Page 27 of Mixed Signals
Layla’s hands hold my wrists as she helps me up, wedging her hip up against the wall to hold us steady. She keeps holding onto me as I find my balance, my body hunched over in front of her. Like this, my chin almost meets the top of her head. Her feet are still, somehow. Infuriatingly stable. I stare at the little flowers on the teal scarf twisted through her hair and try to focus.
I’m no better than that guy with the lint roller. The guy who made her drive all the way to that beach bar and then left her on her own. I brought her to a crowded roller rink onhigh school nightand they’ve playedCall Me Maybetwenty-six times. It smells like feet in here. Like hormones and the Axe aisle of a big box store. I might as well have driven her directly to hell.
She blinks up at me, her hazel eyes shining brighter than the damned disco ball. An unnamed emotion curls at the corners of her lips, but I’m too focused on not breaking every bone in my body—and subsequently hers, when I inevitably take us both to the ground—to figure it out.
She’s probably wondering how many more laps she needs to take before she can leave. If it’s worth staying for a soft pretzel or if she can just microwave something when she gets home.
Her grip adjusts until her palms are pressed to mine. She squeezes once and starts moving slowly backwards.
“Let’s talk about this research you did.”
“Let’s not.”
“Was it a Buzzfeed article?”
I glance at our feet, guilty. “It was a very qualified, academic article.”
“About roller rinks.”
“Yes. There were sources listed.” I hesitate. “I wanted you to have a good time, but I probably overdid it.”
Again.
She doesn’t say anything in response. Her face settles into something soft, contemplative. I’ve seen that look before. Usually when she has a spatula the size of a half dollar in her hand and her tongue between her teeth, her face level with a cake sitting at the edge of the counter.
She skates around a curve, still backwards, tugging me along with her. Slow, slow, slow. Jeremy whips by and shouts something vaguely encouraging.Go the distance.I glare at nothing in particular.
“Caleb?”
“What?”
She squeezes my hands.
“Caleb.” Again. Gentler this time. A laugh on the tip of her tongue.
I stop trying to burn a hole in the strobe lights and look at Layla instead, her face tilted up towards mine. Her skin shimmers beneath the erratic lights, a brush of pale pink across her high cheekbones. Her eyes look almost green in the dark of the rink, her hair brushing the tops of her bare shoulders. She looks happy.
“What?” I ask, dazed by that look. I want to fold it up and slip it into the back pocket of my wallet. The spot where I keep a rubbed down penny my abuelo gave me and my loyalty card for the snowball stand.
“I like the roller rink.” Layla’s thumbs rub over my knuckles. “Solid tens across the board.”
“Stop.”
“I’m sorry,” she wheezes around another laugh. “I can’t help it.”
Layla hasn’t stopped laughing since my last spectacular fall, when my elbow went through one of the wooden sideboards and I wedged myself so firmly, Oliver had to practically cut me out. I saw six teenagers with their cellphones directed right at me. I don’t even want to know what will be on social media in twenty minutes.
I roll my lips against a smile and grab a nacho from her tray. She tries to calm herself, but all it takes is one look at my elbow for her to peel off into bright, bursting giggles again. She collapses onto her back in the tall grass behind the roller rink, her hands clutching her stomach.
“Alright, that’s enough.”
“I don’t think it is,” she manages around two gasping, wheezing breaths.
I squint out at the parking lot and bite into my chip.
“It’s the Band-Aids that do it,” she says with a sigh. She reaches out and traces her finger along the edge of a bright yellow, Big Bird bandage. One of several along the length of my arm. “You kept saying you didn’t need them, and Oliver kept insisting.”
“What kind of roller rink doesn’t have regular bandages?”
