Running Towards the Light

Chapter 10 - Threats

My arm swelled in pain as I hit the concrete ground. I groaned, rolling over so my eyes were blinded by the sun. I felt warm liquid roll down my left arm as I reached my right hand to touch it. My hand came above my face with red liquid on it. Blood.

"Fuck Beatrice. What were you thinking?" Eli questioned coming over to help me up.

"That I could land the trick," I groaned, flashing Eli a grin.

I craned my neck to see that I had a pretty good scrape going down the top of my left arm. It was hard to tell how big it was because of the blood but the torn skin gave away that it was pretty bad.

Chris is gonna kill me.

I was so dead when I got home and Chris would see my arm. Chris knows that you get hurt skateboarding but he's always yelling at me for going for tricks that are super hard and ones that when you miss you get hurt on.

Chris was actually opposed to teaching Ben and I to skateboard because he had seen all of our other brothers doing it and getting hurt. He even tried to ban the twins from skateboarding after Spencer broke his ankle. But they never listened.

I started skateboarding when I was probably three. Just small things like standing on the board while my brothers held my hand and ran alongside it so the board would be moving. I really loved it at a young age so I've just never stopped.

Dylan and Chris taught me the basics, like getting the skateboard to move and getting in and out of the bowl, but after a while they stopped or refused to show me how to do a certain trick because they saw how hurt some of my brothers were getting and they thought that I was too young. They did the same to Ben which is why he never skateboards anymore.

It was actually West and Cameron that taught me how to skateboard fully. The twins were always reckless and didn't really care about their younger siblings so they just kinda did their own thing but West and Cam would always stay by me and show me how to do things. Surprisingly, they were both really patient with me as well as I was learning and always falling.

Chris never explicitly told them to stop teaching me but he would have little "chats" with one of them or tell them that they had to do something else right as we were about to go to the skatepark. Stuff like that. My eldest brother always worried a lot about us getting hurt on skateboards even though I know he had his fair share of injuries because of his skateboarding days.

My friends were also pretty big skateboarders. Zeke being the best by a little bit and Penny being the worst. Zeke was like beyond good, Bryce and I were at the same level but he could do a bit more tricks and I was more of a street skater than a trick skater. Eli is a little behind us but he's still pretty good whereas Penny isn't. Penny's decent but she doesn't go for big tricks so her progress is a little stalled.

Then again, when my friends and I met we all knew how to skateboard but we taught Penny because she didn't know so I guess it's not fair because she started later than us.

Usually on Sundays my friends and I go to the skatepark, have lunch somewhere, and just hang out. It's almost like a tradition and today was no exception. We had been at the skatepark for a little over an hour and for almost all of that time I was trying to land this hard trick but I was just falling over and over again.

"You good?" Zeke asked as he came up to Eli and I. "That was a pretty bad fall and you're not wearing a helmet," He pointed out.

"I'm fine." I responded.

"You could have hit your head!" Penny exclaimed.

"But I didn't," I shot back.

Penny just rolled her eyes and turned away from me.