On A Winter Night

Beth put on her jacket and left the dark house. Little snowflakes were slowly falling on the stone steps and the pavement. It was freezing, so the snow had slowly covered the street with a sound muffling, sparkling white blanket. The sky was almost wholly dark; only the moon was half visible behind the thick, streaming clouds. The street lights made yellowish broken ellipses on all the white.

Beth carried her skates by their laces in her right hand. She walked through the town centre thinking of the conversation she had just had on the phone. Ryan had phoned her, as he sometimes did, but not very often, and asked if she wanted to skate. Beth had been puzzled. The skating rink was miles away and closed at this time of night. He played ice hockey there on Tuesdays and she practiced figure skating on Thursdays, and they often hung out there, with other friends, or just to watch each other skate or practice their respective moves. Today was Sunday.

"What, now?" Beth heard her voice repeat inside her head.

"Not in the rink, silly..." Ryan had answered. "In the town square!"

It was late, but not too late to go skating on the little square of ice, put up in the town square during the winter months, where kids, teenagers and parents jollied around each day. And Beth had nothing planned for the rest of the evening, so she had told Ryan yes.

The town centre was completely deserted. It was surrounded by shops, which were now closed, but the light was still on in the display windows. There were also streetlamps all around the mini rink, so it was well illuminated. At one end of it was a bench. Beth sat down on it and placed her skates beside her. For some reason she would wait to put them on till Ryan put on his own. They had never skated otherwise than in the rink outside town on the two determined weekdays, so it was like she wanted to see him do it here, now, before she was sure to do it too.

She looked at the little rink. The surface was much scratched and marked by the days' play. It was rectangular, nearly double as long as it was wide, and surrounded by a low, dark green wooden fence. To pass the time she looked closely at the snow under her feet. Here the fresh snow was falling too, blurring the sharp footprints in the older, compressed snow, which was turning into a layer of porous ice. Underneath it were the gray pavement, which no one had seen for weeks. In the spring, it would show again and take up it's former well known place in the town picture.

Of course Beth wondered, not really why, but thatRyan would meet with her now. They had been friends for years, since Ryan's family moved into the old house on the hill. It was in the summer holidays. Beth was the first friend Ryan met because their fathers were new colleagues. Beth was one of those girls who had just a few close friends, and those friends had been away with their families at that time. So she had been very bored until Ryan's family came and invited her to dinners and tent campings and all kinds of funny activities. His parents were nice people, and they had doted on Beth ever since, because they did not have any daughters.

However, when it was not the summer holidays, Beth and Ryan had always had a sort of unspoken agreement that they didn't hang out that much, only when skating or occasionally at school. Otherwise they would just run into lousy jokes from their friends. You could not really be friends with someone of the opposite sex. And now Ryan was making a breech of that agreement, a change. Beth could not predict, however, in what way things were going to change. Did Ryan want to be more than friends with her? Or did he have a problem he needed someone to talk to about? Or was he maybe trying to prove some point to the world about girls and boys being able to be friends?

If she had to be honest with herself, the first oppertunity was the most probable. She knew Ryan pretty well after all. He was not much into sorts of social experiments, and would not feel like proving that point about friendship. And he had not sounded troubled on the phone, and if he had a problem he needed to discuss with her, he would probably have done it over the phone, he was no drama king. No, he just wanted to see her, be with her. The idea had just never entered Beth's mind.

And now he came walking down the street, carrying his skates by their laces. Beth sat watching him, trying to notice everything about him. The snow whirled high above him and landed in his hair. His walk, his movements were calm and natural as they used to be. When he he sat down on the bench and looked at her, and she saw those eyes she knew so well, she thought: Yes. He is my friend Ryan, and I like him. I never thought about it before now, but I always did. If he wants to be friends I will be his friend. If he wants me to be his girlfriend I will be that.

But that did not matter in this exact moment.

"How are you?" He asked.

"Good. How are you?" She asked back

"I'm good too. We haven't been together really, for a while." He said.

"I know..." She replied. It sounded as though he had been thinking about them, him and her.

He smiled and looked at her, and she smiled and looked back.

"Do you remember the summer holidays? I mean, when I first came here?"

"Yes." Her answer was only this little word, but it was a "yes" saying not only that she remembered those days, but that she treasured them.

"Come on, let's skate!" He then said and reached for his skates, which he had placed on the bench like she had with hers.

So they put on their skates and got up from the bench. They slowly drifted towards the middle of the rink, to get some space around them to move in.

"So, what do you want to do?" Beth asked. Usually they practised their respective moves seperately, seeing as hockey and figure skating were quite different. But now they were supposed to skate together.

"Well, I thought I'd ask you to teach me some some figure skating," Ryan answered.

"Really? Alright," Beth smiled, and thought about what move to teach him. He was a talented hockey player and of course knew the basic things. "Can you switch between edges on one leg, like this?"

She did what she had just described, moving forwards, bending her left leg behind her and balancing from one edge of the skate to the other on her right. Then she turned back to face him.

"I probably won't be as elegant as you, but I'll give it a go!" He replied.

They giggled while he set off. He did what she had done, only it was visible that it was unusual for him. He looked a little stiff. She told him to stretch his muscles and try again.

The next time he looked more confident. After a few minutes they went around and around the little rink, doing the movement mimetically side by side. She held out her hand and he took it. He still held it for a moment after they reached to end of the rink and stopped.

"That was pretty easy for you... If I taught you a few more things we could make up a little programme or something," Beth said.

"Does figure skating have to be programmed?" Ryan asked.

"Nope. We can also just improvise if you prefer that! Like dancing." She smiled.

"Let's dance, then," he said quietly.

And then they went on, skating together between the little snowflakes for a couple of hours or so. Beth could not tell precicely how long, she did not think of looking at her watch. They just had such a good time. She suddenly noticed how much she appreciated the way he always seemed so natural in everything that he did, like he did not doubt himself, but did not want to prove himself either. He was like a rock she could lean on when she ever so often flickered and failed herself.

By now she did not doubt that he had wanted to meet with her to just be with her. To be with her this evening, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow and the day after that. And she welcomed this wish happily, and took his hands and moved closer to him, so they were properly dancing. They stopped speaking for a while, and the only sound was the scratching of the skates on the ice.

When they were tired they stopped, facing each other, and just stood there for a while, near the wooden bench. Beth wanted to say something but didn't know what. It didn't matter though. Ryan could probably tell from the look in her eyes how she was feeling. Then he spoke.

"Well, I just want to ask you whether you would like to be... my girlfriend." He said.

"I would."

"Really?" He looked happily at her, almost in disbelief, which surprised Beth so much that she was about to say "of course", but went for a more subtle expression of her assurance.

"Yeah..."

Then he pulled her close to him and they hugged really tightly for a long time. Beth's stomach was tickling. Having his arms around her was the best thing she had ever felt.