Twenty two years after she put me in my first pair of figure skates, and it had been eight years since I had worn a pair. I was twenty four now. A woman in my own right. I had escaped the clutches of my mother’s fingers, I had gotten away from the life she wanted for me, and I had carved out the life I wanted for myself. When I got to my late teens I realized I was never going to be a professional figure skater. I was pretty good, absolutely, but I didn’t have the natural talent required to really make the national team. I was lanky, I was a little bit awkward, and while I absolutely had the work ethic, I realized it just wasn’t going to happen. If only my mother had accepted that.
Unfortunately, wounds to the soul don’t heal nearly as quickly as wounds to the body. I was thankful for Lisa; she was my only friend, really. I had a hard time trusting people. Most people would ask about my past, want to know everything when I told them about how I used to figure skate. Not Lisa. She never asked. She realized immediately it was a touchy subject and never brought it up again. We didn’t speak about anything that happened before we met.
It’s also part of the reason why I never had boyfriends. I mean, I wasn’t a virgin. But I never allowed myself to get close to someone. We would go on a couple of dates, it’d be fun, maybe I’d even invite him over for the night, but eventually, he always got too close. He always wanted to know, to really discover me, and the thought of it terrified me. I always ended up pushing men away. My last boyfriend was even worse than that, and that’s when I gave up on romance. It wasn’t for me. I would live out my days a single woman. Career-oriented, they would call me, and I was happy with that.
I forced the thoughts out of my head. I wasn’t going to dwell on the past. I was my own woman now. I had gotten good grades in high school, gone to college, graduated, and now found a great job that paid pretty well and was now treating me with a week in Hawaii. Right now, I didn’t have a lot to complain about when it came to my life.
Twenty minutes later I was done packing. As I climbed into bed, my suitcase on the floor, ready to go the following afternoon, I was getting excited.
Travel had never really been the sort of thing I’d been able to do in my life. I mean, that’s not strictly true. Growing up I’d gone all over the country taking part in figure skating competitions. But driving around the northern part of America with my mom in a van, sleeping in the back seat, sometimes getting a hotel room, wasn’t exactly what I called “travelling”. Usually I never saw more than the arena and maybe one major landmark wherever we went.
After I broke away from my mother’s clutches, I was on my own. When I went to college, I had to pay for everything myself. My two part time jobs paid for my food, and some of my rent, but not much else. I lived off student loans, and still had about $20,000 worth to pay off. I had decided when I finally paid them off and saved some money I would go travel around Europe for two months, but that was a long way off. This was going to be the first time I’d ever been on a plane. The first time I was ever going to be somewhere tropical.
I met up with Lisa and the rest of the staff from our office at the Minneapolis airport the next day. I grinned at her as I came up with my suitcase, all of us waiting for our manager, Tom, to come over and organize check in.
“Hey,” I told Lisa as I went up to her. “Excited?”
“Oh my God, yes. You have no idea how jealous Rob is of me right now. It’s amazing. I can’t believe this is actually happening. I love Hawaii so much, and I know you will too.”
“Yeah, I’m definitely getting excited, the closer we get to it.”
We didn’t have a chance to say any more as at that moment Tom came up and organized us all. He’d checked us all in online before, handed out boarding passes, and we all lined up to check in our luggage.
“So I was looking up the place we’re staying at online the other day,” Lisa started as we waited our turn to drop off our luggage. “It’s basically the most amazing place ever. Every room has a view of either Diamond Head, or the beach. We’re right in the middle of Waikiki, where all the action is.”
“This is probably a really dumb question, but what do you do in Hawaii? Like, do you just sit by the pool and drink mai tais, or do you go out and spend the day in the ocean, surfing, or what?”
“Well you can do whatever you want. The resort we’re staying at can organize basically any trip you want. You know what? I’m going to take you snorkelling. We basically take a boat out, they take us to bays that are filled with coral, tropical fish, turtles, octopi, and more. It’s totally amazing, I guarantee you it’s something you’ll never forget.”
“That sounds awesome! I’m also going to learn how to surf, I think. It’s just one of those things that I don’t think I should go to Hawaii without taking a surfing lesson, even if I’ll be totally awful at it.”
“Definitely. I agree. You should do that, while I sit on the beach and drink. Apart from that, basically just relax. There’s a ton of shopping you can do, or just lounge by the pool and have sexy men bring you drinks. It’s awesome. You’re going to love Hawaii.”