Skate to My Lou

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"Yes!" I whisper-yelled. I was celebrating the A- I got on my English test. All my studying had paid off. I truly was horrified at the thought of even getting this test back, because I was not at all confident in what I turned in. Of course, I had prepared as much as humanly possible—minus a few days here and there— but I was still nervous. I'd have to thank KP for her help, later. I must've had a kool-aid smile on my face, 'cause Tracey gave me a knowing smile when she saw me. My guess was she was on her way to her class. "Oooh, I know that smile anywhere." she says, walking up to me. "You just finished another rendezvous with KP, huh?" I furrowed my eyebrows. "What? No. I got an A, girl! Well really it's an A minus, but there is still an A on this paper." I brag, proudly flashing my paper. "Oh, that's great! Now you can go celebrate by having a rendezvous with KP." she half-whispers, wiggling her eyebrows. I roll my eyes. "Why you want me to be with KP so bad?" I ask her.
"So you can spend all your time with her and give everybody else some time with Cam, duh." she replies. I cackle. "You're still barking up that tree? Yikes." I said, looking back at my paper. She huffed. "Yes, I'm still barking up that tree. I don't give up very easily."
"I can tell. I love that about you. That's beautiful." I say. I truly believed that one day Tracey would wear Cam so thin, that she'd wind up being deeply in love with her. However, I believed it would happen only after Tracey fixated on somebody else. Isn't that how it always goes? "Is that why you've been talking to me about her so often, these days? I started to tell KP you were interested in her, as much as you ask about her." She laughs. "Yeah." she admits, like I should have known. "All you gotta do is ask her out, Trae. Ask the bitch out. She never turns down an invitation."
"How am I supposed to do that, Gwen?The only time we see each other is when we're in a group setting. The only one getting any any alone time with her is you, and that's outside of being in the dorm." I stifle a giggle. Damn, she was right. I was with Cam pretty often.
I giggle. "I'm sorry, girl. I ain't mean to hog her to myself, like that. I can't help it, though. We'll literally be talking and all of a sudden I have a burning desire to random shit. So usually, I'll ask her and she comes along. It's what best friends do."
"Bitch, we're best friends and we don't be doing all that."
"'Cause you don't ever want to go anywhere, especially if it doesn't have anything to do with Cam. I just stopped asking."
She huffs. "Well, I wanna go on the next adventure. When is it?" she asks. "Today— right now as a matter of fact. Oh, here she comes." I say, seeing her emerge from the same class I did a few minutes earlier. That was when I started to put my paper in my backpack. I didn't have time for it to fly out of my hands when I stepped outside. It was windy— a bit chilly as a matter of fact. It was the perfect weather to wear a hoodie. "Aight, we can go now, Gwen." she says, with a smile. She notices Tracey. "Oh, hey, Tracey. What's up?" she asks. She smiles wide, playing with her hair. "I'm good, you?" she asks. "I'm cool. 'Bout to roll out. Gwen's taking me on a date." she joked. I rolled my eyes at her. "I truly cannot stand you." I say. Cam giggles and checks her watch. Tracey fakes a smile. I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes. I didn't really know what to do at that point. If Cam wasn't trying to get to know her, she had to just deal with it. It felt like she was blaming me for their lack of a connection. At this point, I just wanted to leave. Cam turns to me. "We gotta go, now. We only have a few minutes to make it across campus." She starts to walk briskly out of the building, and so I followed. I turned and shouted bye back to Tracey, though.

I couldn't let what just transpired between me and Tracey ruin the day for me, though. I was about to finally go have some fun with my bestie. We chat excitedly like kids, scrambling from one side of campus to the other. "Let it gooooo, let it gooooo!" I belted from the top of my lungs, as we approached the bus loop.
"Iiii don't care—" Cam started to sing. "Bitch, that's not how it goes!" I exclaim. "It's the only part I know, quit being a hater. You just mad 'cause I sound better than you." We both laugh. We then board the bus.

When we got dropped off at our stop around fifteen minutes later. We walked down a single street for a good two minutes before we saw a big building that said IceLand. Cam's eyes got wide. "We're at an ice skating rink?" she asks, excitedly. "Yeah, it's why I told you to wear a hoodie."
"This must be why you were singing that Frozen bullshit." she assumes. "That was just a coincidence— that song is my shit." I admit.
She laughed. We make our way in, finally.

Once we got in, we headed to the locker room to put our stuff away. She pulled out a hat, gloves, and a scarf set to wear on the ice. I pulled out gloves and a scarf. I turned around and found my hat on the bench. It feels weird when I put it on. I typically don't wear hats, 'cause my hair is usually too big for all that. Today, though, I went ahead and put it into pigtails, just so I could actually see. "You ever been ice skating before?" I ask.
"Yeah, but it's been awhile. Probably some years, actually."
"You like it?"
"Yeah, it's pretty cool. I find that I'm way better at ice skating than I am regular skating."
"Good, you can save me from myself."
"You've never been?"
"Nope."
"It's okay, before long you'll be a pro."
"I hope so. If I fall, that's yo ass." I say, half-serious." She giggles.
"Don't worry about that, I got you." she says.

Once we hit the ice, we steady ourselves against the wall. The instructors give us a tutorial and we do a few test runs of skating around the rink. I was finally starting to get the hang of it. It was easier than regular skating. I start talking shit to Cam, zooming past her. I fell probably a good thirty seconds later, crashing right into the wall. I grunt from the impact, but I wasn't hurt. Cam skated as quick as she could to help me up. She tried to hold in her laughter. "Shut up." I said, causing her to completely lose it. "See, when you do clownery..." she says, trailing off into a fit of laughter. "That's what you get." I roll my eyes while she tries to calm herself down, simultaneously helping me up. "You should go at a pace you're used to, Gwen. Hold my hand." she suggests. I smack it away. "I am big grown. I'm good!" I say, confidently. She folds her arms and furrows her brows. "Says the bitch who sang Frozen on the way over here. Grab my damn hand." she says, extending her hand out once again. I roll my eyes before giving in. After all, I definitely wasn't trying to wind up on the floor again. "Now, kick your legs up, slowly." she suggests. I do it, and she made sure to copy what I was doing, I guess it was so we could stick together. We do it successfully, but I got a little nervous when we turned the corner. She skates out a bit further from me, but our hands are still joined at this point, letting a few of the other skaters duck under our arms. It was so cool! "You wanna try speeding up?" she asks. "Yeah, let's go." I say. "Okay, kick faster." she says, and I do just that. Eventually we're going as fast as hell. My eyes get wide as we are quickly approaching a couple that are also skating side by side. This time, I moved to the opposite side and we raised our arms over them. "There you go!" Cam says, smiling. I could get used to this ice skating stuff. We slowed down once this one song came on. "This is my shit!" she exclaims. She skated ahead of me, damn near dragging me along to the middle of the rink. In the center of all the madness, there were a few people just jamming out to whatever was playing. She screeches in excitement. "It's Selena! You know her stuff?" Cam asks. "No." I admit. All I knew about Selena was that she was fine, sang in Spanish, and that she got killed by some crazy lady.
Cam closed her eyes and did some semblance of a two-step in her ice skates, while singing along. "One day, we gon' sit down and listen to all her stuff. She's amazing." she says. She takes my hand and twirls herself around, while I'm just watching her. She was having the time of her life.
"I hear Selena's a legend." I say.
"That, she was. My mom absolutely loved her, this song in particular. Bidi Bidi Bom Bom." she said, in English. She went back into singing in Spanish. "Why you just standing there? Dance with me." she says. I timidly try to bust a move, but it probably looked ridiculous. I felt the beat and listened to the voice. Had zero clue on what she was saying, but the song was beautiful. She brought me into the classic salsa position, which cracked me up. "My mama used to make me dance with her to this song." she said giggling. "She'd put my hands around her exactly like this, and she'd just pat me on the head, singing her heart out." Hearing her talk about her mom made me smile. She made me miss mine. I'd have to call her later. After another hour or so, we turn our skates back in and make our way back outside.

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