“What size shoe do you wear, Mehar?”
“Eight. But I’m not?—”
He looked smug as he held up a pair of tan rental skates with orange wheels and a look on his face that dared me to keep arguing. I grabbed them from his hand and sat down on the bench to put them on, furious at myself for giving in and even more furious at the tiny part of me that was curious.
I had never roller-skated in my life. I had never ice skated, never skateboarded, never ridden a bike without training wheels. My father considered recreational activities to be frivolous distractions from prayer and study. The other kids in the neighborhood would be outside playing and I would be inside memorizing Quran with bruised knees from kneeling on rice as punishment for whatever infraction Khadija had decided I’d committed that day. By the time I was old enough to choosemy own activities, I was married to Ahmad, and Ahmad didn’t let me do anything that didn’t involve serving him.
So when I stood up on those skates and my ankles immediately buckled inward and I grabbed the wall with both hands like it was the only thing between me and death, Quest had the absolute audacity to laugh.
“Don’t.” I pointed at him with one hand while gripping the wall with the other. “Do not laugh at me.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Your whole face is laughing.”
“My face is doing its own thing. I can’t control my face.” He was already on his skates, standing there perfectly balanced, completely at ease, looking like he’d been born on wheels. He rolled backward a few feet just to show off and I wanted to throw one of my skates at his head.
“How are you good at this?” I asked through gritted teeth as I inched along the wall toward the rink entrance.
“I grew up going to Crystal Skate in Forestville every Friday night. Quest Banks was nice with the skates. I’m talking crossovers, spins, backward skating—the whole thing. I was that kid.” He said it with zero shame and maximum braggadocio and despite everything, the corner of my mouth twitched.
“You’re disgusting.”
“I’ve been told. You ready?”
“No.”
“Perfect. Let’s go.”
He offered me his hand. I looked at it the same way I’d looked at the oxtail at Ray’s—suspicious but tempted. I took it, and his fingers closed around mine, warm and firm, and he guided me onto the rink floor like he was escorting me onto a dance floor instead of a waxed wooden oval surrounded by teenagers who were about to witness a grown woman eat shit on roller skates.
The first lap was humiliating. My legs kept trying to split apart in opposite directions and my arms were windmilling and I was making sounds I didn’t know I could make—grunts and gasps and one actual squeal that I would deny under oath. Quest skated beside me, holding my hand, matching my glacial pace, and occasionally steadying me with his other hand on my waist when I started to lean too far in one direction.
“Stop overthinking it,” he said. “You’re trying to control every muscle in your legs. Just let your body find the rhythm.”
“I don’t have a rhythm. I have survival instincts and they are telling me to get off this floor.”
“Your survival instincts are dramatic. Bend your knees a little more. There you go. Push with one foot, glide with the other. Push. Glide. Push. Glide.”
I tried. I pushed. I glided. For about two seconds, I felt something close to momentum and my brain went oh, okay, maybe this is—and then my right foot went sideways and I went down.
Not a graceful fall. Not a slow-motion movie fall where you look cute on the way down. I went down hard and fast, landing on my hip and sliding about a foot across the wax, and a group of teenagers nearby tried very hard not to laugh and failed completely.
Quest was over me in a second, crouching down with his hand extended and that smile on his face that was somehow not mocking. It was warm and amused and patient and it made me angrier than if he’d been laughing at me.
“You good?”
“I’m on the floor. No, I’m not good.”
“Take my hand.”
I took his hand and he pulled me up in one smooth motion. And when I was standing again, wobbly and bruised andhumiliated, he didn’t let go. He held my hand and steadied me and waited until my ankles stopped shaking before he moved.
“One more lap,” he said. “And this time don’t think. Just move.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
