Hate Is A Strong Word

20.

Sebastian

I open my eyes, it's still dark all around. There is a person lying next to me with curly hair, that has come loose from her bun and are covering her whole beautiful face. I tuck it behind her ear and she lies down beside me. Justine isn't the only person lying next to me or on top of me. Barbie is on my body and Juraj is stretched out over my head.

I take my phone in my hand and check the time. It's a few minutes after 4:30 am and I'm supposed to be at the stadium at 5:30 with my bag and hockey stick in hand. I should better get up, so I can make it, because it's going to be a while before I get out of this biggest shithole in the world. My bus leaves at five, so I woke up at great time.

Elisa brought me clothes and hockey gear yesterday. I take Barb off me and put her next to me, and I grab Juraj and put him next to Barbie. Slowly and carefully I take my guardian angel's hands off my body and climb out of bed. I cover them all with the covers and kiss Tina on the cheek. She turns over and continues to sleep.

From the stadium, I will ho back here, because I'll be baking gingerbread cookies all weekend, since our headmistress can't order or bake them herself, so she uses the council and Justine. Tina has one bad quality, just one. She's too nice, helpful and dedicated for everyone. Except for me. She's a people pleaser, thinks about everyone else but you not herself.

She can't say no, she says yes to everything. If the teacher told her to give ski lessons to 100 people, she would. I don't mean to sound mean or that the teachers and the principal don't do anything, but Justine and the student council organize half the stuff, and if they weren't there, the school wouldn't be even nearly at the level it is now.

In her bathroom, I brush my teeth, fix my hair and go back to the room, where I throw on clean underwear, sweatpants, a T-Shirt and a sweatshirt. I walk over to her bed, squat down and stroke her hair. She turns to face me and grabs my palm. She inhales and exhales and then slowly, still half asleep, opens her blue eyes.
Her eyes are still tired, but calm. "You want to run away from me?" I smile and stroke her.

"No. No, not at all, Tina. Never."

"Where are you running off to?"

"To practice."

"Mhhh."

"Night, Justi." She slowly closes her eyes again and burrows into her soft, warm covers. From the other side, Barbie clings to her back. Tina slowly lets go of my hand and lets me go. Why did she evem think, I would ever want to run away from her? I love her, why would I run away from her.

I run down the stairs as quietly as I can, because I don't want to wake up Elisa and Tanya or my father, who will be incredibly hungover, and so will Stephen. I put on my jacket, slip on my shoes and put on my cap with the Czech hockey logo on it. On my shoulder goes a bag with skates, pads and other hockey stuff. I grab my hockey stick and run out the door.

Five to five. Tina doesn't live too far from the bus stop, so within three minutes I'm trotting easily to the bus stop. I pull out my wallet and the bus just pulls up, the door open and I walk with my big bag  inside. The driver looks at me so strangely, I hand him the money instead and take the ticket, that came out of the orange box.

I'll have to get used to these looks. I was the weird kid. All Canadians at school, all of them could speak French and I just English. I was this weird Czech kid with a hockey dad. My friend at the time was this Slovak kid, his dad had a company. His name was Jano, that's all I remember about him. But he was cool.

He was also kind of the weird kid for those Canadian kids. We were good friends, but when we moved to Prague after my dad's career ended, we never saw each other again, because apparently he moved to the other side of the continent. I sit in a seat, where there are two and two seats across from each other. It has the most room, so there's room for my hockey stuff.