Alaska | Adam Banks

truth's out, somewhat anyway

CHAPTER SEVEN | TRUTH'S OUT, SOMEWHAT ANYWAY

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OVER THE COURSE of the next week, we had another game, against Italy that we won, multiple practices, and classes every day that were beginning to become boring. Our next game was set to be Iceland in two days, the game I feared the most for, and I still haven't worked up the courage to tell anyone on the team that we would be competing against my home country. 

Like Coach Bombay had said, I figured telling Adam and Charlie would be easiest, followed by Kenny, and maybe Guy, but I'd have to talk to Connie about that one. 

Every time I would even think about telling either of them, I would always find something to distract myself with, completely forgetting about the subject. Every time they were around me or it was just the three of us, I would always have the idea come to mind, but never do anything about it. When classes rolled around each day, Ms. McKay would look at me as if asking, is it done yet?, and each time I would look down and remain silent. So if I was going to do this, it had to be sooner rather than later, and if it were later, it would be bad. 

At the end of our morning lesson, I walked up to where Adam and Charlie were, and decided to just wing it. They smiled at me as I approached, and I smiled in return before getting to the point. 

"Hey, you two, I was wondering, could we go for a walk? I kind of have something I want- no need to tell you." I tried being as straightforward as I could, without having a lot of questions asked. 

Thankfully, neither of them had any so as soon as we walked out of the classroom, we walked to the dormitories, which was a decently time consuming trip, which would help majorly. 

"So, Augustine, what was it you wanted to tell us?" Charlie asked after a minute. 

"Well..." I started, unsure of how to go about with this. "Both of you promise you won't get mad. Or that you won't yell at me until I'm finished."

"Why would we be mad? Or yell at you?" Adam questioned, a puzzled expression being worn on his face. 

"Just promise," I persisted. 

"Promise," Charlie said, followed by Adam. 

"Okay, you both know how we're playing Iceland Thursday, right?" Both boys nodded. "And do you remember after our game against Trinidad, everything that happened with Stansson?" They nodded again. 

"We were a bit worried about you after that, you know. We've never seen you like that before," I could tell Adam was trying to piece everything together in his head, trying to make some sense come out of it. 

"There's actually a reason behind why I reacted the way I did. And, because of it, there's a good chance you will yell at me, or at least be mad."

"But what's all this got to do with Iceland?" Charlie asked, a confused expression crossing his face. 

"It's got everything to do with it. And that's because..." I trailed off, not sure how to go about this, and very unsure of how they would react. 

"I'm Icelandic."

For a moment, both of them were silent. It was scary, telling them something as big as this and them having nothing to say. I hadn't even noticed we stopped walking for a moment. 

"Icelandic, but how?  Why? That doesn't make any sense." Charlie finally said, looking at me in disbelief. At least he wasn't yelling. 

"Even thought I live in Alaska, I was born in Iceland, to two very Icelandic parents." I said after a brief moment, trying to get the both of them to take in the information.