Not Telling Anyone

A Hockey Death Match

Friday, the day after finals. Today we basically had a free day the whole day since it was the last day of the 1st semester. So none of the teachers were going to teach anything since our schedules change on Monday.
    I spent the whole day in the music hall. Mr. Wilson had emailed all my teachers, so it was okay. I practiced here and there, started teaching myself a new song on piano. Jet Black Heart by 5 Seconds of Summer, in case you were wondering, it felt pretty accurate to my life. By fourth hour I had it pretty much learned so I was doing a run through, including singing along. So I there I sat pouring my heart out into this song I was almost to the point of tears, but I held them back, like always.
    "That was beautiful," a sounded when I was finished. My heart stopped, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I slowly looked over, and relaxed a bit when I saw that it was Isaac.I placed my hand on my heart, which was now beating exceptionally fast.
    "You really don't know how to knock," I said taking a deep breath.
    "If I would've knocked you would've stopped, and then you wouldn't start again. I wanted to listen to your voice it's so beautiful, and you never openly sing 'cause of your anxiety. Please don't hate me," he explained.
    "I can't hate you. You just scared the shit out of me," I breathed.
    "Oh well sorry," he said taking a seat next to me on the bench. "What song is that?"
    "Jet Black Heart," I answered. "It's by 5SOS."
    "Of course it is," he teased.
    "Hey, you know they're songs have very meaningful lyrics, and are musically beautiful," I defended.
    "Oh yeah 'cause 'The Pizza Song' has a much deeper meaning than 'Michael wants another slice'," he joked.
    "Whatever you loser," I rolled my eyes. "At least they're different."
    "I never said they weren't."
    "You're mocking me."
    "Am I now?"
    "Yes!" We laughed.
    "So, why are you here instead of joining the rest of the world?" he asked.
    "I just really wanted to focus on music today. It just feels like a music day to me," I explained.
    "I see. Well do you have time for your boyfriend during your day of music solitary?"
    "Hmm... I think I could squeeze you in."
    "Excellent."

    After school I met up with the gang in the the music hall, we were going to go eat somewhere before pep band. We were debating on going to the Mexican place or the sushi place downtown.
    "I don't know guys I'm kind of not in the mood for seaweed wrapped in rice and covered in some type of fancy sauce," I said.
    "You forgot the fish," Jack said.
    "I get the vegetarian rolls," I explained.
    "What the hell is wrong with you?" Jared asked.
    "I'm a vegetarian. Remember?"
    "Since when?!" Jack exclaimed.
    "Since we went to that meat farm in third grade."
    "Yeah, man don't you remember?" Scott butted in.
    "Oh like you remembered!" Jared said. They argued, and I laughed.
    "Well I want to eat with chopsticks!" Scott protested suddenly. We all stopped and looked at him.
    "Dude, you're so weird," Jack said. Jared and I laughed.
     "Hey guys whatcha doing?" Isaac asked coming up behind Scott.
            "Debating on where to go for dinner," I explained.
            "Could I join? I need food before the game," he said.
            "What time do you need to be there?" I asked.
"Since we can't be on the ice before the other team, 6:00. Plenty of time," he replied.
              "Alright we're debating between Mexican or sushi," Jared explained.
              "Oh Mexican definitely. Can't have fish before the game it'll be problematic if that happened," Isaac responded, crinkling up his nose, which looked adorable by the way.
            "See? Come on Scott please?" I asked.
            "We promise that next time we have pep band we'll get sushi," Jared suggested.
            "Alright let's go," Scott agreed.

            Screaming, and shouts of excitement could be heard every where you went in the rink.
            I sat in the first row between Scott and Jared and Jack to Jared's right. We were sitting in the first row because of Scott being a percussionist he was stuck in the first row. If he wasn't stuck down here we'd probably be on the top row, but that's also where Katie, Micaela, and Lisa sat. Lauren and Mallory aren't in band and Ariel was home sick today. So here I sat a piccolo squished between a snare drum, trombone, and a baritone. My ears take quite the beating.
       We shouted and cheered on Isaac, the best player out there in my opinion (even if my brother was the goalie). If I had sat with the others I'd be forced into talking about life and saying how much it sucks to be here, but I loved watching hockey. I grew up with it. I'd be in the sport if winter wasn't such a busy time for the music department. Competitions, concerts, the school musical, music is more important to me than sports.
      Anyways. Isaac had been passed the puck and he was making his way across the ice. He dodged the other teams players with ease, and skidding to a halt in front of the goalie. He stood still for a split second before psyching out a pass to another teammate and hit it in when the goalie followed his trick.
        The boys and I stood up and cheered loudly. Isaac looked over at us and smiled. He looked pointedly at me and winked. I winked back as we were prompted to play the school song. After the song we shouted "Rah rah Lakeland High" and sat back down.
       "Must you play that so loudly?" Jared whined, while plugging his ear.
       "Look around you do you see any other flute players here?" I asked.
       "No," he said.
       "See, everyone in my section flaked leaving me to be the only one. Therefore I must play out in order to bring out the flute part. It's one piccolo against the entire band. It may be loud for you, but to everyone else it's balanced. Try earplugs," I explained and held up my pair of earbuds, which I stick in my ears when we're playing.
       "Smartass," he mumbled.
       "Let's go Isaac!" Scott shouted hitting his snare drum really hard, earning a glare from Mr. Wilson to which Scott just smiled and waved.
            The other team had the puck and they were doing this passing maneuver where they passed all over the place, except the goal. Finally they passed to a person who was close to their goalie, and that person took off down the ice straight down the middle. Our team tried blocking him, but he simply dodged them.  I looked at Ash and he looked ready, but behind that face mask he was probably freaking out.
          The guy was ready to shoot a goal, but Isaac came swooping in and swept the puck up from right under the guy. He passed it to another person on our team. But before anything could happen the ref's whistle sounded. I saw him talking to the other ref and then he skated over to Isaac.
           "Looks like number 03 on the Lakeland team has a 1 minute timeout," the announcer announced over the speaker.
           "What?!" I shot up, and so did the guys. You could here booing from the student section, shouts from the parent section (thanks to the very competitive dads), and cheers from the visitor section.
    "The refs are saying the charge was interference," the announcer explained, he was supposed to unbiased, but you could hear the frustration in his voice. Isaac went and sat in the penalty box. I looked at him with disbelief. He took his mask off and gave me a look that read, 'I don't know, but this is messed up.'
    "What the hell?" I exclaimed to Scott. "That was perfectly legal!"
    "They're biased," he grumbled. "Making sure their favourite wins, or that they get their bribe money."
    "I hate people," I mumbled. I looked beside me to realize Jared was screaming at the refs.
    "You money grubbing idiots! That was legal and you know it!" he hollered rather loudly. "Gotta make sure you get paid though, huh!? You have to pay for the shit you smoke somehow, right?!"
    "Jared sit down!" Mr. Wilson said firmly.
    "It's not my fault they're getting paid off," Jared said exasperated.
"Just because they do something you don't agree with doesn't mean you scream that," Mr. Wilson said.
"They're not being fair!" Scott argued.
"Life's not fair. Now you four sit down, he'll be released in 35 seconds." We sat down.
"He's acting all authoritative because Mr. Jerk is right over there," Jack said, nodding his head towards the student section where our principal, Mr. Dirk, stood guard.
"He's in line for a raise next year. He's trying not to screw it up," I explained.
The buzzer sounded and Isaac was released from the penalty box, we erupted into cheers. Someone from the student section lead the rest of the student section in a cheer yelling, "Take that ref!" We gladly joined in.
The buzzer sounded signaling the end of the half. The hockey players evacuated from the ice, and the zamboni came out, and we had to stand up and start playing.