Kiss and Control: Chapter 3

Rule of life #1: LIVE! At least, that's what it's always been for me.

        Oh! Now I must tell you about our rollerskating nights. Every year in April, for five years now, we've gone out theme skating. We started with our extremely dorky version of 80's night. But this year, Angel had a brilliant idea. Every year that we've gone, the only people there have been a bunch of gorgeous emo and punky guys. So Angel came up with this year's theme being, of course, emo.

         "April already?" The man at the entry booth, Melvin, who's been at the booth every year, asked. "Hey Melvin." The three of us said in unison as we waved and skipped to the booth. "Hey girls." I handed him the money and he steeped out from behind the booth and opened the door for us.

        The rink was still the same after five years, with only a few slight improvements. Flashing and colorful lights danced around every inch of the room. The smell of popcorn and leather mingled together, somehow. The music was different every year, depending on the most popular songs then. Right when we stepped in, 21 Guns by Green Day was playing. The carpet beneath our shoes was purple with splatters of yellow, red, and green, same as the walls.

         We went to the counter, where skates our size we're already waiting for us. I smiled at the guy behind the counter, who's a year older than us, Jake. When we came here last year, it was his first day. We almost got him fired by dragging him out onto the skating floor and having him skate in a group with us while there was a gigantic line at the concession stand waiting on him.

        We all laced up our skates and leaned against the railings together, gazing out onto the floor. (We were checking out all the guys of course.) "See any you like?" Angel asked me.  I took one last look, my eyes coincidently  met with a guy passing by the railing. As he continued to skate around the rink, his eyes stayed fixed on mine. "Hello? Katie? Are you there?"

         I slowly tore my gaze away from my mystery guy's. It was hard. His amazing green eyes and jet black hair, hanging by his chin and falling over his eye, were calling out to me, not to be cheesy or anything. "Umm, come on. Let's go skate." I grasped on to Angel's hand as she grasped onto Tess' and the three of us joined the crowd on the floor.

          The song had now changed to Poker Face, but I payed no attention to the music or even the skating. I just couldn't get my mind off that guy.It took me a while to realize that I wasn't looking at the guy anymore, but at some nerdy fat guy instead. In fact, I don't think it really ever occured to me.

        Once I finally popped out of my fantasies, it was a bit to late. Tess must have gone off somewhere because she was no longer linked onto our chain. This sort of caused a problem for us, because Tess is the most experienced of the three, so if we were about to run into someone, like we are now, she would have been able to steer us aside.

        Angel took off to the center of the floor away from me without warning. (That was actually what snapped me out of my daze.) It seems my mystery guy was showing off to a bunch of his friends that he could skate backwards.

        His friends were yelling at him to watch out, but just as he turned around, he came crashing right into me.

         "Oh my god! I am so sorry!" He quickly said, still laying right on top of me. I just chuckled. "It's ok. I'm fine." He laughed along with me. "Wow, I'm really embarassed. I'm so sorry. I'm such an idiot. And I should probably get off of you now and introduce myself." I nodded and he flopped over onto his back, then stood up with the help of one of his buddies. The he held out his hand to me. I took it, of course, and he pulled me up.

         "My name is Ruben." He said, keeping my hand in his. "Nice. I'm Katie." He smiled, but still didn't release me hand. "Hey, can I tell you something?" I hesitated. "Umm...sure." He grinned, then bit his lip like he was about to laugh. "I had a dream that I was in Heaven last night and you were in it. " I blushed and glanced down at my feet, trying to hide my red cheeks. "I'm sorry, but I had to get that off my chest. You wanna skate?"

        I looked back up, then back at Angel, who was now skating around the floor with the buddy of Ruben's who had helped him up. "She beat me!" I said, pretty much to myself. "Excuse me?" I glanced back at Ruben. "Oh nothing. But yes. I'd love to." He twisted us back in the right direction and we took off around the rink.