Frozen love

Jade Newman stood up in her new skates. She had resolved to do this, she will do this. Jade had waited for almost a year for this, now she was going to succeed.

She impatiently waited for the rest of her family to get their skates on their feet. Jade stomped and grumbled as her family told her to wait, wait. They were all busy packing and helping each other with their skates and luggage.                                                                                                                 

At last, she could not wait anymore. She sighed and snuck away to the skating arena hoping that she would not get caught by her mother or her brother. Especially her brother. Ever since Jade rescued him from falling down a few flights of stairs, her brother had been looking up to her. 

“No, it was nothing. Besides, that’s what a sister is supposed to do anyway.” Jade had told her brother at the time. 

Her brother looked at her with glassy eyes. “Sisters help save their brothers?” He asked. 

“Yeah, basically.” Jade had replied. 

Then, her brother’s eyes started to shimmer. “Oh wow, my sister is a hero. My sister is a hero!” Her brother had jumped up and squealed, like a girl. 

The floor of the rink was slippery and cold. Ice skaters twirled and practiced on the rink. Wow, Jade thought. I wonder what fun it would be if I went on the ice with my sneakers. As she slowly made her way onto the rink, the rest of her family came into the arena. 

“Why didn't you wait for me?” Her brother sniffled as he stumbled across the floor. 

Jade rolled her eyes at him. “What a crybaby.” She muttered under her breath. But her brother was too close to Jade to not hear what she had said. 

He gasped. “I'm not a crybaby! Why did you call me that? Don't you love me?” He started to bawl his eyes out. 

“Seriously!” Jade exclaimed and made an attempt to run away and slid onto the rink. 

The air immediately changed and it almost made her shiver. Jade was only wearing sweatpants and a black jacket over a black turtleneck. She was dressed up in all black. But Jade had always liked the cold. She felt that the coldness against her skin was so invigorating. The cold made her smile. The smile stayed on her face until…..WHAM! She fell to the floor. 

Well, actually, let's replay that. 

A man in front of her slipped and fell. As Jade didn't want to run into him, she skidded to a stop. But the sudden force was too much for her and she fell. 

The falling part was not so bad. But as she fell, her skate blade somehow scraped her inner thigh. “Great.” Jade grunted and pushed herself up. The place where she had been scraped stung, but she kept skating hoping that the pain would go away. 

As she continued skating, Jade kept getting distracted by the skaters practicing in the middle of the rink. They were dressed in all black, like Jade, but they had different skates from everyone else. Their skates were white and sequined, while everyone else’s were a dull blue. They kept zigzagging on the ice so much that at one point Jade thought that they were going to bump into her. She was relieved when they didn’t. 

An hour passed and Jade skated without falling again. 

Sometimes, she would go too fast and would be in the middle of falling backwards. But she would always catch herself. Jade felt lucky that she had better balance than others that fell every 5 seconds.

She had been thinking this and feeling lucky when her stomach rumbled. She realized that she didn't have breakfast in the morning. This was because of her being so excited about going skating. She had been the one rushing everyone out of their beds and starting up the car and getting the map. 

And now, Jade wished for only one thing: SPRING ROLLS, her favorite food. She craved for the juiciness and crunchiness of the snack. Jade hovered over to one of the exits of the rink and stomped over on the hard ground floor. Suddenly, the air changed and shifted again. Jade felt as tired as a sloth on a gray day. The rink was so smooth and magical, but the cold wet ground was just tiring to walk on. She was just a second away from getting to a table when she just couldn't take it anymore. She started to collapse, her whole body ready to fall flat on the floor. 

Suddenly, she was stopped by another body holding her wrists away from the floor. The Jade bracing herself for the fall was quickly replaced with an embarrassed Jade who quickly pushed herself up and turned to face her rescuer. 

He was a brunette with gorgeous green eyes and a slightly crooked smile. He stood there, grinning, probably waiting for Jade to thank him. When she didn't, he raised his eyebrows and immediately Jade started babbling out loud. 

“God, I am so sorry. I’m such a fool.” Jade then blushed, as you could probably tell that this was a boy who had caught her attention. 

Like a stimulus. Jade had learned what a stimulus was in P.E. last week, and she had giggled with her friends about their crushes being stimuluses. Jade loved and fit in with her friends, but she was never interested in boys. Not after her first boyfriend had cheated on her 1 year ago. 

She knew that a person couldn't really be the same thing as a stimulus, but close enough. Now, here she was, forming a crush on a boy she barely knew, except for the fact that this boy had some strong arms. And she was blushing again, just thinking this. 

“Nah. No problem.” He replied. 

This would be the time for Jade and this boy to part, saying goodbye and never seeing each other again. But the 2 strangers just stood there, unmoving, and never looking away from each other's eyes. 

Jade’s eyes were a dull brown, like almost everyone in the world. But the boy’s were so green, almost like an emerald. Finally, the boy was the one to break the uncomfortable silence. 

“Well, gotta get back to my girlfriend. She’s probably waiting for me. I only came here to throw our lunch packets away.” He nodded toward the trash bin and looked at Jade with warming eyes. She vigorously nodded, and he continued on. 

“So, my name is Harry Griffin. Yours?” 

Inside her mind, Jade’s heart split into many pieces, and started dancing around. Just because this boy, Harry, had thought that knowing her name was important. 

“Jay. Jace. Jade. Jade. Yeah. Jade Newman.” She finally got her own name right and briefly smiled. Harry smirked and checked the time. 

Suddenly, he started to panic and ran away to the other side of the arena, leaving Jade alone shivering in her skates.

The End