Hello Stranger(39)

I made big circles, sinking into the comforting rhythm of right, then left, then right, then left. Then, without overthinking it, I spun in a circle. The jerky motion faded away. I found a smooth rhythm. The rooftop was a wide open space with nothing to run into.

Minute by minute, my childhood know-how drifted back.

And then I remembered what I already knew: I could do this.

I let myself relax. Then I did a half-spin and started skating backward. Then I did a figure eight. Then I squatted down, roller derby style. Then I started grapevining and spinning and just generally grooving like a person who had just been reminded what fun felt like.

Which is about right.

How much time went by? I have no idea. I was utterly lost—in the best way. It was the exact opposite of the grueling hours I’d spent trying to paint before. That had been work, and this was just play. Who needed art when you had roller skating?

Did it make me miss my mom?

You bet.

But the delight of it—the absolute, blissful, embodied pleasure of it—made it okay somehow. I felt that familiar ache of longing, but now mixed with something new. Joy, maybe. The sunshine and the breeze and the music and the motion and the rhythm. An awareness of the glorious, impossible miracle of being alive.

Huh.

So weird to think that this feeling had been there all along—hibernating in a box under my bed, just waiting for me to wake it up.

Maybe I should have tried these skates on sooner.

I swear, at one point, I decided I could just keep skating there, round and round, lost in bliss, all day and night.

But of course that’s not what happened.

In fact, not long after I had that thought, while I was skating backward in a slalom, the sound of someone shouting my name pierced my disco playlist—and I spun around to see Joe just a few feet away, calling to me.

He wasn’t wearing his vintage jacket today—just a T-shirt—but by now I knew those glasses. And that floppy hair blowing in the rooftop wind. Also—process of elimination. Who else would he have been?

He wasn’t Mr. Kim, and that was just about the only other option.

Recognizing him was surprising, but seeing him at all was even more surprising—especially since the door to the rooftop stairs was self-locking and nobody had the code but me.

Suddenly finding an uninvited man standing on your roof watching your roller-skating jam can add up to a heck of a surprise—and I guess I must have frozen still for a second while still gliding forward on my wheels because, next, I hit one of those seams in the roof concrete I’d been so careful to avoid, which pitched me forward—and right into Joe’s arms as he tried to catch me, even though I had far too much momentum for that to work. He wound up falling back as I landed right on top of him … and we went skidding along the concrete.

After we came to a stop, time seemed to pause.

I should have scrambled up and skated away. But my brain took a minute to put the whole situation together. And while we waited for the moment to make sense, I was caught in suspended animation, my body fully pinning his flat to the ground, my nose almost touching his, our gazes locked together in incomprehension.

What the hell just happened?

The first head I worried about was his—because I saw it hit the concrete.

“Oh god,” I said, talking loud over the disco in my ears before yanking the earbuds out by the wires. “Are you—”

“I’m okay.”

And then there was a pause, as I noted that I, too, had just fallen down—and so the next head I had to worry about was my own.

I had one job these days: not to fall.

And here I was. Fallen.

Oh, shit. Did I just break my brain?

The thought pinned me there as I did a quick assessment. Had I hit my head? No. Was my head bleeding? Not that I could tell. Did my head hurt? No. Nothing hurt besides my scraped knees and palms. How much had Joe’s body cushioned my impact? Enough?

I did a quick scan of the rooftop, half checking for a possible cork-shaped piece of skull, still skittering across the concrete on its side like a hockey puck.

Nothing. Coast was clear.

As far as I could tell, I was okay.

But that’s when I realized I’d been lying on top of Joe—draped over him like a human weighted blanket—for far longer than was proper. I could feel my thighs mashed up against his. I could feel myself rising and falling on his chest as we both tried to catch our breath. I could feel my heart beating—or was it his?—against my rib cage.

I felt a little dizzy for a second there, but whether it was the fall or my wonky brain or just the fact that I hadn’t been this close to a man in a very long time … I couldn’t say.

Time to pull myself together.

I shifted backward, peeling myself off him, and stood up slowly.

Once I was vertical, I got a little mad. “What are you doing here? You shocked the hell out of me!” I demanded. “How did you even get up here?”

Joe didn’t answer me. Still lying on the concrete, he lifted up on his elbows but paused there, looking at me in a way that felt more like he was gazing.

Maybe his head was injured, after all.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Nobody ever comes up on this roof. Nobody has the passcode to that door but me!”

Joe shook his head a little, like he was trying to shift his thoughts back into place.