Adopted by Albert | ✔

5 | rooftop sunsets

"Ready for this?"

My board was pointed at the grind that Albert had made and focused on it, not wanting to mess up in front of Albert. Although I was great at half-pipes and boxes, I easily cracked under pressure.

"Go ahead, I'm watching," he said, but part of me wished he wasn't. I wasn't about to bail out, though.

Without hesitation, I sped up towards the grind and jumped at the last second, flying a millisecond before hitting it, sliding, but it felt like flying. I felt 100% in control, the satisfying feeling hitting me. Then, at the end of the grind, I jumped, and landed successfully.

Flawless, if I do say so myself.

I turned back to Albert, who was grinning and clapping. I did a mocking bow, and then smiled, too.

I'd taken Kirsten's advice and asked Albert if he wanted to skateboard, which was an immediately yes. In a matter of minutes, Albert had set up his box, and we took turns showing and learning each other's tricks. Then, I did this one.

"That was sick!" He exclaimed, picking up his own board. "I learned how to grind with only the first half a little while ago." He sped up, jumped, and hit the grind only on the first two wheels, like he said. 

The only flaw was that he looked unbalanced, his arms kind of flailing. When you're skateboarding, you just kind of have to trust yourself, and the board.

"Woah," I said, "You have to teach me that sometime. Want me to give feedback or no?" Albert nodded. "You kind of look like you're not in control of the board, and your arms looked like helicopter blades. Maybe you could try to trust yourself and get some balance?"

Albert nodded. "I never really thought of that, maybe you're right."

I looked to my watch. We'd been been in Albert's garage for around two to three hours. Time flew by fast when you're skateboarding. We practiced a bit more until around 5:00 PM, when Kirsten called us inside.

I asked Albert why we were going in so early, since dinner wasn't in an hour or so, and he unhesitatingly responded, like he was anticipating this question.

"Sunset. Kirsten knows I really like them, and the sun is going to go down in about an hour. It's enough time for both of us to shower, look, your shirt is drenched from sweat."

He pointed at my grey shirt. He was right, my clothes felt sticky from skating. I'd spent at least seven hours outside on a hot summer day, so obviously I wasn't going to be dry.

"That makes sense," I told him, "Wouldn't want to watch the sun go down while smelling bad." That made Albert laugh.

We went inside, setting our boards down in the closet, and going upstairs to shower and change. My room had a good shower, better, compared to other houses. I took about fifteen minutes, then brushed my hair, and while I waited for it to dry, I decided to look up YouTube videos.

I originally wanted to watch Albert's other videos, but then I changed my mind when I saw our video that we made yesterday night. I decided I wanted to see what people thought about me.

There were plenty of likes, but there were still some dislikes, which I was bummed about until I remembered that all videos have at least some dislikes. There were a lot of comments, too, more than 40,000.

I scrolled to the first comment. They were surprised, but happy, in all caps screaming that they wanted me to make a YouTube channel.

There were actually a lot like that.

"WAIT HE GOT A DAUGHTER BRB SCREAMING"

"I AM  C R Y I N G"

"SHES SO PRETTY LITERALLY HEATHER"