We know what we are,

but not what we may be. —William Shakespeare

____________________________________

JAKE

JANUARY // WEEK 5

In European History that afternoon, Derek and I sat next to each other, more nervous than the time Coach Hawthorne showed up at my house wanted to play hockey with us. Mr. Douglas was ambling up and down the rows, passing back reports—the ones that were due last Wednesday. Derek and I needed a good grade on this report or we faced the very real consequence of getting benched. King High's policy was that every student needed to have at least a B- average to play sports; however, coach decided that no player of his was going to have a B- in any class. Period. End of discussion.

B- = Benched, or what our team liked to refer to as dusters. Dusters basically sat on the bench collecting dust because they never got any play time and Jake Roswell and Derek Leighton were sure as hell NOT dusters. They were the 2-seconds-left-game-winning-goal players.

I usually did well in school—nothing below a B+, and that was on a bad day; however, Mr. Douglas had it out for me and apparently every other hockey player here. It's not like I was going to quit hockey in hopes that he might give me better grades.

"Excellent job, Haley and Julianne." I heard Mr. Douglas say to my girlfriend and her best friend.

I looked over my shoulder to see that Haley and Jules's history report was comprised of pink paper—I guarantee you that it was scented—some girly font on the title page, and their names were written in sparkles... Typical Jules. All too soon, Mr. Douglas tossed mine and Derek's report onto our table with an exasperated sigh, like this was a complete waste of his time. Yeah, I'd be pretty fed up too if my hair looked like his.

Derek and I looked at the report and then at each other. He slid it towards me. "Open it, bro," he said in a tentative voice, knowing our grade was on the last page.

I pushed the report back over to him. "No way, man, you open it."

"Okay, let's do it together." He exhaled a breath and took one corner of the page while I took the other.

"1," I said.

"2," he continued

"3!" We both shouted and flipped through our report quicker than a kid on Christmas morning.

"Is that a nine?" I asked Derek, tilting my head to the right, as if looking at it from a different angle would make the number stand out more.

"Uh-huh." Derek nodded his head in confirmation with wide eyes.

I peered closer at the report. "And a five..." I trailed off.

"Weird," Derek said to me as we laid the report flat on the table.

"Dude," I said still dazed that two hockey players in Mr. Douglas' history class had just received a grade higher than a 91.

"We did it, Jake!" Derek said to me excitedly, and him and I were just about to high-five when Mr. Douglas called our names. Derek and I looked over at him to see a wicked smile spread across his face.

"I'm sorry, boys, but I think I gave you the wrong report. I saw the name Jake on it and I just handed it to you. But this is Jake Winchester and Ally McKnight's report—from the other class." He tried to tell us in the most apologetic tone he could muster, before swiping the almost victory our of our hands. I had been at this high school for two and a half years now and my bullshit detector was pretty accurate. "This," he held up a wrinkly report, "is yours," he said, sneering at us, before literally dropping it on the ground and stepping all over it.

Then, Mr. Douglas, the teacher from Hell, walked away and continued to hand reports back in a pleasant, happy, I-totally-didn't-just-crush-them tone. Derek snatched out report off the ground and angrily flipped to the last page. "83." He looked over at me with dismay written all over his face.

"B-." I hit the table with my fist as the bell rang. One more point and we have received a B.

"And it's Wednesday." Derek and I stood up slowly and walked out the door with the rest of the class.

Wednesdays were probably the most stressful days of the week, because it was the day teachers updated our grades, online. It was no secret that Coach was one of the first to check. We were so benched.

Ava walked by, with her non-hockey playing partner, holding her report.

"Aves, what'd you get?" I asked her.

"89." She rolled her eyes in frustration.

I felt a pair of lips on my cheek, which pulled me out of my daze, momentarily. I looked down to find Jules looked up at me.

"Hi, babe." I greeted her with a tired sigh. "How did you and Haley do on your Euro report?"

"92." She smiled at me, and then grabbed mine and Derek's report out of my hand before I could stop her. "Is that a tire mark?" she asked when she got to page three.

"97, boys!" Calum shouted to us holding his report in the air. "See you on the bench, Duster!" Calum and Dougie strolled by us.

"I am going to kill that guy..." I gritted my teeth.

"I had the puck and I was just about to—" Derek was in the middle of a conversation with Ava and stopped mid-sentence to take the report back from Jules and stare at in astonishment. "Dammit! It is! That asshole ran over our report!"

"What?" Jules said in a shocked, yet controlled tone.

"Don't worry about it, Jules." I dismissed her question, not really wanting to take the time to explain that Mr. Douglas had a personal vendetta against hockey players.

"See you after practice?" she asked me.

"Of course. You're going to cheerleading today?" I slung my arm over her shoulder as we walked down the hall.

"Yeah, I am." Jules tried to duck out from under my arm, but I caught her by the wrist and gently pulled her back to me.

"Hey, be careful." I gave her a knowing look. Jules nodded at me before getting up on her tiptoes to whisper something in my ear.

"Are we telling them tonight?" she asked me in a nervous voice. And by them, I knew she was talking about my parents.

"Yeah," I told her in the calmest, surest voice I could manage. I let her go and Jules planted a cute, little kiss on my lips before walking off with Haley.

"How's Jules doing?" Derek asked me.

"Good, I guess." I shrugged.

"Do your parents know yet?" Derek continued as we went down two flights of stairs towards the locker rooms.

"We're telling them tonight." I ran my hand through my hair.

"I thought you were gonna tell them after Ava's party last weekend." Derek shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Yeah... No..." I shook my head. "Guess I'm trying to put off getting disowned for as long as I can." I told him as we walked by Coach Hawthorne's office.

"Well, if you do happen to get disowned, you can always come live with me," Derek clapped my shoulder and I couldn't help chuckling slightly, because only Derek would make a joke about me getting disowned.

"Boys!" Coach called out to us. "My office. Now." He demanded. Derek gave me one of those looks. "Sit!" he said forcefully after we had stepped into his office. Wordlessly, Derek and I dropped into the wooden chairs, which had our school's crest carved into the head.

The only thing preventing Coach from tearing our heads off was a pristine wooden desk that was conveniently between us and him. Coach Hawthorne had many things on his desk, like a signed hockey puck from Gordie Howe—the only player in the NHL to score over 70 points for 21 consecutive seasons. On the table up against the wall behind him and slightly to the left was the second place trophy we had "won" my freshman year. I really didn't understand why coach had it on display because if it hadn't been for me and my shitty aim that game, we would have won the state title. There was 2.3 seconds left and I shot the puck high by about three inches. I missed the goal to tie it up and ended up costing us the game. If this was my office, that trophy would be in the corner, under old uniforms and district letters.

Coach also had this solid bronze paperweight of Bobby Orr—the one of him flying through the air after he scored the game winning goal against the St. Louis Blues to win the Stanley Cup in 1970. There was a life-sized statue outside The Garden in Boston, and even though Coach's statue was way smaller, it was still pretty awesome. Though, I had a feeling Coach wouldn't hesitate to pick up Bobby Orr—in paperweight—and hurl him at Derek and me for doing so awful on our Euro report. No matter how awesome his paperweight was, it would still hurt like a bitch.

"So grades were posted about 10 minutes ago," Coach said to us in a matter-of-fact, yet monotone voice. I clenched my hands around the arms of the chair, while I noticed that Derek couldn't stop his leg from bouncing up and down. "How'd you do on that Euro report, boys?" he stared at us, already knowing the answer.

"83," I muttered, tossing the report on his desk.

"Coach, we spent so much time on that!" Derek said in our defense as Coach flipped through the pages of what was definitely not B- material.

"Is that a tire mark?" He asked in the same surprised tone as Jules. Derek and I just sat there, watching as Coach's face became a deeper shade of red with each passing second. "And a footprint?"

"Yeah, Mr. Douglas stepped on it." I leaned my head on my hand, causing Coach Hawthorne to abruptly stand up.

"Jake, you and Calum take over practice for today. Me and your dad have some business to take care of," Coach said hurriedly. He was almost out the door when he stopped and looked back, grabbing the frame in the process. "Do the cone drill and work on your transitions!"

"Wait, does this mean that we're not benched?" Derek called out, half standing up, still holding onto the arms of the chair.

"Damn straight it means that, Leighton. And try not to kill each other!" Coach nodded at us before speed walking down the hall. I hadn't seen Coach Hawthorne walk that fast since he found out that the school had hired a donut truck to come deliver coffee and donuts during finals week last year.

Derek and I sat, immobilized in our chairs for a few moments after coach left. "Did that just happen?" he asked me, looking straight ahead at the signed and framed hockey jersey of Phil Esposito, who won 5 Art Ross trophies, one Stanley Cup and scored 130 points 5 years in a row. Phil stared back at us, not offering up any advice. Thanks, Phil.

"I think so," I said still partially shocked that Derek and I weren't benched, despite the fact that we had a B- average in Mr. Douglas' class at the moment. I stood up abruptly. "Well, let's go practice," I said to him with a relieved smile before walking out of Coach's office and into the locker room.

△

I was standing on the ice forty minutes later, watching as my breath came out in ragged puffs. I half-expected them to turn to ice crystals because it was so cold out. I looked at my teammates to see them having the same reaction. We had just finished working on transitions, because let's face it, they sucked. Transitioning was probably one of the hardest things to master in hockey because if a team couldn't sufficiently move the puck from its defensive end to an attacking position, they were basically screwed. A team couldn't win without transitioning. The last game, Derek stripped the puck off of some guy from the other team, but he had absolutely no one to pass to in the offensive zone. My line wasn't on and it was frustrating as hell watching from the bench. After today though, our transitions looked more like a graceful conversation rather than a drunken argument.

Calum looked over at me and shot me a knowing smile, which could only mean one thing: one-on-one tournament. "Alright, boys," I began, lackadaisically making my way to centre ice. Calum joined me shortly after. Today, for about twenty minutes, he and I had called a silent truce.

"Who wants to have a little one-on-one tourney?" Calum challenged, getting a rise out of our teammates, who cheered and hollered in response.

"Solid, you know the drill. Rock, Paper, Scissors to find out whose going up against who," I said moving my finger around in a circle, indicating for everyone to get their shit together.

"Defense closest to A-Mart's goal! Offense closest to Flags's goal!" Calum ordered as we got into two groups. I was paired up with Ryder.

"1, 2, 3, shoot!" He and I shouted simultaneously. I threw out paper, he threw out scissors. Damn. Ryder fist bumped me before skating over to the group of offensive players who had also won. I joined the rest of the losers, prepared to win this next battle. Ryder won every single game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, making him the 1st person to go in the One-on-One tournament. He would be facing some freshman, who had won for the defense. I was fourth because I had only lost three games and I was going up against Derek.

I watched as Ryder took the puck from centre ice and skated straight down the middle. He dipped his shoulder to the right just a little, so that it looked like he hadn't even moved it at all. The freshman clearly missed it because he made no adjustments to his current position. Ryder stutter-stepped and did some fancy spins, just for show, and then proceeded to slam the puck between the kid's legs and right under A-Mart's left arm.

Offense: 1

Defense: Not 1

Ryder smiled a little bit as all the guys on the team congratulated him with stick slaps and whoops.

"Ryder is so dusty!" Derek said in a total skater/surfer voice, using dusty as a term of endearment.

"Yo, Ry, brush that dust off! You might just get some playing time this season!" Calum shouted and the entire team banged their sticks on the ice in agreement. I pulled Ryder aside as he was skating by. "Yo, Duster," I poked a bit of fun at him. "Why aren't you on A-Line?" I asked, referring to the line I was on, which Coach liked to refer to A-Line as Alpha Line. He also liked to refer to B-Line as Beta Line, and C-Line as Charlie Line. Coach used to be in the military way back when, so I guess it was kind of explainable. A-Line wasn't better than C-Line or anything, I just knew Ryder would work better next to me, instead of next to Calum on C-Line.

"You know Coach, he does it by ranking, 'cause he's ex-military and believes in hierarchy. I'm only a sophomore..." Ryder trailed off. "And because he thinks it hilarious to put me on C-Line just because my last name is Cross. All the other guys with C names are on it. Dougie, Ava, Chip..." Ryder rolled his eyes before skating to the back of his line.

If you scored during the One-on-One tourney, you advanced to the next round, if you missed, you were out. The same went for the defenders, only their objective was to prevent their opponent from scoring. Me, Calum, Ava, Ryder and some other guys had advanced to the second round.

Score update:

Offense: 8

Defense: 7

This round, I was going against Calum, who I had to admit, was probably one of the best defenders on this team. When it was my turn to go, I took the puck from centre ice, planning to go for the wrap around shot, but I changed my mind at the last second. I crossed the puck between my legs and faked to the left once, and then to the right. Calum thought I was going to the left, so he stepped up, cutting off my angle because I am a lefty after all.

I commended him for making that choice, which was wrong. I went right, aiming for the spot just to the left of A-Mart's head. Bar down, I called it silently, letting the puck go. I heard the familiar ping of the puck hitting the metal framing of the net. I spotted the little black puck in the net and turned around to my team, taking a bow.

"Gentlemen, take notes," I instructed as they whooped and cheered. I skated over to Derek, clacking sticks with him, the familiar, comforting sound reverberated off the boards. "Maybe next time, bro," I smirked at Calum.

"Yeah, next time you're gonna be flat on your back, Duster" he chuckled, shoving me slightly.

△

"Alright, boys, bring it in!" Calum called.

"1, 2, 3!" he and I shouted.

"Kings!" All the guys roared in the most manliest voice they could conjure up before dispersing.

As soon as I stepped off the ice, I felt all my energy and power leave me. Reality rushed up to greet me like a lion closing in on a helpless gazelle that was caught in the bushes. Instantly, I thought of Jules and how after tonight, my parents would know, which was a truly scary thought. There was a 93% chance that I would be sleeping at Derek's tonight. There was a 99% chance that once Jules's dad found out, he would shoot me. And to top things off, I had an Economics test tomorrow.

Reality sucked.