𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗢𝗻 𝗜𝗰𝗲 || Charlie Conway

seven || not even a duck

The rest of the week and the following week was similar to Amber's first 2 days. In math and english she'd talk to Charlie, in study hall she'd talk to Connie and Julie, in art she'd talk to her friends since childhood. She also occasionally talked to Adam in biology. At lunch she always sat with the ducks, in between Julie and Connie, across from Charlie.
Amber was sitting in art, her final class, wanting the school day to be over. They had a game that night and Amber was kinda nervous. Regardless of her nerves and sick stomach, she just wanted to be there. It would be Eden Hall Warriors vs. Blake Bears.
"So you have a game tonight right?" Ross asked, pulling Amber out of her thoughts.
"Uh yeah." Amber weakly smiled.
"Against who?" Bradley asked.
"Blake Bears." Amber responded.
"Am, are you alright?" Grace whispered, trying not to let the boys hear but they did. They were focused on Amber too and realized she looked a little upset.
"Just nervous about the game. I mean, I'm playing with the ducks! I'm not as good as them." She frowned. The ducks never made her feel like that, she felt equal to them when she was with them. But she knew she wasn't as talented.
"You made the team for a reason, Amber." Ross reassured her.
"Yeah, out of everyone who tried to get on the team, you were chosen. You're an amazing player." Bradley said.
Grace nodded and smiled softly. Amber felt a little comforted by her friends but she was still really nervous.
"Thanks, guys." She smiled at her friends.
Suddenly, the group heard the door open and all turned. The class looked to see Charlie Conway. He walked over to the art teacher.
"I'm in study hall. Can I stay here?" Charlie asked. The teacher nodded and Charlie turned to walk towards one of the tables. He saw Averman, Gee, and Goldberg sitting at one table. At another table was Amber, sitting next to her friends, staring at Charlie. Charlie looked into the girl's eyes and walked to her table. He pulled over a chair and sat on the end of the table, next to Amber. On the other side of him was Ross Riley.
"Hey, Am." He smiled.
Amber's cheeks turned a light shade of pink, as they usually did when she talked to Charlie.
"Hey, Charlie!" Amber said. "So what are you doing here?"
"I was bored during study hall and I remember you saying this was your last class." Charlie explained.
"Oh." She turned to her friends, realizing they probably haven't met Charlie. "Um, this is Ross, Bradley, and Grace." She pointed to each friend as she said their names.
"Ross? Aren't you Rick's brother?" Charlie asked. He sounded a little angry.
"Yeah, but-" Ross started before being cut off by Charlie.
"Oh." Charlie turned to Amber as Ross's sentence drifted off, unspoken.
Trying to change the topic, Amber said "We were just talking about the game. I'm a little nervous."
"Don't be, you'll do great." Charlie said smiling, and staring into her eyes. For some reason, the 5 words coming from Charlie actually seemed to help. She felt comforted and a little more calm.
"Thank you, Charlie." Amber smiled.
"So are you guys coming to the game?" Charlie asked, facing Amber's friends.
"Yeah." Bradley said plainly. He sounded mad and Amber knew exactly why. Though he never cared to admit it, people constantly bringing up Rick hurt Ross. Bradley knew this too and considering they're best friends, anything that hurt Ross would hurt Bradley too. Since Charlie had been kinda rude when he realized that Ross was Rick's brother, he wouldn't be easily forgiven by Bradley. Ross is a really nice and forgiving person but Bradley always holds grudges.
Grace noticed Bradley's tone and tried to sound a little more excited to keep the peace, "Yeah, we'll all be there. I'm so excited to watch you guys play in person! Me and Amber always watched your games on tv last season."
Charlie just smiled. Since two weeks ago when they first met, Charlie always loved teasing Amber on her obsession with ducks. In reality he was happy and a little honored but the two friends just loved to joke around with each other.

---

Amber walked onto the ice. She stood next to Julie. "I'm worried I'm gonna mess up or something, I don't know." She whispered to her friend.
"You'll be fine, Am! You just gotta stop worrying."
"Yeah come on, you'll be okay." Connie said from behind them.
Amber looked up in the stands, in search of her family.
"Looking for someone?" Charlie said, skating behind the girl.
"Yeah, my family." She said turning to him. "They'll all be in different sections though. Henry would be with varsity, Cass with her friends, and my parents... somewhere?" She questioned with a small laugh.
Charlie pointed towards the varsity section, "There's varsity, Henry's probably over there."
Amber looked in that direction and smiled, seeing her brother. She waved to him and he smiled back at his sister. She turned back to face Charlie, "So who's here for you?"
"My mom." Charlie looked a little upset. "I wish I had siblings or something. My mom's always been here, but it's only ever her. Only one person really cares about my games."
Amber grabbed his hand without thinking, "I care and if I wasn't playing, I'd be watching you play."
Charlie blushed and smiled, "Thanks, Am."
Then, Coach Orion started calling for everyone to come over him. Amber dropped Charlie's hand as everyone gathered around the coach. "All right, think defense. All right, hands in. Here we go." Coach Orion said.
They all put their hands together and started to quack.
"Hey hey hey hey hey! What the hell's that? Knock that off." Coach Orion cut them off. "All right, 'Go, team' on two. Here we go, one, two."
"Go team." We all said unenthusiastically.
"All right, come on." Coach Orion said as we went to our spots, either on the ice or sitting.
I went onto the ice, beside Fulton and Charlie.
"'Go, team' How original." Charlie complained.
"Yeah, really." Amber agreed.
"Just get in the game, guys." Averman said.
Fulton turned to Charlie, "Let's do it, Charlie."
The teammates smiled and skated further onto the ice. The announcer started talking about how Charlie didn't have his traditional caption 'C'. Amber could tell it upset Charlie. It honestly wasn't fair, Charlie deserved to be captain and everyone but Orion knew it.
They started playing and it wasn't long before Charlie scored. Amber noticed Adam cheering for the jv team but Rick quickly stopped him. She expected Henry not to cheer much for the team, unless it was Amber herself who scored. She knew how Rick treated Henry about her being on the jv team. Everyone was cheering until Orion yelled, "Knock off the celebration! Act like you've scored before, huh?"
Soon, another point was scored, this time by Amber. Her and Russ used the knuckle puck. Amber smiled, seeing her brother cheer this time, along with the rest of her family and everyone else in the stands. The game was going good. The team kept scoring and was playing amazing, Russ and Amber were teaching Kenny how to trash talk, and the Warriors were winning. But then, Blake started to score. It was 9-7, Warriors in the lead. Charlie got angry and broke his hockey stick against the goal, which got him put in the box. Amber noticed him get really mad and mouthed It's okay, Charlie. Just calm down. He saw her but barely cared at this point, it didn't really help him feel any better.
Once Charlie was out of the box, he got back on the ice. Everyone wanted him to pass it but he refused, trying to get another point. Blake got the puck and scored, 9-9. A tie.
The team walked into the locker rooms, upset and angry.
"The guy hooked me, alright?" Charlie defended himself.
"We didn't need anymore goals." Kenny said.
"Hey, listen, I was trying to win it!" Charlie yelled.
"Well, mission unaccomplished, Charlie!" Averman yelled back.
Charlie got angry, and all up in Averman's face. "Huh?"
"We let down, simple as that." Gee said.
"Hey, you let down! I played hard." Connie said to the boy.
"Guys, can we all just calm down? We all tried to win and all played hard." Amber said trying to keep peace between the team.
"Well, what are we playing for anyways?" Charlie asked. "Some stupid school? The alumni? I mean warriors? What the hell are we now?"
"We're a team, Charlie! Whether it's the Ducks or Warriors, that doesn't change." Amber said.
"You weren't even a duck! This school and the Warriors suck." Charlie said, immediately regretting what he said as Amber looked like she was about to cry.
"Look man! We're on scholarship, I'm staying." Russ yelled.
"Fine, sell-out." Fulton said.
"Man, who you calling sell-out, punk?" Russ said, pushing Fulton. Charlie defended Fulton and the whole team broke into yelling and pushing around. That was before Orion came into the locker rooms to yell at the team, mostly at Charlie. He announced a 5am practice for the next day and left.
Then, the team noticed all of their clothes were missing. They found the clothes in the shower with a message. Freshman Stink. After drying off the clothes, the team decided to get their revenge on the varsity team. They put liquid nitrogen on their jackets with a message Varsity Sucks Ice. Amber snuck Henry's jacket into her bag before leaving.

---

Since Henry had hockey, Amber had to wait in the lobby for him. She expected him to come up from the locker rooms pissed but he looked the opposite. He walked to his sister smiling, "Thanks, Am."
"For?" She responded, even though she was pretty sure she knew exactly why.
"For taking my jacket and not letting them ruin it." Henry said pulling the jacket from her bag. The siblings walked to Henry's car.
"You're welcome!" She smiled weakly.
Once they were in the car her brother noticed that she looked upset and asked, "What's wrong?"
Amber tried to speak but all that came out was tears. Amber could hold herself together most of the time, but when someone asked her what was wrong, she couldn't keep it in. She didn't know why she was so upset about it but she could still hear Charlie's voice. "You weren't even a duck!" Like they had earlier that day, Charlie's 5 words meant something to her. Henry hugged his sister, sadly.
"So, do you wanna talk about it?" Henry asked.
Amber nodded her head and took a deep breath. "So when we lost, everyone was kinda in a mood. Everyone was arguing and Charlie was like 'What the hell are we now?' I said we're a team, no matter if we're Ducks or Warriors. And he said..." Amber started to tear up a bit and her voice cracked a little. "He said 'You weren't even a duck.' And I don't even know why it's bothering me so much."
"Am, he probably didn't mean it. When people are angry, they always say regretful things." Henry said, trying to comfort her.
"But he still said it. Why do I care so much?" Amber asked.
"Does it make you feel like they don't accept you as part of the team? Cause if it's that, don't let it bother you. Even I can tell that they all love you." Henry tried to reassure his sister.
"Thanks, Hen." Amber said softly, tears still staining her face.

Charlie's POV:
"You weren't even a duck."
The words lived in Charlie's head too.
Charlie's thoughts: Why? Why would I say that? I probably just screwed up the only thing I like about this damn school.
Charlie walked out to meet his mom at her car. On his way, he passed Henry's car. His heart sank when he saw Amber. She looked so hurt and she had tears streaming down her face. Her brother pulled her in for a hug and Charlie wished more than anything that he could be there comforting her. He wished he had never said what he said. Why did he have to be so stupid? He stared at the girl in the car for a moment before his mom yelled for him, "Charlie hurry up!"
He ran over to the car. "Sorry, uh let's go." He said quietly. The car ride to the diner was silent.