“Wait,” Adelia stops right in the middle of the sidewalk. A group of people walking behind us narrowly miss bumping into us, and one person mutters something under their breath, though I can’t decipher what.

“What?” I question, but then I look in the direction that Adelia is looking. To our right, there is a concrete building with a huge sign that reads, “Florham Roller Rink.” Oh. She’s figured it out.

“Are we going there?” Adelia asks, pointing to the building.

Sighing, I finally give in: “Yeah. Why do you always have to observe everything?”

Adelia grins. “I just like to know my surroundings. Besides, I was bound to find out where you were taking me at some point, right?”

“I guess,” I admit.

We make our way to the entrance, and surprisingly, the line isn’t that long.

“Hello, girls!” a middle-aged lady at the ticket booth exclaims. “What kind of pass can I get for you?”

“Just the regular two-hour one,” I reply.

“Okay. That’ll be twenty dollars total. Are you two paying separately?”

“I’m paying,” I reply.

Just as Adelia is about to protest, I let go of her hand and place a twenty dollar bill in front of the lady.

“Thank you. Here are your wristbands.”

I grab Adelia’s hand once again and put her paper wristband around her wrist, my brows furrowing in concentration.

“You don’t have to do that,” Adelia whispers, a hint of a smile in her voice.

“But I want to,” I object, looking up at her after I finish taping the band.

“Then let me put on yours.” It’s not an offer; it’s a demand. Adelia grabs my wristband out of my hand and, before I know it, she’s peeling back the tape to reveal the sticky side, and she wraps it around my right wrist, securing it in place. As she does so, her tongue sticks out a little, reminding me of how cartoon characters’ tongues stick out in concentration. While she does look a bit silly, she also looks awfully adorable.

“There,” Adelia says triumphantly. “Now what do we do?”

“Get some skates. Or, wait…” I pause, thinking.

“What?”

“We should actually get roller blades; they’re better for beginners,” I explain after a moment.

“Oh, okay,” Adelia replies, reaching out for my hand and pulling me to the second set of doors leading into the roller rink. “Whatever you want. You know what you’re doing; I’m sure of it.”

After waiting in line for about five minutes, we finally got our skates, mine being a size 6, Adelia’s being a size 7.

“How the fuck do you put these on?” Adelia curses under her breath as she struggles to buckle up the roller blades.

“Here, let me help.” I reach over and secure the buckles, and then pull them so that they’re locked.

“Thanks,” Adelia murmurs.

“Of course.”

Standing up, we carefully head over to the rink. There are lots of people in the rink, zipping by at what appears to be the speed of light.

“Can…can we go slow at first?” Adelia questions nervously as we take our first few steps into the rink.

“Of course,” I reply.

As soon as we start skating, Adelia already has something to say: “I have a confession to make.”

“Oh?” The word comes out as a question. “What is it?”

Just as Adelia is about to tell me, she wobbles, so I twist my body so I can grab her by the shoulders to steady her. Oh. “Was that what you were going to tell me?” I inquire teasingly.

Adelia’s cheeks turn into varying hues of pink, starting off as a mild shade at the edges, but deepening into a medium pink at the apples of her cheeks. She looks embarrassed. “Yes.”

“Maybe we should go to the arcade then?” I suggest.

“No! I refuse,” Adelia responds immediately.

“Okay. But if you fall and get bruises, it isn’t my fault.”

“Okay, yeah.”

The first few minutes of rollerblading drag out slowly, painfully, probably because we’re going extremely slow compared to all the other skaters and rollerbladers. 

At first, Adelia struggles a lot with the footwork aspect of it, tumbling over several times, but after a while, she gets the hang of it.

“This is actually not too bad,” Adelia confesses.

“See? I knew you could do it.”

Adelia looks at me incredulously. “Yeah, right. Says the person whose first suggestion after finding out that I’ve never rollerbladed was to head to the arcade.”

“Hey, that’s not very nice,” I tease.

Adelia chuckles. “Yeah, well. I’m actually happy you brought me here. It’s been on my bucket list of things to do for a while. This is fun.”

Just as she says that, however, she collides into the railing.

“Oh my God, Adelia!” I stop to bend down where she’s laying. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Adelia’s voice is a bit raspy.

“You don’t sound too good.”

“No, I’m fine,” Adelia states, her voice coming back. “Just got the breath knocked out of me.”

She sits up, but as she does so, she flinches, clutching the left side of her stomach, the part that collided into the railing first.

“Maybe we should take a break,” I suggest.

“Yeah,” Adelia complies.

Helping Adelia up, we skate to the entrance/exit of the rink, walking back to where we put our shoes, and we take off the blades and slip on our shoes.

“I’m hungry,” Adelia states just as her stomach grumbles.

“I mean, you didn’t have much of a breakfast. And it’s currently…” I look at the clock hanging on the wall in front of us. “...Twelve twenty eight. Barely even lunch time.”

“Hey!” Adelia protests. “School lunch starts at ten forty in the morning, so you can’t say that it’s barely lunchtime.”

“Touche,” I concede.

“Okay, can we please get lunch now? I’m starving.”

“Of course,” I reply, and with that, we head off to the mini food court.