugh while I straightened myself out and motioned for her to come inside. She toed off her shoes by the door and closed it behind her, looking anywhere but at me. She was acting a bit weird and I had no idea why.

I mean, if it was the old Mesi—the one that remembered everything—then I could see it. But...this Mesi? She had nothing to be weird about.

We stepped into the living room, each moving our gazes between the floor and peeking at each other. I was trying to figure out what was up with her, and she was watching me just as intently, for what reason I had no idea.

"Where's your mom?" Mesi blurted out of the blue.

I jerked back, not expecting her to say that and not knowing what to reply. I had no answer. Her guess as to where my mom was, was as good as mine. She hadn't come back since she left the note. I wasn't worried—or that's what I told myself. We'd talked on the phone a handful of times, but as many questions as I asked, she had only ever answered the simplest one: how are you? "Work," I lied.

She nodded her head like it made all the sense in the world for my mom to be working on Saturday. It probably did make some sense, though I couldn't think of a lot of jobs where you were forced to work on Saturdays. I supposed some doctors had to work on the weekends or there would be no doctors to help people that needed it on Saturday, which I expected to be a somewhat busy day for emergencies. My mom was clearly no doctor.

I took a deep breath. "So...what do you want to do? We can go out and do something, stay here and watch a movie or whatever, or..." I trailed off. There weren't too many options when you lived in a fairly small suburb of a fairly small city.

Mesi pondered her many imaginative choices. "Hmm. Why don't we" she dragged out the e's in the word "we" as she thought, building anticipation,"go to the ice rink? I haven't been there in so long."

A feeling of nostalgia washed over me as I thought about the ice rink. There were loads of free skating times, but the biggest one by far was on Friday night. It was something everyone did when they were in fifth and sixth grade—go to Friday night skate. Eleven and twelve-year-old "couples" would hold hands as they skated in circles to the newest, cheesiest pop tunes that we all knew all the words to, you know, the ones you can't turn the radio on without hearing at least twice in the span of twenty minutes.

Picking up my house keys from the side table in the foyer, I started out the door. "Let's go."

...

The rink was deserted but for a couple figure skaters practicing their routines in the middle circle of the ice unfailingly designated for tricks and real routines at every free skate that was marked off with big, bright orange cones. They were dressed in leggings, yoga pants, sweaters and long-sleeved shirts of varying colors, hair tied back in varying ways and all twirling or jumping or doing some sort of complicated step.

Mesi and I rented skates, neither of us had ever bothered to buy our own since we obviously didn't skate much. The ones they gave me were hockey skates, preferable to Mesi's rented brown figure skates that gave you blisters no matter how many layers of socks you were wearing.

"Ready?" I asked, standing after I finished lacing and sliding into my skates.

Mesi gave me a quick smile and a nod, wobbling on the rubber floor when she straightened her legs. She reached for something to hold on to, finding only air. Then, just as she was about to fall, I stepped forward to block the impending impact with my chest. My hands found her waist, steadying her and lingering longer than they probably should have, memories I'd suppressed flooding back in a way that made me feel sick.