Chapter 13

June 8th, 2002

Saturday!

A good day to kick back, relax, and enjoy the end of eighth grade, and the end of our childhoods too. We were about to become high-school students! Adults! Okay, not really, we were only fourteen. We still had another four years by the Ontario government's standards, and five by the drinking age. Stupid every other province gets a lower drinking age but us. It was unfair. Unjust, even!

We didn't have any homework this weekend, since by this point in the school year our teachers were just about fed up with us. Most of them had the constant look of 'I hope the high school teachers can whip these brats into shape because I sure as hell can't' plastered all over their sad, sorry faces. The most intensive learning we were doing was finishing up the last two acts of Twelfth Night with Miss Bergman, who we could all tell loathed the overly dramatic readings that Jaune and I kept doing for Viola and Duke Orsino. She kept asking us to stop, and we would for like five minutes. But then Shakespeare would kick in and we'd have to go all out.

The liner notes said soliloquy, for darn's sake! That was the cue to be as dramatic as humanly possible! And to be fair, our classmates always loved our shenanigans, from the way we'd stage actual sword fights despite being told it was 'unsafe' or some nonsense like that. It wasn't unsafe, we were just teenagers. We had springy bones, we healed quickly. Besides, breaking a leg meant you were dedicated to the part. But making our classmates laugh wasn't really our point, it was always to try and get Emerald to laugh and smile, and generally break out of the Emo phase she had decided was cool all of a sudden. The dyed black hair, the heavy, heavy eyeliner, the black lipstick. The whole works. Think like, nineties television show villain with a hint of Mediterranean flair. Still gorgeous, just monochromatic.

And we frequently would get her to bust a gut in her chair, drop her book, clutch her sides. She might have put on the 'Fuck Society' charade on the outside, but she was still our charming, goofy best friend who liked to laugh at our dumb jokes and stupid antics. Because we were hilarious, obviously. And that deserved a good hearty laugh at. Any way to break her out of her little shell was fine by us, and that included publicly embarrassing ourselves with Theatre!

One of my particular favourite scenes we did was a conversation between Orsino and Viola that we did quite dramatically. The scene is where Viola and Orsino are talking about what it means to love, and how madly infatuated The Duke is with Olivia, played by one of the other students, some girl with orange hair, can't remember her name, and Viola and Orsino keep going back and for with 'my love for you' to each other. At one point, I got up in Jaune's face as Cesario, like right up in his face and expressed my love for him in the most manly of voices, to which he put on this disgusted face and ad libbed 'Ew, no, that's gay', a line favoured by Dear Emmy.

She laughed so hard she fell out of her chair. To the point where we couldn't continue class because we couldn't get back into character. I kept trying to look at the page and read the line, but I was tearing up from laughter and I just couldn't hold myself or my book up anymore. We were dismissed by a relentlessly annoyed teacher who was done with us.

We always tried to petition to have class outside, Jaune and I. Only once did we convince our science teacher to let us conduct class in the mini-amphitheatre that was created by some concrete blocks out behind the school. That was a good day. We had to do presentations on some kind of particle interactions with poster boards and everything, and somehow we'd conned our prof into taking us outside. It was great, I got to lecture about proton interactions in the bright sun on a warm May morning. I got a ninety-five on that project, by the way. Emmy and Jaune only got like eighty-somethings on their projects. Not to say that's paltry, that's really impressive still, and I'm very proud of them.

But if only we'd have done Shakespeare in the yard, I'd have been able to get loud and rowdy with it, and prove that I wasn't just a good musician and adequate scientist, but a true purveyor of the fine arts as well. So many missed opportunities, and such hampering of my skill. Damn you, teachers! How dare you inhibit my talents!

Just kidding, they weren't inhibiting anything, I'm just being dramatic. Something I certainly couldn't ever say for how Em presented her version of a dull and muted, and frankly stoned-sounding Olivia, who was always exasperated about everything to do with her original plans of being woo'd by the Duke. Good thing Emmy didn't get woo'd by Jaune, I'd have had to throw down. Also that wouldn't have been coherent with the plot of her being in love with me, duh. I think she was in reality just fed up with having to read in front of the class, because she found it especially grating to have to be interested in performing for what she considered the bottom of the barrel of her schoolmates. Yeah, AP English class was that rough. We'd often do dramatic readings at Jaune's place when we were studying for the crummy mid-chapter review quizzes, and Em would break out her inner performer, so we knew she was if anything a little fun. But the in class stuff? Nah. She seemed to mostly be there to laugh at Jaune and I.

So when we were out biking on Saturday, down in the Britannia Park area of downtown and Jaune ran in to his usual mishap, she was down to crack one out as always.

"No- no- no -NO! Shit!" he yelled, as he basically fell sideways off his bike. While stopped.

I looked back at the idiot. We'd been stopped on the big bike highway that ran from the marina to the beach at an intersection, complete with little stop signs and dotted yellow dividing lines and everything. And he must have just lost his balance and fell sideways away from Emerald, into the ditch next to the pathway.

"Jaune?" I questioned, kind of tilting my head at him. This was semi-usual in that he didn't have the best balance, but this particular incident was certainly an outlying occurrence. "Uh, Jaune?"

Emmy was suitably unhelpful as she just watched him fall, and proceeded to sputter through her breath, laughing like a hyena.

"Ow." he assumed, lying as part of a crumpled mess of bicycle and limbs. "I've fallen."

"Glad you've come to that conclusion." I teased. "Shall you make yourself un-fallen, or are you content with your spot on the pavement?"

"I'm stuck." he mumbled, frowning. I gotta say, his grumpy face was always adorable.

Emmy was near her tipping point as well, very much about to fall off her own bike just from the hyperventilating-laughing she was struggling to breathe through. She had enough willpower left in her body to very carefully put her kickstand down and step off her low-frame cruiser, using it as a railing to hold herself up on.

"Boy, Jaune," she sputtered through tears. "How clumsy can you possibly be?!"

"I was trying not to -ow- hit you in the lane, jerk!"

I too dismounted, throwing my leg over the unladylike high-bar frame of my mountain bike and kicking the heavy stand down to rest the slightly-too-tall bike on. Jaune was okay, of course, so picking him back up was a no-hassle, even with Loser standing over us offering no help at all. My sister, too, sitting up at the front of the line, looking back at us with amusement and joy on her face. No sense of concern, of course. Jaune fell over himself enough times a day that it wasn't an issue anymore. I picked him up, brushed him off of gravel, and rather aggressively rubbed the gear-shaped grease stain off his calf, licking my thumb to get it off properly.

"There you go, all better." I said, standing up with a coy smile. "How do you feel?"

"Pissed off that someone I considered my friend and ally thinks it's so funny when I hurt myself!" his voice rose to a dramatic yell as he turned his ire to the offending party.

"Ah, shuddup, Jaune. You're alright, right?" she wiped a tear from her eye, quite a lot of eyeliner coming with it.

"Unfortunately for you." he glared, his arms crossed.

"You love me." she teased, gliding herself back onto her seat and making sure the frilly black dress didn't catch in the chain guard. "Get back on your bike, idiot."

He fumed, but without any malice behind it and did indeed remount his bicycle. With my help, of course. The bruise on his leg was starting to turn purple, and I sort of ignored it for the time being, since we had such a long way to go back to the car. I tossed myself loosely back onto my seat and slammed my kickstand back up, looking back at Jaune and Loser.

"We ready to go?"

He glared to his right as hard as he could, trying to get Em to catch fire, to no avail. "Yes." he sneered.

"Well, alright then." I turned back around and pedalled off, taking us through the intersection we'd been stuck at and down the pathway that cut through the park. "Follow me!"

The park contained a tiny beach, one which we all hated because the water quality was considered biohazardous and filled with contaminants that would stain your skin black if you waded in. But it was the closest beach to us and it had a nice rock wall to walk out on if you wanted to roll your ankle or watch a sunset or something. We weren't stopping at crappy beach today, because we had a destination in mind, one that made even the dunes at Sandbanks provincial park seem insignificant. We had a significant ride ahead of us, too, all the way back to the National Gallery where we'd started in the morning. Many people might argue that it's only twenty or so kilometres each way, but this was Ottawa in June, along the bank of the Ottawa River. So windy both directions, and cold windy both directions. In the sun was nice and warm, but the gusts coming off the river could knock you off your feet if you weren't prepared.

Because all the way back downtown, usually touring around Major's Hill park at about this time of day, was the single greatest invention of all time if you were a child at heart who enjoyed a spot of exercise. Or just a child. And that invention would be the Ice Cream Bicycle. This three-wheeled mobile cooler would trundle around dinging it's bell and serving delicious Drumsticks and Bomb Pops and Cadbury Dairy bars, and if you were lucky, Dilly Bars as well. Those are unfortunately a trademark of Dairy Queen, so you never really saw them in convenience store coolers, but the owner of the Ice Cream Cycle would always buy them special because he knew everyone liked them so much. I know that in reality, all this 'ice cream' was really just terrible fake barely milk-based sugar confectionery, but does it look like I give a damn?

I pedalled ahead, far outpacing Jaune, Loser, and my sister, and popping a sick wheelie as I dashed along. I could see in my tiny circular mirror that Jaune and Em were trying to keep pace with me, but they were no match for a nostalgic teenager on the quest for snacks. I was on a mission. Their problems with keeping up were partly due to the tools at their disposal, I do have to give them some credit. Jaune's bike featured a mid-frame spring, that while cool looking, sucked quite a lot of pedal torque out of his legs than an equivalent straight-frame bike would. And Emmy's bike, while indeed featuring a solid frame, was certainly lacking for gearing. Where mine and Jaune's were the full twenty-one speeds, Em was restricted to a measly three. Low, direct, and overdrive, so she could never maintain the same kind of pace as we could. Her bike was a lot cooler though, as it was her mom's from when she lived in Chelsea, painted bright orange and having it's gear selector as a stick that was bolted to the frame and a rotary clutch you had to activate before changing gears.

But cool bikes or not, they weren't catching me. I thought I could hear Emmy yelling at me to slow down from way back, but if she wanted to talk to me, she had to catch me. Now, I don't want to make it out like I was some kind of barrel-legged athlete when it comes to biking, because I'm not. I was still getting overtaken by these guys who I guess were out training for some kind of race on their multiple-thousands-of-dollars carbon fibre super bikes, I was just faster than two of my friends, one of whom wasn't exactly big on physical activity, and my sister, who probably just wanted a relaxing Saturday in the sun with her family. And I was giving her that! Just, you know, two hundred feet away, at thirty kilometres an hour.

Emmy and Jaune were doing their best to keep up, still trailing behind. I could hear the mechanical grinding of the wheel-driven headlight on Em's bike getting closer and closer. This either meant that she was getting faster, which wasn't possible, or I was getting tired. My breathing was getting kinda ragged, so to be fair I was probably running out of steam. I huffed, and let myself coast as the others rejoined me, my rear tumbler ratcheting loudly.

"Why d'you always gotta race ahead?" Em asked, pulling along my left side.

"I 'unno, why are you guys always so slow?" I managed, out of breath but faking it well.

"We're taking it at a leisurely pace, as it was intended. You're gonna hurt yourself, idiot!"

"Hey, I'm not gonna hurt myself!"

My lungs ached in retaliation. Stupid comedic timing of my body parts. I resumed my pedalling, cranking my gears right up to the top, slowing my tender legs. I was indeed gonna hurt myself, as I am also indeed an idiot. A fool and her energy were soon parted. I grabbed my water bottle from under my seat and opened it with my teeth, and proceeded to squirt water into my mouth.

And of course, by mouth, I mean nose.

"Shit! Blueeghh!"

I dropped my water bottle as I was suddenly blinded. It bounced harmlessly off the side of the road and I was helpless to get it as I coasted away, wiping my face on my arm and trying to get the snot off my lip. I coughed, sputtering. The bottle was in the dirt, far behind the three of us, and I couldn't exactly stop quickly since Jaune would run into me, so I just sorta had to abandon it.

"Shit."

"Ha!" Em laughed, pointing at me with one of her Loser fingers. "That's what you get!"

"Shut up." I sniffled hard, basically inhaling the rest of the water up my nose.

Lucky for me, my sister was far enough back and moving slow enough to see the calamity I'd created, and slowed down as she approached my dropped bottle. With a deft kick, she hoisted the bottle from the ground and into her own hand, like a goddamn footie master. I dunno if it was luck or skill, but by the look on my sister's face, probably the former. I was still impressed.

"Drop something?" she teased, having to yell from the distance back she was.

I frowned at stuck out my tongue. You know, the thing you're not supposed to do while riding something like a bicycle. Or a horse. I didn't bit my tongue, luckily, since I didn't need a repeat of last time lest I actually bite it off. We slowed down to let her catch up, and I took my water bottle from her hands mid-ride, carrying on without holding the handlebars because I'm a badass. It's not like they'd watched me tumble off my bike a zillion times trying to perfect this technique or anything.

"Anyone want a drink?"

"Ew, no."

"It's just water, and you're not usually afraid of my germs, Em."

She blinked at me from her bike. "It's been on the ground."

I coasted forward, holding my bottle in one hand.

"Fair point."

I stuck it back into the little holder under my seat. We continued along the pathway, passing by groups of walkers, joggers and their dogs, and slower cyclists. The chill June air coming off the river was warmer than I was expecting, but still chilly. Lucky I had my 'borrowed' Nike hoodie on to keep me warm. I mean, I say borrowed but we all knew he wasn't getting it back. 'Cause that's the rule, if you give a girl your hoodie, well, that's now her hoodie, no exceptions. Although I think Emmy had more of his hoodies at this point, the thief. She was always finding excuses to nab them off him. I'd seen his closet slowly empty over a period of a few weeks, and his mother's slow lapse into exasperation as she kept having to buy more and more hoodies. I on the other hand, was content with just the one.

"Ugh, how much further?" Em asked, back-pedalling and shifting her bike into overdrive. "My legs are killing me."

"Em, this is literally the halfway point. We came all the way here from downtown, and we only just left Britannia. We're in this for another hour, at least."

"My legs are gonna die."

"You should have taken my sister's bike," Jaune quipped. "That one would have been easier to ride."

"But then I couldn't wear my skirt."

"Sacrifices, man."

"Not giving up my skirt for a bike. This is my favourite skirt."

Winter leaned into the conversation. "To be fair, it's a really pretty skirt."

"Thank you, Winter." she said, smiling appreciatively and nodding her head. The firm card ring inside the rim of her cap kept it on her head and off the ground. Which was good, since it was such an expensive hat.

"Okay, how come when I say stuff to compliment you, you swear at me, but when Winter does it you're all polite and thankful?!" I semi-demanded, mocking offence.

"Because I was taught to respect my elders, and I agree with her statement on the subject of my skirt."

"But I'm older than you too!"

"That's debatable."

"I'm older than the both of you!"

Jaune looked a little shocked. "Hey, I'm not part of this argument."

"Well, what's your opinion on the skirt?"

He looked to Em for permission, to which she glared back at him.

"It looks like clothing to me."

"Boo, cop out!"

"Look, I'm not allowed to compliment her, just like you!"

I looked to Emmy instead. "Boo!"

She stuck her tongue out at me, and I retaliated. She did it again. This was not okay. I distracted her by going back and forth with our tongues for a moment as I secretly reached under my seat and grabbed by water bottle again, popping the little top open with my thumb. The next time she stuck her tongue in my direction, I raised the bottle in my hand and squeezed.

"Wo-AAARGHH!"

Her expression went from smug to shock to insulted to soaked in about half a second.

"Dude, what the fuck!"

"Don't stick your tongue out at me, Loser."

"And you think that squirting water in my face is an appropriate response?!"

"Step to me, I'll end you in whatever way I see fit, Em."

"Bitch."

"Yeah, but your bitch."

"I disagree."

"Jaune, your thoughts on this matter as an unbiased third party?"

"Uh" he fought for words. "I am keeping quiet to avoid picking a side, how's that?"

I'm afraid it wasn't good enough. I scowled at him, to demonstrate my ire, at which he just shrugged. This was not an okay reaction. I levelled the water bottle at him. His eyes flashed brief terror, knowing that he had nowhere to go, but resigned to his fate himself as I squeezed the bottle. He just closed his eyes and let the stream of water hit him in the face and let happen. Winter laughed as she attempted to scold me, but she thought it was too funny to fault.

So I squirted her too.

/.../

The final stretch. The worst leg of the journey. The most pain a cyclist on the Trans Canada Pathway must endure.

The uphill ramp to Major's Hill Park.

The distance you have to go up is about a hundred feet up, and you have to make that climb in about a hundred and fifty feet of pathway. So you can do some quick pythagorean math to figure out just how steep this ramp is. It's substantial. It's leg-numbing. It's brutal.

"C'mon - huff - guys!" I barely managed out, completely out of breath. We'd barely started the climb, only having just crossed the locks. "Almost - huff - there!"

"I can't do this, Weiss!" Em yelled from how far back she was. "I don't have a low enough gear! I'm not gonna make it!"

"C'mon, Em, use those - huff - legs!"

"I can't… there's no leg left to use…"

Jaune was almost having as tough a time as Em, that centre-sprung trail bike of his sucking every ounce of strength out of his legs into itself. He was full on standing up and cranking down, having a hell of a time even in the lowest available gear. His panting was like a dog, only with a hint of asthmatic strain from his overworked lungs that I'd beaten into submission on the long ride to Britannia and back.

In fact, the only one of us that was having even a little bit of an easy time was my sister, comfortably still sat on her seat, her muscled legs and cardio-trained lungs having absolutely no trouble whatsoever with the steep grade. In fact, she made it look easy. She made it look level. Damn, maybe I should have gone and tried out for rugby all those years ago instead of nerdy music lessons. She cruided on past us up the hill, even weighed down by the backpack on her back and the cooler on her bike's front rack. How dare she.

"I can't-!" Emmy sputtered, her bike coming to a grinding halt on the hill, where it moved no further. "Shit! Didn't make it!"

She dismounted and started to push her bike up the rest of the steep hill, leaving only Jaune and myself to try fruitlessly to catch my sister. We were losing ground, and fast. There was no way we'd catch her, and we knew that. But as recent teenagers, we had something to prove, so we hammered along anyways, putting life and lung at risk to do so.

"C'mon - huff - Jaune… Last one to the top - huff - pays!"

"Huhh - deal."

His bike was almost bouncing up and down with how hard he was pumping his legs. That spring was doing him in. And that meant I was winning. Even my skinny little legs burning wasn't holding me back from beating Jaune up this hill. The sweat dripping down my nose was on the verge of making me sneeze, but a quick shake of the head got it out of there in a hurry. I was starting to realize that first-first gear wasn't low enough for me. I was slowing.

There wasn't enough of me left.

My legs stopped spinning briefly. A mistake. Oh shit.

"Ahh - huff - noooo…."

I rolled to a stop immediately, putting my legs down. I was on fire. Everything was ankles were completely wasted, my knees had completely exploded.

"Shit." I huffed. "That's it, I'm out."

I got off my bike, my hips burning like wildfire as I removed my seat from way up my butt. The pain of the ride was almost euphoric, because the relief now meant it was over. Although this feeling washed away fairly quickly as I noticed Jaune riding slowly away from me.

"Sonofa - huff - bitch!"

He sneered at me, obvious smugness on his face. What a douche.

"Hey!"

"Keep up - huhh - loser!" He joked, bouncing his way up the hill and away from me. The nerve!

I continued up the hill, pushing my bike alongside Emmy and her bike, both of us out of breath and weak.

"Ten bucks says he gives up just past the bushes." she wheezed.

"You're on."

As if I was gonna bet against Jaune. It would an easy ten bucks. His bicycle might have been working completely against him, but he was determined. Jaune was the kind of guy who`d have a heart attack before he would give up. He wouldn't put his feet down if he ran out of steam, he`d just let himself fall over, pedalling the whole way down.

"Ugh, my mouth is so dry."

I grabbed the bottle of water under my seat and handed it to Loser. "Here."

She grabbed the bottle without any hesitation and fired most of it into her face. Hey, what happened to 'it's been on the ground' now, Loser? She was always such a drama queen. But that's why I love her.

"Thanks." she tossed it back to me, and I finished off the rest of it.

"This was a terrible idea. This is too much cycling."

"Nah, it's fine. Just need to do leg day more often."

"It's not the legs, man. I've got nasty cramps and you've made me bike uphill."

"We went down this hill this morning, you coulda just walked up the whole way. You knew the hill was here, Loser."

"Yeah, but I was inconvenienced anyways."

"How about when I win the bet, I'll buy you two Bomb Pops. That'll make you feel better, something nice and cold."

"Dude, it's just cramps, not menopause. And that would be my money you'd be spending, how is that supposed to make me feel better?!"

"It's Bomb Pops. You could cure death with those things, man. They're so good!"

Em scoffed.

"Nah, they're okay, but Fudge Bars are better."

"You're insane, Bomb Pops are far better."

"We didn't have Bomb Pops in Iran."

"No? That's unfortunate."

She levelled a look at me as we slowly trudged up the hill, nearing the top.

"D'you really think that a Red, White, and Blue ice cream treat would go over well in Iran?"

I shrugged.

"Better than red and yellow with a hammer and sickle."

"Tsk. Barely."

"Fair. I'll get you two Fudge Bars, then."

"Eh, depends if you win the bet."

"Well, we're about to find out." I chipped, as we finally rounded the last tight corner and arrived at street level, right next to the National Gallery. Major's Hill Park was no more than half a block ahead of us.

And lo and behold, Jaune was just ahead of us, still on his bike.

"Ha!" I cheered.

"Aw, fuck me!"

"Woo!"

"Goddamnit, Jaune!"

Much to my appreciation, he was still upright. This meant I had won, and that was exactly how it should have been. Not to say he should have made it all the way up, since he was fully out of breath and barely hanging on to his own vitality. My sister was stopped just a little bit beyond him, facing us with her elbows propped up on her handlebars and this amused Big Sister expression plastering her face.

"Took ya so long?" she yelled out to us.

"Ran out of gears!" Em yelled back for us. Watching Jaune, I was starting to worry he was about to collapse onto the ground again.

I put my leg back over my bike and pushed gently forward, coasting back up to Jaune and my sister. Emmy tried to do the same, but stumbled as she hadn't quite got her legs back yet, rattling her bell and front fender. I heard her mumble something about gravity and fornicating with it as she trundled up to us.

"Here." she pouted, handing me a bright purple bill, still crisp and fresh from the bank machine. I accepted it with a smug smile. "That'll teach me to bet against a cheater like you."

"How did I cheat?! I literally didn't have any pull in this!"

"Yeah, well… just get me my ice cream."

I chuckled. "Yes, ma'am."

At this point, Jaune fell off his bike and into the grass, splaying himself out like a starfish. Em sputtered a laugh out, wheezing as she almost dropped her bike watching him. I skidded to a stop next to Jaune, peering down at him.

"Y'alright?"

"Can't - huhh - heart - huhh - ow…"

"Oh, stop being so dramatic."

"I want to - huhh - die."

"If you can complain, you can breathe. Get up."

"You owe - huhh - ice… cream…. shit."

He clutched at his chest, rolling onto his side and wheezing into the grass. Poor guy. I'd have just given up and walked my bike up if I knew my whole body would protest this badly. I mean, I did give up, but that was because of my legs, not my chest.

"You havin' a heart attack?" Em asked, her voice somewhere between teasing and genuine concern.

"No - huhh - I'm… good." he gave her a weak thumbs up. "Help me up - huhh - please."

I reached down and grabbed him by the hand, his sweating fingers almost slipping away from me. He managed to get back onto his stupid feet and picked up his fallen bike. His exhausted stumbling was really funny to me and Emerald as he tried to get back on, failing quite humorously.

By the time we were prepared and back all on our bikes again and ready to go, it was around about five in the evening, almost on the dot. The bells sounding from Notre-Dame confirmed as such as we started to ride again into Major's Hill park, on the hunt for the ice cream and the man who sold them. Hank Winson was a retired Ottawa police officer, who must have been between seventy and seventy-five, all muscle and white beard, who had spent the last five years riding around on his Ice Cream Bicycle around downtown serving ice cream to tourists and residents of the city. All he wanted was to provide for his community, and that was about as honourable as a person could be. We knew Hank by name by this point, and he was used to seeing us around the Park and would frequently give us discounts. But it's not like we were blending in to any crowd, with Jaune's super-yellow blond hair, Em's normally bright green hair, and my stark white 'do that all stood out like sore thumbs. Even today, with Jaune's hair tucked away under a hat, Em's black dyed hair, and me, well, with my normal hair, we knew he'd recognize us anyways.

So when we heard the familiar jingle of the four bells on the bike's handlebars, we all fervently booked it in the direction it had come from. Now, arguably, it could have been four reindeer wandering along in perfect synchronization, but seeing as it was June and also we were all beyond the age of believing in a large man in the Arctic with flying farm animals, the more logical explanation was Hank the Ice Cream Cop.

Sure enough, just around the northwest corner of the U.S. Embassy, was the infamous bicycle, riding around with the old man saddled tall on the old leather seat. He was easy to chase down. He didn't move particularly quickly, so even as completely bushed as we were, we caught up. He was pleasantly happy to see us, and was just as pleased to serve us our ice cream, which I paid for with my bet winnings. I got myself a bright and colourful Bomb Pop, two Fudge Bars for Emerald, a caramel and hazelnut Big Dipper for Jaune, and the most boring regular ice cream sandwich for my sister. I know, ice cream before dinner, weren't we total delinquents.

I've gotta say, having ice cream with my friends from a mobile ice cream vendor in the middle of beautiful downtown Ottawa at the end of middle school is pretty awesome. Looking over the cliff onto the locks and over the river to the Civilization Museum, and funnelling terrible sugary snacks into our faces in the chill evening air, not much could be better. I tried to be as inappropriate as possible while eating my popsicle, making Em snicker and Jaune turn tomato-red at me, to my fair amusement. Because when you have a cylinder-shaped food in your hands, you have to eat it in an inappropriate manner. It's a law of nature.

We went to leave, riding off towards the Embassy and the long staircase that led down to street level and to York street where we'd parked the car. Now, you'd safely assume that the smart course of action would have been to ride all the way around the Connaught building and ride back up Sussex North, but we'd decided to take the shortcut down the long staircase next to the silly statue at the U.S. Embassy and carry our bikes.

We bounced down the stairs, my seat slapping me in the middle of my back the whole way down and irritating me, but this was the price I had to pay to reduce the length of the ride and save my legs and lungs from the torture. I was sufficiently done riding at this point. I was good for the next, maybe month of bicycle-related exercise.

Just before I reached the bottom, I heard a loud clattering from behind me of plastic hitting concrete. I turned around, to see Jaune padding his pockets with a concerned look on his face. I could see just behind him up a few steps was his Nokia, sitting face-down on its buttons. I stopped, and pointed.

"Jaune, right there."

He looked where I was pointing. "Oh, thanks."

His body turned, one hand still holding his bike up, and he went to step up to grab his phone.

Yeah, remember when I said Jaune falls over a lot?

Well, he did. Again. His foot went for the next step in the staircase, but his toe missed and swung down, skipping a few steps as he fell forward. He went knee-first into the stairs, and didn't have any hands ready or available to catch himself. See, the other thing about Jaune's ability to end up on the ground was that all of his jeans had holes in the knees and left his soft, supple skin exposed to the air. And when his knee contacted the step, it contacted right on the edge and dug in. The impact happened in slow-motion, and I barely had time to react as he fell.

"Jau-!"

"Ack!" he landed. "Fuck!"

Almost immediately he dropped his bike, which bounced all the way down the stairs to the bottom, landing in a pile next to Winter. He flipped over, pain and anguish on his face and his knee cupped in his hands.

"Ahh-!"

"Jaune?"

"My knee!" he winced. I placed my bike down sideways on the steps and approached.

"Are you okay?"

He lifted his hands away from his knee, which was bleeding. Quite profusely, in fact.

"Uh…"

"Holy shit." all the colour drained from my face as I dropped to my knees in front of him.

"I guess I'm not." there were tiny tears forming at the edges of his eyes. "Fuck."

I turned back down the stairs. "Winter! Jaune's cut his knee!"

I didn't really know what to do, so I grabbed my water bottle off my bike, which I had refilled at the water fountain at Major's Hill, and doused his knee. I had to explicitly try not to look directly at the cut, as the wound was about two inches wide and quite deep. Jaune winced as I did my best to clean the cut, sucking air in through his teeth.

"Ow, stop-"

"It's gonna get infected, stop squirming."

Winter kneeled down next to me, and handed me the first aid kit that she usually kept under the seat on her bike. Inside the little pouch was a bunch of different sizes of Band-Aid, some tweezers, some wipes, and most importantly, a little bottle of rubbing alcohol. That's what I grabbed, popping the safety cap off and quickly pouring some of it into the wound.

Jaune yelled.

"AAAAH! OW!"

"Calm down, this is for your benefit."

"It burns!"

"The pain means it's working, sweetheart." Winter comforted, gently caressing his cheek.

I dug through the bag again for a Band-Aid big enough to cover it, but unfortunately nothing was. I had to think quickly. The pouch did have pre-soaked wipes, and had there been a roll of gauze, that would have been an easy solution. The closest thing I had to gauze was, however…

"Wait, what are you doing?" he asked, his voice rapt with a bit of tears. I didn't blame him though, the cut was substantial.

"Just trust me."

I yanked off my shoe, and pulled my sock off. I quickly opened two of the wipes and put them onto his knee, which he yelped at quite loudly. I wrapped the sock over the two wipes and around the back of his knee to hold them in place.

"Hold this." I commanded. He did, confused.

I grabbed my sneaker and very deftly stripped it of its laces, and used the laces to bind the sock to his leg, tying it tight enough to keep the wipes in place. Jaune's face twisted as I cranked the knots down.

"There, how's that?"

"It hurts."

"Yeah, but it's clean and protected, eh?"

"It still hurts."

I rolled my eyes at him. "D'you want me to kiss it better?"

He flushed. "No!"

I bent my face down and gently smooched my own sock on his knee. He sputtered, his face going red.

"There, does it feel better now?"

"Sure." he forced out, probably to get me to stop touching his painful leg. See, now he knew what it was like to hurt your leg and feel helpless.

I slowly got up, helping him to his feet and tying to keep him balanced on one foot.

"You're fine, you're fine." I offered, guiding him down the last seven or so steps to street level. Our car was not that far off, and leaving him to hop his way back to it would be fine enough. I dashed back up to my bike, collecting it and bouncing my way back down to everyone else. "C'mon, can you make it back to the car by yourself?"

He put some weight on his leg, wincing a little. "Yeah, I should be fine. Ack, I'm so clumsy."

I giggled at him, poking him in the side, receiving a squawk in response. "Yeah you are."

We hobbled him the half-block up York street to our car, parked in the middle aisles of the road, him limping like a fool. The sock and wipes were starting to turn a little pink as his very life essence seeped through them. From my memory, it wasn't as serious as it looked, I don't remember him needing stitches for it or anything. My skills with a sock and lace were enough. Although walking with a completely loose sneaker was pretty wild though, my shoe being more like a busted flip flop on my foot. This was one of those time you realize 'yeah, my feet sweat, I'm sliding around in my shoe, gross', But I only had to deal with it for a short while longer.

"I'll get your bike, you go ahead and get in the car." I took the handlebars from him and shoo'd him towards the wagon.

"Thanks." he limped over to it, opening the driver's side rear door and falling in onto the wide bench with a pained gasp.

"Don't hurt yourself again, dummy."

"I'm tryin', I'm tryin'!"

"What, to hurt yourself, or to not hurt yourself?"

He stuck his head out the door and stuck his tongue out at me, before slamming his door shut with a heavy thud of American steel. Rude. I turned to Emmy, raising the Catalina's electric rear window and lowering the tailgate down into the floor to load the bikes. I think one of the best parts of my sister's car is that we could fit all four of our bikes in the back without putting the back seats down. There was just that much room in the back of the old station wagon.

"I see what you just did, Weiss." Em whispered at me as I flipped her bike up on top of mine and my sister's. "You think you're sneaky, but you can't fool me."

I didn't meet her eyes.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"That thing with Jaune, you sly dog."

"What did I do?"

She started through her eyebrows at me. "With his knee? And your lips?"

"Winter used to do it to me all the time, it's fine."

"Yeah, when you were a kid. Jaune's not a kid. And you know you didn't do it for the same reasons she did."

"Shut up, Emerald. What do you know?"

"Subtext."

I smacked her on the shoulder, but her evil grin never wavered. I slammed the tailgate up with a loud crash, twisting the switch on the latch and raising the electric rear window again, the glass squealing in its tracks the whole way up.

"There's no subtext, just me caring about my friend."

"You like him."

"Nuh uh."

"Don't lie to me, Weiss."

"I'm not lying!"

"You like him. And you know it."

I huffed, and marched my way around the passenger side of the car. "No I don't, and this conversation ends here."

"Sure, sure. Also, shotgun."

"Aw, fuck you."

She laughed deviously as she moved around me, hopping into the front passenger seat, condemning me to the back seat. With Jaune. As I sat down behind her, she swung her head around and winked at me, gesturing her eyes at Jaune for a second. Bitch. Winter hadn't noticed any of this, starting the old car with a hearty rumble from the brand-new aftermarket exhaust. I took it upon myself to readjust my glasses with my middle finger pointed at Em, who just chuckled and turned around.

"So, dinner time?" Winter proposed, immediately grabbing all of our attentions. "What do you guys want?"

"McDonald's!"

"Wendy's!"

"Thai Express!"

She just kind of paused a second, turning her head slowly with an exasperated expression on her face.

"Could the three of you come up with a concise answer, or is this the next rendition of the Three Stooges?"

"Sorry, Winter."

"I still want McDonald's."

"I could go for a box of nugs."

She rolled her eyes at us. "Then that's where we're going. God, you guys are like children sometimes."

"What do you mean 'sometimes'?"

"Ah, I love you guys."

"I just want some ice for my knee." Jaune quipped, keeping mostly out of it.

I got him an ice pack from the cooler, wrapping it in my other sock and handing it over, only to receive another sly glance from Loser in the front seat.

She was wrong, I tell you.

Wrong!

I was not hopelessly in love with him, what did she know!

I was only fourteen, nowhere near the age when children become impressionable and start discovering sexuality and romance.

It must have been her imagination.

Anyways, I had more important things on my mind.

Like a box of Nuggets.

Certainly not Jaune.