Love in the Shadows ~ Dean Portman x OC

Ch. 29: Charlie's Loosing His Mind

Pov: Fulton Reed, August 19th, 1995, Minneapolis, Minnesota

2nd day and I already wanna die. Me, Charlie, and Russ are walking to lunch together after physics (snooze fest) when we see varsity picking on Ken once again. They take his lunch and shove him around like a pinball.
"I'm gonna maim those goons. With Portman here we could take them all" I miss him. He didn't even come out for the ceremony. He told me he would and that he was going but I guess he pussied out.
"They want lunch... we'll give 'em lunch" Charlie says like a supervillain. Me and Russ follow him outside, confused. We sit on a wall by some bushes and wait till horses go by and drops a load. Charlie then picks it up with his paper bag and laughs all the way back to the cafeteria.

We try to hold in our laughter as we walk by the varsity table as they take the bait.
"Aw come on! My mommy made me brownies"
"Fresh warm ones" It's almost too good to be true. Then Rick Riley mentions Portman
" hey it's too bad about your Bash Brother. Heard he was too scared to leave home"
"Portman ain't scared of nothin'"
Cole takes the "brownies" out and sniffs them
"What the hell kinda brownies are these?"
"I gotta tell her to stop using the horse turds in the recipe" We laugh as we bolt it outta there with Varsity on our tail. The whole cafeteria goes nuts as we run through it.

Nothing interesting happens till practice when Julie yaks up her lunch as Charlie talks about quitting. "Don't play for him Charlie, play for the us. The Ducks remember?"

He then helps me with my skating as Orian makes a cat pun.

During a scrimmage, Charlie tries to clear the puck right by the goal and Orian gets pissed. Charlie yells "I'm not a defensemen, I'm a scorer" so Orian puts him in the box. He then tells us to take a knee.

"What's the one thing all great teams have in common?" Orian asks
"Great coaching" Averman tries to kiss his ass for the 3rd time
"Don't try to suck up to me Averman... Defense. See unlike scoring, defense never quits. But to play great defense, you need one thing above all else"
Averman says something snide but Orian continues
"Confidence... Listen, if you learn nothing else here learn this. All right? Cause it's not just about hockey. It's easy your be confident when you have control of the puck. It's very very difficult to keep that confidence when you gotta take whatever strange bounces life throws your way. Don't be careless but don't be too careful either. You cannot be afraid to loose. That's how you gain the confidence to attack the game when the puck isn't yours. That's how you attack life even when you don't think you have any control... And that's how you play real defense. Dismissed" Deep stuff but I miss Bombay.

Charlie skates away still pissed and brushes me off when I try to talk to him. With Bombay, Portman, and now Adam gone. Charlie's loosing his mind and honestly so is the rest of the team. Without a captain we're not focused. There's no heart or motivation behind the sport anymore. Charlie is our heart and it's slowing down. I'm walking out of school when I see Charlie talking to some chick on a bench. Nice. Then I see Adam staring at them.

"Hey varsity how's it going?"
"Uhh good. First practice today and I'm not dead so can't complain. The coach knew my dad apparently so that's cool"
"You ok? You seem down" That's an understatement but I don't wanna get sappy
"I just miss you guys"
"Well we'll join you on varsity soon enough. Maybe once those seniors graduate and Portman rescrews his head to his body, the Ducks will be back together again"
"How is he by the way? I haven't heard anything since the accident"
"He's good I guess. Fully recovered but I'm not totally positive. Haven't spoken in a bit and I think the reason he's not here is because of his injury"
"It was on his dominant side so maybe he's not back to full strength and wants to recover a bit more"
"Hopefully he'll be back by second semester. I don't know how many times I can see varsity pick on Ken before I loose it"
"Sorry about that"
"Man it's all good. You're not one of them I know"
"Thanks"
"So how's Morgan? Haven't heard much since March"
"She's good. Her parents pulled her out of school again to focus on her music so she's pretty lonely during the days. She's in a bit of a slump after her new song came out but I'm sure she'll be fine"
"Oh yea. So are you guys still dating?"
"Fake dating? Yea. The media's died down because there's nothing new so that's a perk. Plus I get good standing with a bunch of her fans here"
"That's good"
"Well my ride's here so I'll see you tomorrow"
"Bye dude"

He was lying through his teeth but I'm not gonna ask. I've got enough to worry about with school, hockey, and whatever is going on with Julie. It's nice having her near again and we just kinda slipped back into how we were before. I don't think she remembers the phone call but I do. I wanna ask her out but dating a teammate goes wrong real quick. I don't know. I'll ask Charlie when he's not PMSing.

WC: 939