Something To Believe In [Dean Portman] ✓

𝗍 𝗁 𝗂 𝗋 𝗍 𝖾 𝖾 𝗇

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 THIRTEEN

❝ so the world said no? well the kids do too ❞

•••

As the team walked to the rink to meet Bombay, someone called for Sophie. Turning to the sound of the voice, Sophie sadly smiled at the brunette boy. She quickly ran up to Reggie and greeted him.

"I know you guys didn't win but I still think that you guys did amazing with how biased the refs were," Reggie smiled at the girl.

"Thanks Reg," Sophie smiled. "I wish I could stay and chat but our coach is being a bitch and forcing us to practice right now."

"Really? After that game?" Reggie gaped slightly. "I'm sorry. That must suck. Well I'll let you get to practice. I'll see you around."

"Bye Reg."

Sophie quickly ran to the rink to see everyone waiting on her. Bombay glared before explaining that the team would be doing sprints across the ice. Sophie rolled her eyes. Of course they weren't doing something to improve the teams skills. Bombay didn't care about helping the team grow. He just wanted to punish them for losing.

While the team did sprints across the ice, Bombay stood in the middle watching them. Sophie was still fuming from her argument with the coach. When he wasn't looking in her direction, Sophie glared or mocked Bombay. She was a few laps ahead of the rest of her team however Bombay refused to recognise this fact and kept calling her out for slowing down.

Sophie huffed as she began to push herself more and increase the speed she was moving at. She quickly began to run out of energy as Bombay pushed the team more, blowing his whistle every so often. The team got a short break when Charlie went up to talk to Bombay.

Sophie took this time to catch her breath. She was hunched over with her hands on her knees as she took deep breaths. Dean came up next to her and gently rubbed her back causing her to job slightly before relaxing.

"Holy shit everything hurts," Sophie complained as she heaved in breaths.

"You were slower than the rest of us princess," Dean tried to joke only to get a glare from the girl.

"Let's get two things straight Portman. One, I'm not your princess. Two, I was about five laps ahead of Banksie and like seven ahead of Kenny so don't tell me I was going slow."

With that being said the girl continued doing her sprints when Bombay blew the whistle. Dean shook his head and began to also resume the drill. Once again, Sophie pushed herself to her limit, trying to prove herself to Bombay and show that she was meant to be there.

Once Bombay told his players that he couldn't look at them anymore, he sent them to the locker room before leaving the rink. The team walked to the locker room feeling defeated and just overall in a negative attitude. No one showered, too exhausted to take the extra step.

No one spoke while they changed but it seemed like they all had an unspoken agreement to sit down somewhere or lay on the ground while waiting for everyone else to finish getting ready. They all sat in silence for a long while before Guy spoke up.

"We can't keep going like this. Before today," Guy was cut off by Averman.

"Technically yesterday. It's like two am right now."

When hearing this news, the entire team groaned. They hadn't realized how late Bombay had kept them. They also had no idea how long they had been sitting in the locker room after Bombay had left them.

"As I was saying, before today the last time we had practice was in between our first and second game. We need to actually practice," Guy finished his original thought.

The entire team made a noise of agreement as they all looked at each other. There were murmurs between different people discussing the idea of having more practices and when they would have them.

"One problem," Goldberg spoke up. "When is Bombay going to practice with us?"

"Who said we need him to practice?" Sophie asked with a smug look on her face.

Most of the team look at her in confusion upon hearing her. Charlie looked conflicted as if he agreed with Sophie but didn't want to betray his coach in a way. When questioned on what she meant, Sophie elaborated.

"We practice just like any team would but we just don't have a coach here. We all work just as hard if not harder than we normally do. We just won't have someone here yelling at us to tell us what to do."

"No wonder Fulton was held back and you weren't," Averman gaped at the girl.

Fulton smacked the redhead boy upside the head before agreeing with his sister. The team seemed to agree on this idea before gathering their things and leaving the locker room.

As the group left the stadium, they stuck together since it was so dark outside. Sophie gripped Kenny's pinky quickly as they walked towards the front of the group. With the hand that wasn't holding Kenny's pinky, the girl began to crack her knuckles against her thigh. Dean cringed at the sound just as he had earlier in the day causing Sophie to stop immediately. She muttered an apology quickly before looking at her feet. 

By the time the team got back to their rooms, it was incredibly late and most of them went straight to bed without changing. Sophie, knowing she wouldn't be able to fall asleep with the mood she was in, took the time to take a shower. Once she was dried off and in her pajamas, the girl sat in her bed with The Outsiders in her hands. She was planning on finally finishing the rest of the book since she couldn't sleep.

The girl couldn't seem to focus on the book and only on what she was going to do to help the team. Setting the book aside, Sophie grabbed the folded up piece of paper on her bedside table. Unfolding it to see the drawing of her that Dean had drawn, she sighed knowing she felt guilty about snapping at the boy at practice earlier in the day.

Sophie refolded the piece of paper and put it back on her bedside table before walking over to the desk that was opposite the beds. She grabbed one of the complimentary notepads and pens, attempting to brainstorm some ideas for the teams practices.