Ice Skater

Ice skater
(646 words)
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I can't believe Kathy made me come here. She knows I can't skate, she knows I won't skate and she knows this and yet here I am freezing my ass off in Rockefeller center. "Come on, Derrik! You need the exercise." Kathy skated up to me and grabbed my gloved hand with her bright pink mittens. I wobbled un-surely as she pulled me away from the safety of the wall surrounding the rink, wondering why she thought I needed to do this. I'm a kickboxing instructor for god sakes, how much exercise should I have?
Kathy eventually got bored of my stumbling and tripping and grabbing her arm every time I fell, so she abandoned me and went off to skate with all the people who actually know how to skate. I watched her skate away with her bright green jacket and blue sweatpants, her bright red hair flowing down her back under her earmuffs. I remembered why I liked her, but then I remembered why we were here in the first place. Her new trainer, Paul, was going to train her to compete in an ice dancing competition. She thinks I still have no idea they're sleeping together. I rolled my eyes at the soap operaess of it all as I stumbled around the edge of the rink some more.
It was after I had lapped the rink a couple times without holding on to the side that I started to notice the other people around me. There were usually pairs. Couples, mothers and daughters, elderly, young, that sort of thing. Some individuals would break free from one group and skate solo to another group. They looked very weird. I scanned around to look for Kathy, but wasn't surprised when I just saw the flip of her red hair as she spun on the ice with...Paul....I grunted and started skating towards them, attempting to look as sturdy and as sure of myself as Paul, when out of no where there was a woman.
She yelled and I shouted as we tumbled onto the ice, as we fell I felt a burning sensation across my chest. "I am so so sorry, are you alright?" I asked as I tried to help her up off the ice while keeping myself upright. I gaped at the dark liquid spilled all over the ice. I thought for sure I had cut her, but she was smiling. "I'm fine, that's probably why I never go away from the side lines." She glanced down at the liquid and then to me. "I'm sorry about your shirt. But I hear hot chocolate is a pretty easy stain to remove, so I guess you're lucky I didn't bring my red wine tonight, hu?" I laughed when she said that, relived that she wasn't bleeding and that it was only hot chocolate and not red wine.
We started talking, and talking, and talking and eventually we had walked slowly around the rink. "Can I buy you another coffee? Or hot chocolate since I sorta destroyed your other one."  I watched her as she thought, and thought about how different she was compared to Kathy. While Kathy was of course really attractive, tall and slender, this woman standing before him (whose name was Beth, by the way,) was beautiful in her own sense. She had jet black hair cut into a bob, green eyes that went perfectly with her red turtleneck and black yoga pants. She finally replied
"I think hot chocolate with a perfect stranger sounds like perfection right about now."
The next day Kathy dumped me, totally out of the blue, but I wasn't even phases. In a way I think we were both glad. Because now she had her hunky trainer, and I had Beth. So in a way, Beth is sort of my Paul.
Geez that's a scary thought... 
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-Jessica Baker-