November 3rd, 2019

No matter how hard I tried to focus on my schoolwork, I couldn't escape the gossip. It followed me everywhere in merciless pursuit.

No one alerted any sort of authorities about the happenings of the night before. That would mean confessing to sneaking out and drinking and partying. The black-haired girl, Ashlin, was back in the nurse's office, apparently she was sick before the whole incident.

I felt bad for her, but I felt worse for myself.

The party was a mistake. I made a complete fool of myself. Enrico was beyond crazy for liking those wastes of time and I vowed to never go out again.

After lunch, I got a text from an unknown number:

u owe me for ditching last night

I almost asked who it was, before realizing: Florrie. I deleted my drafted text and shoved my phone back in my pocket.

I attempted to move to my dorm swiftly, but I was caught.

"You! Did you get my text?"

So close to the door, so close to escape, I turned. Blondie was back, this time with some appropriate winter wear. Her false lashes had also disappeared. She looked less like a brat this way, but I knew better.

"Yeah. Now I have to go study."

"Harvey," she whined. "You sound like Tomlin, geez. I bet you don't know who that is. No one does." She rolled her eyes and smiled. "Whatever, come with me."

"I have to study."

"Sunday is supposed to be restful. Come with me." she said, hooking her elbow with mine. I don't know how she did it, my arms were flat against my sides.

She dragged me through the halls, towards the library. "Since you wanna study soooo much, we can hang out in the library!" she said, smiling at me like she was doing some great big favor to me, by forcing us to hang out at the library.

Foolish. I smiled. She had brought me to the wrong place. I know it's nerdy, but the library was my element.

"Fine. Help me study," I said, trying to sound as annoyed as possible. "Go grab a table and I'll get the textbook I usually like to study with."

Florrie's smile was radidant and I almost felt bad for what I was about to do.

When we were both sitting down, face-to-face, I cracked open my textbook and shoved over the second one I had brought. "Usually when I have a study partner we quiz each other. You can use that textbook to come up with your own inquiry questions."

"Oh." Timidly, Florrie opened her textbook. I watched her as her big eyes scanned the words and her brows drew closer and closer together. I was tempted to reach over and lift her head back up, but I didn't, of course.

When she finally lifted her head a smirk turned at my lips.

"I don't understand this at all."

"I thought you wouldn't."

"Do you?" Florrie batted her lashes. Seemed to be a habit of hers.

"Of course I understand it." I snapped my textbook shut. "Sorry, I can't study with an idiot. No offense."

Florrie wrinkled her nose. "You owe me, remember?"

"I have hockey practice in a half hour. I should have been in my dorm right now, getting ready. Goodbye."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

I felt a little bad for ditching Florrie, but I had places to be and people to see. Maybe I could make it up to her? After all, she looked like she was at least trying to study.

I could at least study with her for real... No, I had no reason to worry about it, it was clear she would just seek me out next time she wanted to hang out. I would simply go with her whenever it happened again, but only once.

I just wanted to not owe her anything, nothing more. Simple as that.

I stood up and walked to my dorm, slamming the door shut once I was inside. I hadn't meant to, but it was fine. My roommate would never return to our room till late, he was always at some sort of practice for whatever sports he played.

I was quick to get dressed; I was late after all. The only thing slowing me down was my shirt on backwards, but it didn't take long to fix. I grabbed my gear and my goalie stick, and ran to practice. My stick was different from the regular ones. It had a thinner handle and the bottom was much bigger that a regular stick, because it was used for blocking.

It took me a while to get to the ring, the bulkiness of the hockey gear I was carrying slowing me down. I get a lot more protective gear because people are constantly aiming hard, fast moving pucks at goalies. I had to have my gear for every practice, and lugging it around was like a pre-workout-workout.

I was definitely going to be late. I hated being late. I prided myself on my punctuality. It would be fine, the coach would understand, but still. Turns out I was lucky to be late, or my team was unlucky to be early, because the scene I walked in on was almost directly out of a horror movie.

Our coach was unconscious, and Enrico, our right defenseman, had a giant bloody nose and a black eye. The rest of the team was holding back our left winger, Jhon. Jhon was trying to escape their grasp, he was snarling, waving his stick around. The stick was cracked at the base, like it had been used to hit something harder than normal, or hit at an odd angle.

Dammit. That explained the state of our coach.

I ran to our coach, lying unattended on the floor.

I sat him up. He began to stir as I moved him. I checked his head for blood, but only found a bump. I touched the spot and he jolted awake with a yelp.

"Ah, what happened?" he said in a panicked state of confusion.

"I don't know what happened, but you were unconscious. Calm down, you're not bleeding or anything," I explained to him in a quiet voice. "Does anywhere other than your head hurt?" I asked, releasing him to sit on his own.

"No, not really," he said, bringing his hand to his head, wincing when he found the tender bump. A curse slipped from his mouth.

"What even happened?" I asked, scooting back so I wasn't in his face.

"Well, nothing really. We just told Jhon that he was benched for the next game because he had missed practice and was breaking all the rules when he came today, and he went bat-shit crazy! He hit me with his stick, and everythings blank after that," he explained hurriedly. I turned around to look at Jhon, who was still struggling. He growled, moving wildly around for a moment or two before suddenly fainting.

Everyone went silent. It was like we had each been frozen for that moment. That moment with Jhon on the floor, face-down like a rag doll.

Until, Coach got up and some of the guys helped carry him to the nurse's office. Practice was canceled.

This whole thing was strange, and oddly similar to what happened at the party, but worse. I didn't say anything. I didn't want to overcomplicate my busy life and get into trouble.

Gosh, I should have said something.