Lead Shoes-14

Chapter 14

I almost don’t want to get into the van to drive home once we’re out of the school and he pushes me along with me in my chair. I have had I think the most amazing night of my life and part of me really doesn’t want it to end.

I take out my phone and text mom.

[Hey.]

[Hey, how was the dance?]

[Perfect, better than perfect.]

[I can’t wait for you to tell me all about it.]

[Can you?]

[Can I what?]

[Wait.]

[What’s up?]

[I want to stay out all night.]

I bite my lip and wait.

[Why?]

[I don’t want the night to end. I want this to be just…I want a forever memory.]

[No sex, no booze, no drugs but okay.]

[Okay!!?]

[Kayla, I love you, I trust you and you’re right.]

[I’m right?]

[These moments aren’t common, just be careful but pull it all in.]

[You are the coolest Mom ever.]

[No, just been there and you’ve earned the trust kiddo.]

[Thank you, Love you!!!]

[Love you too; we’ll talk in the morning.]

I put my phone away and sigh and smile and look up at Will. “I suppose you were smiling and spying over my shoulder?”

“Yeah sort of.”

“You can stay out?”

“Yeah, in some ways my folks are very hands off.”

Will comes from a busted up home….his folks are divorced and his dad’s kind of a decent guy and that’s who he lives with but at the same time he could give a shit a bit more. I think by the sound of it Will has a dad that has no clue how to be a dad and he just kind of half asses it and figures as long as will’s not a junkie or in jail he’s doing alright.

I don’t know much about his mom though except she lives in Scarborough and took his little sister with her in a custody thing. Oh and she actually make these really killer homemade pirate cookies…those are this peanut butter cookies held together by a peanut butter icing. She sends them to Will every couple of weeks and he shares them out when he gets them.

Yeah he’s that kind of guy.

He smiles at me and even after the long night here dancing he’s still pretty handsome. “So what now handsome?”

“Let’s go for a drive I have an idea.”

“Okay…what?”

“You’ll see.”

I bite my lips and we get to the van and once inside he get’s us to stop at Wendy’s. It’s the same burger place as we have down home but here a lot of the time they sort of share space with Tim Horton’s too like side by side and we get a few burgers and they’re actually open late here in town and not just the drive thru which is nice to sit and have something nice and hot to eat. I actually like their chilli for a chain place and I have a small chilli and a junior bacon cheeseburger. We get two hot chocolates before we leave and he shows me where to drive to and it’s this nice little park on almost the other side of town built beside this older hospital.

“Are we allowed here?”

“Yes, no it’s a public park so there’s no hours but we might see a security guard or something.”

“Oh and then?”

“And then we’re on a date.”

He helps me out and into the chair but I take my braces too and he puts his coat around me and it smells nice…and it’s so warm with his body heat…part of me honestly loves this…the smell of boy, well of Will at least and just everything.

And we just play?

I haven’t just been on a playground doing playground things since…well since my CP kicked in and my life seemed to grind to a halt.

I can still swing and kick my legs to get going…getting pushed was nice but I still keep the swinging up. I even swing pretty high…I’d never jump off but just the feeling of my effed up legs and my feet being clear of the ground was just so amazing and we just swung there together for the longest time and it just got better.

I know I was smiling a lot and that had will smiling too but it was freeing and empowering in this taking something that was stolen back and at the same time…I’m doing this with my boyfriend…the air is blowing my hair around and it’s flowing around my dress and these are feelings that I never had before and in their own way they are just as amazing and special as the dance.

I really liked going on the see-saws too, and there’s this really cool time when we went on this spinning wheel thing and after Will pushed us at this full run he hops on and then sits down and pulls me onto his lap and we listen to music off his phone as the thing spins gradually slowing down and stopping but it was really sweet and cool to have the park and the night sky twirling around us.

There was this whole slipstream of happiness thing going on in that moment where I felt like we were outside of time and the universe was turning around us.

Kiss from a Rose by Seal was a really nice song to have that happen with/or too? I don’t know how to phrase it but it was just cool.

We stayed there in the park until you could sort of tell that it was getting toward light out and we get back into the van and I turn the heat on and Will’s actually cold so I slip over onto his lap and kiss him some as I rub my hands up and down his arms and actually warm him up.

I don’t complain about him not saying that he was getting chilly…he was being gallant and that’s really sweet and I like that about him. I like that there some old fashioned chivalry left in the world and I get to actually experience it.

I like also being able to take his hands in mine and hold them and blow heat onto them.

I even kind of hope that I might have been sexy? There’s this thing guys have that’s all ooooh about a girl blowing on anything…yeah I get it but don’t considering what they’re thinking of is actually done in reverse.

But I like the romance of it…warming his hands that way. I like being active instead of reactive.

We do another Tim’s stop for morning coffee and we drive home and we just sit in the side door of the van and there’s this really nice oh forty minutes of morning twilight and us cuddled up and kissing before dawn rises and we snuggle together and watch the sun come up.

A perfect way to end the perfect night really…my first dance and my first sunrise.