Skater Girl 20 min read

I can’t place the exact date or even year the town built the park. One day we were walking home from school past massive, tarp-covered fences; the next, the veils were lifted and a concrete jungle playground had appeared. The cynical adult in me shudders to think what the town spent on it, but back then? My friends and I were absolutely stoked. We were all going to be the next Tony Hawk. I drove down that road again recently, reliving the memories, only to find the park had been swallowed by a condo building.
I never did grind a rail. I’m not even sure I ever got the ollie down right. I have never been an athlete, but by the end of that summer, I could at least push off and find my center as I streamed across the flat ground. I owe my mother an apology for the constant begging for a new board. I didn’t need the expensive one to get better; my uncle’s hand-me-down was plenty. It had cool stickers, too. It’s only now, with the help of the internet, that I finally understand what they all meant.

So many stickers of busty cartoon women. No real hidden meaning or anything just my uncle Steve and his love for anime. Me and my friends were at that age of noticing the girls at the park. They still had cooties and everything, contaminated goods but fascinating in a way. My best friend Derek was actually the worst boarder of all of us, more scared than anything. He was still the first one to try a ‘drop-in’ off one of the ramps.
Derek faceplanted, like bad, blood and everything. Crying, older kids coming over to check on him. It did not impress Amanda who was sitting in the stands with her other friends, I doubt they even knew we were down there.

I wasn’t interested in Amanda, though. It was the older skater girl on the far side of the park who caught my young eye. Honestly, she probably caught the eye of every guy in that park, whether they’d admit it or not. Not everyone’s cup of tea, Uncle Steve would have said. Amanda was just a girl. She had the Barbie T-shirt, pink chapstick, and maybe weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet.

The skater girl was something else entirely, a true Amazonian rebel of the park. She stood taller than most of the grown teenagers there, usually swimming in baggy black band shirts and torn-up black jeans… But today, she was wearing a cut-off T-shirt that showed off her arms—the exact thing Uncle Steve meant by ‘not everyone’s cup of tea.” Strong arms. Feminine, soft, but defined. I remember the way they would flex as she reached back to pull her hair into a ponytail. I think a lot of guys were probably mesmerized by her pretty face, while all I wanted was a crushing hug.

Oh, who am I kidding. I wanted more than just a crushing hug even back then. I wanted her to kick me like that black skateboard of hers. Stomp my head against the concrete and call me her little worm. I wanted to crawl to her on my hands and knees, scrape my stomach across the too-hot asphalt just to have the opportunity to lick a single grain of sand from those dirty, scuffed skater shoes. What an absolute goddess she was.

Derek was fine by the way, physically. Everyone faceplants at least once in their life, but at our age, it was the pride that took the fatal blow. The helpful suburban mom currently fitting a neon Band-Aid to his blubbering face and gently patting his helmet would never understand that the real tragedy wasn’t the scraped chin. His tears were flowing because Amanda had a front-row seat to his gravitational humiliation. After that, we all took a mandatory, unspoken break from the skatepark. If I remember right, the next week was spent hiding in the woods trying to build a river raft.
It was definitely for the best. Right before Derek ate dirt, I’m pretty sure my rebel skater goddess had spotted me staring—well, leering, really. And she absolutely did not look like the type of girl who appreciated a leering from sweaty a pre-teen who still didn’t know how to Ollie.

***

The river raft was a disaster. Derek’s dad didn’t want us to nail any of the wood together because he was going to use it to build a table or something. Kyle was supposed to be a Scout, so he tied it all together. It did look like a raft for the first bit, but all I really remember from that week’s construction project was a collection of pinched asses, smashed fingers, and a lot of missing boards by the end of it. I think Derek’s dad had to settle for a single chair after.

We decided the skate park in the evening was best. Less light for witnesses, and cooler. It was the tail end of the dog days of summer—those final sweltering, ice-cream-soup-making days before class and homework.
With the sun going down, it wasn’t nearly as crowded. We had a rail all to ourselves for once, even if the elusive Ollie was still at least a few weeks away. Honestly, it was too hot to try any real tricks anyway. It was just the three of us sitting on our boards, sliding down some of the little ramps, and watching the older teens do their thing. The skater girl was there. And she wasn’t in those baggy pants, either.

“She’s so pretty,” Kyle said quietly.

“She’s too scary,” said Derek. “My brother said she was in his school last year, but she got expelled for making one of the boys eat a urinal cake. And he was a high school boy.”

“What’s a urinal cake?” Kyle asked, ogling now, too.

It was the shorts. Short, black jean shorts pulled up as high as they would go. Her legs were solid like her arms, but they looked so soft, thick, and pale. She had these cool tattoos on them, all black, but she was zooming around so fast you couldn’t tell what they were. I didn’t know what I wanted from them; they were so perfect and sweaty. Maybe she needed someone to help clean them afterward with their tongue. I would have done anything to clean those thighs with my tongue.

“Tommy?” Kyle said, poking me in the arm. “I said, do you know what a urinal cake is?”

“It’s what you’re supposed to melt with your pee, right? The blue things?” said Derek.

I watched her lift that black cut-off shirt with Korn written across the front to wipe her sweaty face. She had abs like the wrestling girls in the WWF. What I would have given to have her lift me over her head and suplex me into the ground. Put that big cool skate shoe on my face and flex for the victory pose.

“She’s really good at skateboarding,” I said. I think.

I have no idea how long I sat there staring at her, but by the time I finally blinked, the buzzing orange glow of the streetlamps had taken over the park. The last of the suburban moms and toddlers had packed up, leaving us with almost the whole concrete playground to ourselves.

“Do you think the park is easier in that section?” Kyle asked.

It wasn’t. There was a chain-link fence, a gate, and a metal sign clearly stating: Absolutely no one under the age of 16 in this section without a guardian. We could read it perfectly from our kiddie section of the park. Still, maybe it was just the lighting playing tricks on us.

“Let’s go see,” I said.

The ramps were higher over there. Quite a bit higher. The rail down the middle was maybe a whole twenty feet long. The skater girl hit a boardslide, grinding the entire length in one go. She was so cool. There was a massive halfpipe, too; another teen guy was launching out of it, catching air and pulling a full 360 over the coping before dropping back in.

“I’m going to go try,” I said.

“But the sign—” Kyle said, louder this time, pointing frantically at the older kids.

Like I said, I’ve never been much of an athlete. Or smart. Brave, maybe? (No.) But I marched past the gate, climbed to the top of the ramp and launched myself down. Somehow, I managed to stay on my skateboard as I hit speeds I still don’t know are physically possible. I was locked into a perfectly straight line, hurtling right across the big kids’ park.
I’m not sure if I was screaming, but I think the skater girl spotted me before I spotted her. She was a lot bigger up close, and she was getting closer, fast.
Her hand shot out at the last second, catching the back of my shirt in a firm, one-handed grip. The sudden stop yanked me completely horizontal for a split second, my skateboard shooting out from under my feet and soaring away up the halfpipe without me. She struggled to keep us both upright, and she was definitely the best skater in the park, but my momentum was just too much. She stumbled off her board, and we both went down hard, sliding across the concrete with me crashing right on top of her.

She was very warm. Softer than I thought she would be. I had thought about it quite a bit that summer—us being this close, what it would be like, my body right up against hers. Her hand twisted into my hair, pulling my head back up so I was forced to look directly into those dark, heavily mascaraed eyes.

“Next time, I break my fall with you, kid.”

She really was perfect.

***

I knew it would hurt to be her actual landing pad. It hurt enough just flying off my own skateboard when I barely left the ground. Still, it’s all I thought about that night. I remembered how warm and solid she was, but with those soft curves pressing into me. I fell asleep dreaming about just lying down in the dead center of the concrete park, waiting for her to launch off the halfpipe and drop right out of the sky onto me. It was a very good dream.
We went back to the park the next night, too. Derek hadn’t said a word in at least ten minutes, and Kyle may not have even blinked. I stared at them, wondering what was actually going through a normal boy’s head at our age. Did they just want to hold her hand? Kiss her?

I wanted her to crush my skull between those thick, heavily tattooed thighs. Grab my hair, tell me I’ve been a bad boy and force my head right in there. Squeeze me until my whole world became about that pressure.
She didn’t even know we were there, though. It was too dark now. There weren’t many lights on this far side of the park, just the creek behind us and the damp grass under our butts as we watched her land another trick. It was the last day before school, and Mom had said we could stay out late as long as we didn’t leave the park. It had been a blistering hot day, the ground still radiating heat, but you could finally feel that hint of autumn coolness, a damp, small breeze coming off the creek.

An explosive clanging of metal rattled the chain-link fence right in front of our faces. Kyle and Derek screamed, scrambling backward into the dirt. The skater girl had materialized out of the dark, grinding her board straight across the top rail of the fence. I fell back too. I think her wheel actually clipped my hand, my fingers were numb for days afterward. Kyle and Derek were panting heavily, propped up on their elbows, frozen but ready to bolt. The skater girl kicked her board up, standing on the other side of the chain-link, smiling down at us.

“Hey, who wants to help me with a trick?” she asked. None of us answered. Standing right over us, she looked terrifyingly huge. I was suddenly very glad for the chain-link separating us.

She raised one eyebrow and scanned us again. “I need a volunteer to be my human skateboard for a little jump.”

Kyle and Derek heard her and made their decision in under a millisecond. Before she even finished her sentence, they were already sprinting around the fenced corner, Kyle’s terrified squeaks echoing off through the park. Yeah. They probably only wanted to hold her hand.

“It’ll be easy,” she said to me, still smiling as she watched my friends disappear into the night.

She turned that dark, intense gaze back to me through the chain-link. “You are going to lie down for me, and I’m going to try and Ollie you.”

“Ollie me?” I asked.

She nodded. “See—this will be you. Your head, and your tiny little balls.” She pointed to the nose of her skateboard, then the tail, before dropping it onto the concrete and stepping onto the grip tape.

“And then I will do an Ollie.”

It was a perfect Ollie. She launched at least three feet into the air, the board seemingly glued to the soles of her shoes. The sharp crack of her wheels hitting the pavement echoed through the now-empty park.

My friends were long gone now. Every man for himself, I guess.

I think the coolest thing about her was the big, dark maple leaf tattoo on her upper thigh. I had only ever seen it from a distance when she was doing tricks and that black pleated skirt had ridden up, before she’d quickly pull it back down. But after that perfect Ollie, the skirt was hiked up high enough that I could see the hem of those black compression shorts and the edge of another tattoo peeking out. Bold black ink on smooth, pale skin. I couldn’t stop staring at the way her leg muscles flexed and shifted as she balanced on her board.

She suddenly banged on the chain-link with her fists. “Hey!”
I snapped my eyes up to her face. She was still standing tall on the board; I was still sitting in the dirt on my ass. She reached both hands high up on the fence, her fingers curling through the metal diamonds, and leaned in close.

“Roar.”

I’m pretty sure I was still processing. One half of my brain was screaming, “Fly, you fools!” while the other half was whispering, “Actually, this sounds like fun.”

I heard the clatter of her wheels as she pushed off the fence and vanished into the shadows. But before my survival instincts could win the argument, she came flying back around the far side of the park. She kicked her board up, pulled open the small chain-link gate, and walked straight toward me. She had tugged her pleated kilt back down to a normal length, but her bare legs still looked incredibly thick and strong.

I spoke first, before my conscious mind had a chance to filter it. “I could do it.”

“I weigh a ton, kid,” she replied. But she didn’t stop walking. She stepped right up into my space until she was towering over me, stopping only when my nose was practically touching her kneecap.

Her knee smelled like suntan lotion. I liked the way the muscles around her kneecap kept shifting as she talked to me. She was so far above me. It was the first time I had been this close to a girl. I mean, I’d been close to the girls in my class, or my cousins, but this felt entirely different. Especially the way she kept casually bumping the side of my face with her knee as she asked me questions.

Oh, crap. I had no idea what she had been saying. She looked annoyed way up there, her hands on her hips, snapping her chewing gum. Panicking, I instinctively lay down in the grass, but she just rolled her eyes at me.

“I said, you’ll shit your pants if we do it here.”

That did sound bad. She did look very heavy. But then she reached down, grabbed my shirt, and hauled me back to my feet with one hand like I weighed absolutely nothing. I was so in.

“Grab my skateboard.” She pointed, and I followed.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Over to the bleachers so I can hold on to something. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”

Oh, the bleachers for the soccer field. We had watched the town tournament there once. They were on the other side of the park, but I could still see them from where we were. She walked so fast I had to jog to keep up. “You’ve done this before?” I asked.

When we reached the bleachers, it was definitely darker, but my eyes adjusted fast enough to see everything that mattered. Like the fact that for someone who could casually snap me in half, she had a really, really pretty smile.

“I used to walk on the neighbor kid a lot growing up. But then I had a growth spurt.” She put her hand on the top of my head, and measured it against herself—I barely came up to the center of her chest. “You’re a lot braver than him.”

I was. I could do this. I brushed away some of the loose gravel from where she pointed and lay down on my back, shifting over as she nudged me into place with her foot. It was too dark to see much, but looking straight up, I could still make out her bare legs and the dark spandex shorts she wore under her kilt.

She was talking again, but I couldn’t understand the words. My brain was entirely focused on the fact that her huge foot was resting on my chest, pressing down. It was an old Nike skate shoe, the swoosh all scuffed up. There was so much pressure I had to close my eyes. Then I felt her other foot settle onto my stomach, though not quite as heavy yet.

“You good?” I heard her voice floating down from so far away.

I did feel good. Right, in a weird way. But I could only manage to make a pathetic squeaking sound. The crushing pressure lifted a fraction, and I opened my eyes.

I looked straight up. Her pretty face was peering down at me from what felt like a mile away. My chest was burning, but all my brain could process was how gorgeous she looked just casually towering over me. She was still standing on me, both feet planted, but I was surviving it. Her strong arms were flexing as she held onto the metal bleachers above her head to support her weight.

“Yeah,” I said with a bit more confidence.

But then she got real heavy again. My stomach this time. Her foot felt like it was going to press right through to my spine for a second before she stepped off. She let go of the metal bleachers above and dropped into a crouch in the gravel right beside my body.

“You’re actually pretty strong for a shrimp,” she said, as she bent over me to wipe some dirt off my shirt.

“I did it?” I asked.

“Did what?” she asked, putting a cool hand on my forehead.

“You put all your weight on me?”

“God, no. You think you can handle all of me?” She stood back up to her full height and shifted her hips around in almost a dance.

“I could,” I said. I really, really wanted to for some reason.

She bent back down and put both her hands on my chest. “K,” she said, smiling at me. “You are going to hang on to my ankles. Tap when it feels like your head is going to explode or something. I’ll get off if you let go.”
I had more questions, or maybe I just needed a few more seconds to get some air to my brain, but both her feet were on my chest now. One foot on my left side, the other on my right. They barely fit, but the pressure was starting.

“Hands on my ankles, and remember you can tap.”

Her weight just seemed to keep descending. The distant light from the skate park caught her flexed arms as she held herself up, gradually letting go. That black hair of hers hung so far above me. I could see her lips moving again, but I could only hear a rushing water kind of sound in my ears. I remember my back hurting the most for some reason—a missed pebble in the dirt, maybe.

Then it was over. She was kneeling beside me, gently slapping my face.

“Hey, come back to the living, kid.”

“I’m okay,” I said, and went to sit up, but my everything still ached.

“Kid, does your mom drive a red Pontiac?” she asked, standing up to peer through the gap in the bleachers.

“Huh?” That river was still rushing in my ears.

“Brown hair, short like you?” Without waiting for an answer, the skater girl grabbed my arms and hauled me all the way to my feet.

My head was spinning again as she helped me keep my balance. In a good way, though. It hurt, but a good hurt.

“Maybe we don’t tell your mom I was just standing on you, K?”

“K,” I murmured, and groggily leaned forward to hug her leg.

Just a quick hug before she pried me off, swearing under her breath about how weird boys could be. “Just take my hand and play along.”

Her hand was so warm and soft, too. I wanted to hug her again. I tried, but she just grabbed the back of my shirt and held me out at arm’s length to keep me upright. I accidentally grazed her chest trying to grab onto her, so she immediately dropped me back into the dirt. Then I heard Mom’s voice.
“Oh, thank goodness! They said they left you by the creek, Tommy!” my mom yelled as she hurried across the empty park.

“Tommy? Really?” the skater girl whispered down to me, raising an eyebrow.

But then Mom was too close. Kyle and Derek were in big trouble. I could see Kyle’s dad’s car pulling into the parking lot, too.

“Hi,” the skater girl said. Her voice suddenly sounded a lot higher and sweeter than it had a minute ago. “He tried to go off one of the big jumps and kind of faceplanted,” she explained, sticking her hand out to shake my mom’s.

“A jump!” my mom gasped as I got handed off to her.

“He’ll be okay. He just landed hard on his chest and winded himself, I think.”

My mom lifted up my shirt to check, and I instinctively tried to pull it back down. I definitely did not have the rock-hard abs that the skater girl had.
“Oh, it’s all red! My poor baby,” my mom said, grabbing my hand.
“He’ll probably have to stay home from school tomorrow,” the skater girl added helpfully.

My mom frowned at me. “That does sound like him. But it looks like he will be fine.” She stood back up and gave the skater girl an appreciative look.

“Thank you for helping him, dear.”

“I took him over to get some water from the fountain. Sometimes it’s best to just walk these things off.”

My mom looked over at the massive concrete ramps of the park and shook her head. “I’m just lucky there was a nice girl around to look after him.”