Waking Up

Almost Dream Like

Monday.
Alaska wakes up to the sound of her alarm clock buzzing like a siren. Reaching over to turn it off she finds a note under her phone. Written in Morpheus's hand writing.
Lunch? My treat.
Knowing she'd see him Alaska still wrote on the back.
Of course.
Intending on handing it back to him.
Getting ready Alaska wore less makeup, a lot less. She still had on her eyeliner, and mascara, but she put on brown/ gold eye shadow instead of black. Alaska kept her leather jacket, how could she not? She looked hot in it, but she wore a gray tank top underneath, par to her usual black t-shirt. Other then those minor changes she didn't do much. She had put her hair into a ponytail the previous night so it wouldn't frizz up over night.
She grabbed her backpack and headed down to the kitchen.
"Good morning!" Her and her aunt exclaimed at the same time. They looked at each other and laughed. Alaska high fives her uncle before she grabbed herself a pop tart that her aunt had just buttered.
"Sorry aunty, gotta run. And I'll be late home, practice and all." She smiled, even though she knew they couldn't see her. She was genuinely excited about the day to come.
Morpheus was waiting outside her front door. She jumped back at the sight of him.
"Dang girly I knew I was ugly but I didn't think I was worthy of that." He laughed. Alaska waved him off.
"You know you could come in and actually meet them one day." She smiled taking her keys out of the front pocket of her backpack.
"Y'all seemed too happy for me to disturbe it." He grabbed the passenger side handle of the the 1970 Chevrolet. Her parents old car.
"Yeah we are." She looked into the house through the kitchen window and smiled. "Although all of us were on a role Saturday night we all talked about my parents that night." Her smile still on her face she got into the car and slammed the door.
The car roared to life. "That's my baby." She mumbled.
They drove the short distance to school and separated when the bell rang running to different classes before the tardy bell rang.
While Alaska was running the snob tripped her up making her fall on her backpack. The backpack jabbed into her injured leg. She squeaked. Alaska quickly got up and ran to her class, sliding into the empty seat right as the bell rang. "Just barely Miss Winters."
"Sorry, got tripped up." She said right as Madison the snob came into the classroom. Madison merely smiled and took her seat in the back.
The whole class Madison and her pack of Chihuahuas were throwing anything they could spare at Alaska. Instead of getting mad Alaska dodged them, which made the girls mad.
~~~
English with Morpheus they passed notes (Alaska finally gave him the note with her reply on it) and they worked on their book report.
"We can work on it again after school if you'd like." He offered.
"I can't, practice remember?" He smiled a bit brighter. He even lifted his shoulders in contempt.
"Right I forgot. Girly here is an athlete now." He joked. Alaska smiled at him. "But where is you gym bag? With your cleats and shin guards?"
Surprise crossed Alaska's face. "I left it at home." Morpheus thinks it through. Mulling it over in his head.
"No worries, we can grab it when I take you out for lunch today."
Alaska relaxed. "Oh my god you're a life savor." Morpheus smiles again.
"I try."
~~~
The bells rings, Morpheus and Alaska are out the door running to Alaska's car. Alaska fumbles for her keys in her pocket. She drops them and on her way to stand back up she notices paint splatters on the ground. Alaska looks up.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me." She yells out in frustration. On her car door in big blue letters are the words fucking whore.
"What's wrong girly?" Morpheus asks. Walking toward her side of the car. When he sees the newly found paint job he stops. "Oh that's what's wrong."
Alaska is still staring at it when Nydia shows up.
"I'm sorry Al I've been trying to calm them down but they are just getting worse. What sucks even more is I have to be in school while the rest of them are out already." She exclaims.
Alaska grabs her hair and nearly pulls it out. "It's okay, it's just words right? Sorry Nydia we have to go."
Nydia waves them good bye and both Alaska and Morpheus hops into the car.
Alaska steps in the clutch and shifts it into 3rd gear, and slams on the gas. Launching the car forwards and peaking out of the parking lot.
"Hey it's just paint okay? It's fixable what would have been worse if they keyed your car."  Morpheus grabs her hand that is still on the gear shift.
"Yeah just words, doesn't hurt a thing."
They get to her house and she runs up to her room and grabs her gym bag, filled with socks, shorts, t-shirt, cleats, shin guards, a water bottle, and a soccer ball.
Downstairs her aunt is yelling up to her asking why she's home.
"I forgot my gym bag aunty I'll be back at school in a minute!"
Her aunt thinks she's skipping class again. Alaska doesn't put it past her. Being home hardly a week she's already been shot at twice, in 2 fights and her car has spray paint on it. Fun times.
~~~
"Okay now, lunch time. Switch me spots I'm driving." Morpheus winks at her. His eyes a hazle brown with gold flecks. Alaska gives up before even trying.
"Fine."
Morpheus drives her out past the lake and right beside the mouth of the spit.
"I used to come here as a kid." Alaska thinks back. "I fractured my leg jumping from a rope that used to hang there. It broke while I was swinging and my leg hit a sharp rock."
"Well I thought I a perfect place for a short picnic." He prides himself. His chest puffing up a little and the olive skin on his face glowing just a little bit more.
He takes out an ice chest from the trunk. Alaska scrunched up her face.
"H-how did you-?"
"I'm a master lock smith." He beams at her. She gives him a discerning look. "Well sort of." He still looks pleased with himself. He shakes his head.
Alaska is smiling at his while he takes the food from the ice box.
"And the lady gets a choice of peanut butter and jelly, or a ham sandwich."
"Ham." She shoots out right as he's saying "sandwich."
"I hate peanut butter with a burning passion."
Morpheus does a thing where he sort of winks, shrugs, and nods his head at the same time. All with a judgy look on his face. "Hey not my fault." She holds up her hands as if she's being arrested.
They both laugh.
They sit on the hood of her car and book out at the creek, listening to the water trickle down into the lake.
"So what are we gonna do about Sam?" Alaska asks after a while of silence.
"Well I'd figured him to have been over you by now but I should have known once you get your hook into a man it's hard for him to let go."
Alaska looks at him weirdly.
"Not a bad thing, just that your personality, and your charm is hard to resist sometimes." Morpheus blushes a bit. "Oh I'm a horrible host, what shall the lady like to drink? You have the choice of water, beer, complements to my mother, and coke."
"Coke please." She says delicately.
"But anyways, I'd say try to avoid Sam as much as possible, but I know that won't work for long, for right now try to ignore anything that has to do with him while I trying to figure some stuff out. You just keep being that little athletic girly out there. Although I suspect by the way you fight you are quite intimidating on the field." Alaska shrugs. "I mean you knocked that guy out cold the other night and Meg, she had no chance. You even stunned Sam quite a bit." Alaska's smile got bigger.
"I have a punching bag in my garage and when I get very mad I punch that for a while."
Morpheus stares at Alaska. She checks her watch.
"I'd say time to be heading back, lunch break it almost over, you want to drive or shall I?" She asks.
Morpheus snaps out of his daze.
"I'll drive, I need to learn the streets a bit better anyways."
~~~
The drive back to school they both sang at the top of their lungs to Bon Jovi's song "Have A Nice Day." Morpheus every once in a while snuck a glance at Alaska.
~~~
The rest f the school day was quite quiet. The gang never bothered her, although subconsciously they were nearly her every thought. Madison and her pack didn't try to trip her up.
The end of the day, Soccer practice, she hadn't played since the day her parents died.
All suited up and ready to go Alaska stepped onto the field. By the goal post she dropped her gym bag down where everyone else's stuff had been neatly placed all in rows. She chuckled to herself.
A few girls stopped and stared at Alaska as if she didn't belong, but truth was Alaska had never felt freer then when she had taken her steps onto a soccer field.
Coach Willis blew a whistle, and all the girls ran over to him.
"Most of you probably already know Alaska Winters, and she is going to be playing with us, she's good, I have spoken to some of her old coaches and she can really do a number of people without refs knowing." He said to every girl. "Alaska just kinda follow the other girls and you'll soon step into the swing of things." He told her.
Coach Willis blew his whistle again and all the girls took off running. Alaska followed. They ran twice around the field.
Willis was placing cones around the field into boxes. Alaska smiled. They were to be playing worlds.
"Pick a partner, there are even numbers today, and think of a country to play for." Yelled Coach Willis. All the girls basically jumped into one another's arms trying to avoid being put into a pair with Alaska, except one. A smaller quieter girl named Blake. Blame walked over to Alaska. "What country?" She Asked Alaska.
"Argentina."
"Sounds good."
"Now we all know how's it played so tell me your country and then let the games begin." Yelled out Willis.
All the other girls called out names like "United States, Bahamas, Fiji, and Egypt,"
None of which has the Latin roots. So when it came it Black and Alaska everyone else was surprised to hear Argentina as their country.
"Why did you pick there girls?" Asked Coach Willis.
"Because Argentina has Latin roots as we all know that Latin people have a special way of winning in soccer. Though we could use it for luck."
Coach Willis smelled a bit, and blew his whistle. Throwing a ball into the air.
When the other girls on Alaska's team had the ball they kicked it around, but had not real ball control. When they passed they passed it to another person, not the one not their team. When Alaska and Blake had the ball it was as if they were floating. They didn't even have to look up to make a connection with the ball. When they passed it to each other they knew where the other was going to be. Coach Willis on the side was franticly taking notes on the girl's performance. When Coach Willis blew his whistle again to signal the end of the game Alaska and Black had made twice as many shots at the rest of them had.
Blake and Alaska high fives each other with huge grins on their faces.
"Thick as thieves girl!" Alaska shouted. "I never actually got your name? Mine's Alaska."
"My name is Blake. Perhaps we could become friends?" She seemed timid. Not because Alaska was there, just in general, the difference between her on and off the field was astounding. On the field she was confident and loud, off the field she was timid and quiet.
"Friends." Alaska agreed. "I drive a red 1970's Chevrolet. You can see me before school or slip me a note."
~~~
Heading home that night nothing could dampen Alaska's mood, except the one person that could.