I'm Yours (PRN)

iii

Pushing her weight against the velocity of which her skates move, Monica pushes for that last axel leap before gliding out into a solid cruising motion along the ice. She can vividly recall the days her mother had her sitting behind a piano when she knew that Monica would much rather be lacing up her skates. The moment her mother learned to accept that, life got much easier for Monica.

As she is taking a breather lap, that same song comes on and for once she decides to approach the disc jockey's booth. "Hey, Ed," She smiles leaning on the wall. Monica and Ed have known each other since their sophomore year of high school. Add that to the fact that she's been a regular at this rink since she was eleven, it's obvious that they're friends. "Can you tell me whose record this is?"

"That boy you used to hang out with, Prince. He's kind of a medium deal these days, y'know? I get more requests for him everyday."

That lying bitch, Monica thinks to herself as she is referring to Lindsey. "Ooooh, okay." She double taps the wall and says, "Thanks, Ed." Then, Monica skates off back for another round of axel attempts. Upon her lift, Monica's knee buckles and she comes crashing down. "Fuck!" A frustrated Monica yells rolling over onto her behind.

"Does your mother know words like that leave her baby's mouth?"

It is his desperate attempt at being cute in the moment. In a way, he hopes repeating a five-year-old question will jog back some sort of feelings of her past. Monica's head turns and she greets him with a perfunctory expression. "Hi, Prince." Monica responds, rising to her feet. She skates to the edge of the wall where Prince stands. She knows the more she ignores him, the more he'll show up. She is aware that ignoring him would be quite immature anyway. Why not give him a minute to rap on his usual tempting speech that was always so convincing? Then, she can turn him down and move on.

"Practicing?"

"I think you knew I'd be practicing and that is why you came. It's okay though. Would you like to talk?"

Prince is taken aback. He'd already formulated a step by step plan to woo Monica into sitting down to let him try and change her mind. It is a relief for him to know steps one through seven no longer have to be stressed. He has done a lot of touring the last couple of years and to come back at a tender twenty-two, he is shamelessly going back in time to at least try and get his, soon to be, twenty-year-old ex-girlfriend back in his life.

Monica skates to the entrance and slips out of her ice-skates. She's got her shirt buttoned up to the highest register possible. He, too, bundled up in a trench coat, Prince sits beside her on the bench. She watches him carefully, mentally taking dozens of snapshots and notes of where he placed his hands. Prince's new look is far from attractive in Monica's eyes compared to what she's used to seeing him as. She knows the rave about men with afro's is dying down but the last thing she expected Prince to turn to is... This.

"Can I start with sorry?" Monica sits still and quiet as Prince speaks. "Everything I said that day, all of it was messed up."

The summer of 1975 was an unexplained dream full of impulsive decisions based on teenage emotion... And the summer of 1976 was a dose of reality full of impulsive decisions also based on teenage emotion. It was the summer after Prince's graduation. He really began putting forth his real best foot toward making it and he went ghost for a long time. She was still his girlfriend, he called as much as he could while busily running all of the city. Him not being around as often as before never bothered her, as long as he put forth the effort... She knew she'd be alright. It was not until the night before the day of her graduation ceremony that things got bad.

She told him she was going to school in Wisconsin and he tried to convince her to go to school in Minneapolis since they'd accepted her...

"Sweetheart, that'd be absolutely perfect if only I hadn't already gave Wisconsin my word," She responded in a slight whine.