She's Gone

The Invitation

It was a Tuesday, January 5th 2016, and I was on the bus, in the small seat in the back left, squeezed in with a 7th grader named Connor that was my friend, looking at Kate. She was sitting in the seat in front of the across from me and against the wall, on the phone with her friend who decided to call her for some reason. Eva hadn't left yet, so Connor couldn't hop into the seat across from me. Thankfully, Mary wasn't there because she usually sits next to Kate, and across from Kate, as always, was Lucy. Eva was okay and all but, she was my friends girlfriend and too serious, I don't know why but I've never really had a crush on a girl with dark skin, like Mary and Lucy. Usually, Mary and Lucy are talking about something stupid so Kate rolls her eyes and puts in headphones until they shut up.
"How's your team doing?" I asked Kate.
"Honestly, we suck in Canada but we've only played one of our games to qualify for states and we've won that one. What about your team?"
"Um, we're not the best but we're definitely not the worst and there's no state tournament for us to to keep track of trying to get in for mohl so it doesn't really matter. When's your team's next game?"
"It's actually tonight at 7:20."
"Is it home or are you going somewhere else?"
"It's at Caz, it's a home game. My team is so going to lose to Hamburg."
"You can't know that's certain," I said trying to reassure her.
"The Hamburg team is mostly freshmen who were at West Seneca before the girls' program fell apart there and my team is mostly eighth graders, who most of have played only at Caz. We're screwed and I know I'm going to be one of the four biggest targets for the other team."
"What makes you say that?"
"I'm the only defenseman who can do anything productive with the puck, my teammate Izzy scores most of our goals, my teammate Reilly can skate the puck end to end and set up Bethany, our other teammate, for a one timer and score. I can skate the puck end to end and I'm put out there with the weakest forwards line to pick up their slack, so yea I'm a target. I'm the first choice defenseman to be put on penalty kill or power play, and there's a girl on the Hamburg team who's huge and hates me. Last year in modified she just spent the whole time trying to hit me so we just ran each other into the ice, and I'm terrified that she'll hurt me."
"I'm sure you'll be fine, and hell, if you two get into a fight, my money's on you winning."
Lucy had a weird expression on her face as looked back forth between me and Kate.
"What?" Kate asked.
"Oh nothing," Lucy replied.
"Ok... So anyways, do you come watch my game then? If I get into a fight, it sure as hell will be one hell of a fight to see. We hit the ice at 7:20 at Caz tonight."
"I'll  be there," I said and smiled.