Skateboard Thoughts

Here we are, peering into the empty swimming pool. Grass sprouts up through the cracks and crawls up the walls. I stand at the edge of the diving board. "It would be a great place to skate ." I say. "You skateboard?" Olivia asks. "I don't, but I assume it would be a good place to. Pool looks curved enough." I hop up and down on the board a few times. I'm not going to dive. I just like how the spring feels under my feet. Olivia sees me hopping. She is pale as a ghost. "Don't!" She shouts. "I won't." I assure her. I stop jumping and sit, allowing my feet to dangle. "There's a part of me that always wanted to learn." I tell her. "Why didn't you?" I shake my head. "I don't know. Fear of falling I guess." Olivia walks over to the diving board. She doesn't step foot on it, but she is now at the deep end with me." "You have to fall." She says. I cock my head to her. " I know that now." "Then what's stopping you from learning?" She asks. "No board." I say with a smirk. "But if you had a board right now, would you practice?" I look down into the empty pool. "You think I'm trying to reclaim an ideal adolescence?" I wonder. "No." She responds, without skipping a beat. "You don't think it's juvenile?" "All I know is if you don't decide who you are, someone else will for you." I slowly get up and turn to her. She continues, "You know I don't care. Do what makes you happy."