Under the influence of a greater force none of them can explain, the six residents of the Meadows are prone to mass hysteria from time to time.
Still, they solemnly deny having anything to do with the two missing Yale students.
Nate is the captain...
"There is nothing permanent except change." —HERACLITUS
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THE moments before dawn were always my favorite. The cold air filled my lungs with a sharpness necessary for my senses to awaken. Sam, Gage, and Danny stepped out of the house after me, moving their bodies as if to shake off the cold and their drowsiness. Danny blew into his gloved hands. Sam rubbed his eyes while a yawn escaped him. Gage had an absent look in his eyes, as if still asleep.
The four of us climbed inside Sam's car without uttering a word. I took the passenger seat while Danny and Gage sat in the back. No one made any attempt at conversation. The radio remained turned off. It had become an unspoken rule that we needed a moment of silence to let reality edge in.
By the time we made it to our destination, our shoulders were less tense, our dispositions less severe. There was more movement around us now, more voices. Several teammates of ours were arriving at Ingalls Rink as well, bringing with them complaints about the weather, about their lack of sleep, about the soreness in their bodies. It brought us out of that terrible place we were in and forced us to melt into our surroundings.
The sound of lockers opening and closing sounded like a beautiful symphony that marked the start of my days. Mindless conversations traveled through the air. The reminder that my teammates trusted each other so blindly gave me a feeling of serenity that I clung to with all of my might.
"No, can't do," Chris McAvoy was saying to some of the boys. I'd missed the first half of their conversation. "I can't get in touch with my dear mother. She's on a wellness retreat over in Florida."
"I think they call those rehab centers," John Graham countered with a teasing grin adorning his average American-boy features.
As the team's resident ginger, Chris' skin tended to turn pink quite often. This was not one of those occasions. "No. She's been to those before. This one's more like a cult."
This interaction was followed by utterances shared while gearing up and were always more or less the same. Noah Lavoie had stayed up late playing video games. Rob Samsonov's girlfriend was crazy. Jake Matthews' girlfriend was a sweetheart. Julian Hall really needed to see a chiropractor. Danny could not believe how stiff his padded pants were and felt the need to make that everyone's problem.
Coach pulled me aside once we were already on the ice to deliver an endless string of instructions only to end his speech with, "This is your second year as captain. You know the drill. Get Burrow to keep it in his fucking pants, tell Graham to not get too excited with the drinking. Remember tryouts are in two weeks. Oh, and the Youth Academy Board of Directors asked me to tell you they want you in the Try-Out Committee."
