We were so late! Too much time cloud watching, I guess.

Gretchen is supposed to be home in 15 minutes, and we are at least 20 minutes away. God, that's all we need now. Gretchen, late and grounded.

I put her on my board, her hand on my shoulder, mine on her hip and I start pushing her down the street.

We are rolling along with a quickness, when I get a distracted by the way her hips are moving as she steers the board. I trip over a fire hydrant on the sidewalk.

Down I go, and there she goes. She is picking up speed on a slight downgrade of the sidewalk, and she doesn't know how to ride.  Oh fuck!!!

I picked myself up, and started running .. or limping anyway..trying to catch up before she crashes and burns.  She is doing pretty well.  I thought she would of fallen off by now but she hangs and moves down the sidewalk on her own.

She isn't even screaming..  concentrating on sticking to  the board I guess.

When I finally catch up, I put my hand back on her hip and start pushing again.

"What happened?" she asks me, "Where did you go?"

"Umm,"  I answer, hoping she doesn't notice the gash on my leg. I'm trying hard not to limp, "Got distracted, sorry".

Gretchen looks at me with those eyes of hers, and I know I'm not fooling her. She doesn't say anything though, so it's all good.

We finally got to her house and we are only a couple minutes late.

I was really worried we would be later. That fire hydrant slowed me down a little.

"Wait here. I will run inside so they see me and then be right back out to tell you bye".

She runs up the steps and in the door as I watch.

A few minutes later and she comes back out.

"No one is home",  She tells me, "They left a note.  They won't be back for a few hours, you want to come inside?"

I get a lump in my throat. Little flashes of possible scenarios run like scared rabbits through my brain, and not a one of them is something I should be thinking about or imagining.

Trying to sound all cool and nonchalant and shit.. "Sure!" I say, stash my board in the bushes, and follow her into the house.