The Girl With Five Watches

22: Valentine

"You doing anything with Karla for Valentine's Day?" I asked Roger laying on my bed looking at my phone as he sat his desk on his laptop.

"No, I actually have to meet with my group for a group project." He shut his laptop and leaned against his chair. "What about you and Sara? You got any plans?"

"She told me that she was doing the planning for the date since I planned out the last one."

"And none of that swimming you've been doing has counted as a date?" he joked

It was finally Valentine's Day and late afternoon had crept up. I met Sara at her dorm just as she requested. After she kissed me hello, she gave me a blindfold to put over my eyes. She wanted this date to be a surprise. Looking at the blindfold, I noticed Karla laying on the couch eating ice cream. Her eyes were zoned out to the television. Once I had the blindfold on, I grabbed Sara's hand trusting that she would get me to her car.

"You're going to love this date," she claimed once we were in the car. "I had so much fun doing this when I was growing up. You know, I invited Karla and Roger to come with us on a double date, but Roger is being kind of weird." She just went on and on about how excited she was. And with each passing minute, I couldn't wait to get out of this blindfold and find out what this date was going to be.

After about twenty minutes, we arrived. Sara opened the door for me and helped me out of the car instructing me to take my blindfold. I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. We were at an ice skating rink.

"Crap, I don't even know how to skate. Last time I tried, I broke my foot."

Putting her palms over my shoulders, she responded with a kiss. "I promise you'll enjoy this." She placed her head against my head. "Don't worry, I'll teach you to ice skate." With a sigh, she answered with puppy eyes. "Come on. Do it for me?"

How could I say no? Sometimes we all have to learn something new on a date, right? Maybe on our next date, I would be able to teach Sara something that I knew how to do like bowling... again. Once we entered the building, I couldn't believe how big this place actually was. I had never seen a place that was so full of white. And I guess it was cool that the place wasn't packed. There were about ten other people there.

Sara rented out our ice skates and we found ourselves sitting at a bench to put them on. It was a struggle for me to get the skates on. Sara laughed with her skates already on and helped me get them on. It was time to get into the rink. Oh crap, I wasn't ready to skate yet and walking wasn't really an option. So what did I do? I sat down and walked like a crab until I entered the rink.

"That's one way of entering the rink," chuckled Sara. "Imagine if you joined a hockey team.

Trying to stand up, I fell to the floor. She continued laughing. After a couple of attempts of standing up, I reached for the wall and held on to one of the rails. With one hand on the rail, I slowly moved. "OK, I think I got this."

With the wall as my support, I eventually made it a quarter of the way across the rink. Showing off, Sara skated around the rink at least a dozen times. About to make her way again around the rink, she stopped where I was.

"You have to let go of the wall Jimmy," she smirked. "Michael Scott once said, you miss one hundred of the shots you don't take."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Really? Michael Scott from 'The Office?' Wayne Gretzky was the one that actually said that."

She ignored my comment and began to instruct on what to do. With my body still depending on the wall, she did the same and instructed me to bend my knees. She forced me to do this a couple dozen times until my feet got tired. My body began lightly shaking once she made me take my dependence off the wall. She reminded me to bend my knees and also put my arms out. Watching her, she looked a little ridiculous and I was tempted to laugh. But my feet and legs wouldn't let me. They were in danger and the pressure could be felt. After looking just as ridiculous as her, she showed me how to make little baby marches.

"As if you're in the army! March like you're in a parade! Think like a soldier! You are a soldier! March!"

And I marched for the next couple minutes without actually skating. Yes, it was a bit dangerous and my heart began beating a million times when I came close to falling. It turned out that falling is encouraged. Sara even showed me how to fall the correct way if I felt like I needed to fall. The secret involved bending my knees again and putting my arms to the side and simply fall. And once I felt like I needed to fall again, that's exactly what I did. It was a smooth fall. My body surprisingly didn't feel any pain. Maybe this wasn't as bad as I thought. She stood next to me and grabbed my hand telling me to put a knee up. With my knee up, I was able to stand up and continue. My next lesson was in gliding. Gliding was a lot like marching and putting one foot diagonally at a time. This was the heart of ice skating and practice was going to have to make perfect.

"Catch me if you can," she chirped and began skating like the wind.

Taking a breath and ignoring the various shaking body parts, I practiced everything that I had been taught. And bit by bit, I began to get a little faster after falling a couple of times. The faster I got, the more I could feel the wind against my face. What a wondrous feeling it was. Before I knew it, my feet were able to keep up with Sara without missing a beat.

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Jimmy and Sara had their first date as a couple. Don't forget to comment, vote, and share!

Does ice skating sound like a good date?

Are you disappointed that there wasn't a double date?