Stupid Love

20

I open my eyes and see the ceiling of the locker room. I jumped to my feet, freaked out and worrisome.

"Where am I?" I said.

A familiar voice erupts the silence of the room.

"You're at the hockey rink, and by the looks of it you're done for the game."

I quickly turned to see Hannah, she was a close family friend. I haven't seen her in over two years. She had really clean blonde hair, she was average height with a tattoo on her arm of a heart. She was wearing her college hoodie and jeans.

"Says who," I said to her in a daze. Everything was spinning, I felt nauseous and confused.

"Me since I'm the qualified trainor here," She replies. She comes up to me and puts an ice pack on my head.

Her perfume smelled like flowers and a little bit of beer. I looked down at her into her hazel eyes, I always had a crush on her but I never asked because I was younger.

"I'm sorry I missed your wedding." I said, breaking the silence.

I can tell she didn't want to talk about it, I couldn't imagine how she felt because I wasn't able to get close to marriage like everyone else can.

"Well you didn't miss much. Just a waste of time and money." Hannah replies, I can feel the pain in her response.

"I missed seeing you look amazing like always and you looking happy. I wouldn't have called that a waste of time. He made a mistake." I replied.

She backed away from me, just as I expected her to smack or punch me, she just began to give me teary eyes and a smile and hugged me. I was really expecting the opposite, I stood there in disbelief for a minute until I wrapped my arms around her. We hugged for about a whole minute until I let go.

" I know you're looking out for me but I'm not letting a concussion bring me down today." I told her as she began to wipe off her tears.

"I can't let you go out there and hurt yourself even more." Hannah says.

I noticed a couple of tears on her cheek and wiped them off, her skin felt soft and wet a little bit.

"You tried your best, but this is too important to me." I replied, giving her a smile as I turned towards the hallway and started walking.

"Just be careful." Hannah says.

I turn half my body towards her to give her a thumbs up and then return to walk down towards the rink. My head is pounding, everything feels dizzy and fuzzy. I shake my head, "it's definitely a concussion," I thought to myself. I walk over and reach the rink entrance, play has stopped and I open the door. The refs look at me, I hold out my hand to make them wait. I step onto the ice and close the door behind me. I can feel the eyes all look down on me. I skate as quickly as I can over to my bench and hop over the boards into the bench. The refs stop looking at me and resume the game. Coach comes over to me,

"Why the hell are you back here?" he says.

"I'm here to do what I said I'd do." I reply, turning my head towards him.

He hesitates, "The trainer said you're done today."

I turn my head to the scoreboard. When did it become the 3rd period? I looked over to Joey, but it wasn't her. It looked like her before but now I can tell it wasn't her. Was I just hallucinating about her being here? I look over at her friend that I thought was Abby but can tell that wasn't her either.

"Maybe I do just miss her," I thought to myself.

I shook my head and told Coach "We're gonna do what we said we would."

I heard him walk away as everyone else on the bench was looking at me. I grab a water bottle and splash it on my face. I don't know if the concussions are catching up to me or if I'm just thinking too much about Joey. I looked at the scoreboard again: Home: 5, Away: 2. 3rd Per: 5:30. I hear a whistle, and jump off the bench and onto the ice.

"Corbin your line isn't going out yet what the fuck are you doing?!" Coach yells at me.

I skate up to Ryan and say "Hey bud I got this." He nods his head, he looks surprised and sad at the same time. He skates over to the bench with his head down, I look at my teammates on the ice and they all look defeated. I can feel my head start to thump and my ears start to ring a little bit. I shake my head and turn back towards the faceoff circle. The ref blows his whistle and drops the puck. I wasn't prepared and lost the puck, I skated backwards towards the middle. Their defensemen were passing it back and forth in their zone, I slowly inch my way over to the center who was waiting for the pass in the middle. Their defenseman finally passed it to the center, just as the puck got to him I sprinted towards him and checked him into the ice. As hard and as fast as I could the center goes flying and the puck ends up in front of me. I quickly grabbed it with my stick and started skating towards the middle of the rink until I turned around just before the blue line. Their center looked pissed and their defensemen were skating towards me leaving the entire right side of the rink open.

"Wheres my fucking team," I yelled as I slip past the center and skate by the defensemen. I faked a slap shot and moved my wrists back and forth with all of my power as I shot the puck. The puck flies into the net before the goalie could make a move. I could feel the crowd's energy fading.