Showers Hide Tears

Chapter 1

Adam laid his head against the cold tile of the Varsity locker room shower as he let the water mask the tears that were cascading down his cheeks. It was the safest way to hide how broken he was from everyone. It had been hard enough to nod off the cheers from Varsity players, congratulating him for taking on his former and possibly his now ex-friend, Charlie. The last thing he needed them to see how much that fight had hurt him, not physically but in a pain no one could see.

"Didn't think you had in it you, Banksy. Taking on your lil Captain Duck friend" is what he even got from Riley with a clap on his back for good measure. Adam couldn't even look at him in the eye then and tried to distract himself by taking off his gear as slowly as he could, anxiously waiting for the team to leave.

Eventually they did and it's what brought him to his current miserable state.

The truth was Adam felt like he had lost everything he had worked for since the day he walked into the Ducks locker room, a former Hawk without a place to fly but except the rival's skies or this case, ice and branded with the name Jesse had gave him, Cakeeater.

And in the past year he finally felt like he achieved it, the Ducks befriended past just being team mates, he found a true friend in Charlie and with Bombay's guidance he had found hockey could be more then just winning big or getting your shot.

Adam found a true love for the sport playing with the Ducks, but in a blink of eye it all fell apart and he now had no idea how to fix it.

A sob wracked his body and it was a sad comfort in what had become such a lonely place for him, to be able to cry alone.

He wished there had been something he could of done, some sort of warning he could have gave Charlie or at least Julie. Just so they could have had even a clue of what the Varsity had planned but Riley never gave him the chance to say a word to them. Perhaps he didn't trust Adam, questioning if his loyalties still laid with his former Ducks and the Captain would have been right. Sitting there as the Varsity poured fake praise all over his former friends made Adam seriously sick to his stomach to the point that as soon he was forced to leave with the Varsity and saw that cake in the hallway, he made a beeline to the closest bathroom, where proceeded to throw up all he ate. By the time he was finished vomiting, the Varsity had left and having no desire to listen to them reveling in their success of pranking the Ducks back in the dorm, he called his brother Evan who lived close to the Minnesota Club.

Even though there was a obvious age gap between them, Evan being a former Hawk, he understood what his little brother had went through especially the pressure he received from their dad over his hockey career. So knowing the drama it would cause if Adam returned home for the night, he let his brother stay at his apartment.

Perhaps it could have been called luck that he missed the Ducks's revenge but maybe he should have been there because he may have deserved the same fate the Varsity got, he wasn't sure. All Adam did know was that his former friends all blamed him for it, that point was painfully obviously to him, painfully being the key word and he knew he had to make it right. So despite his distaste for Varsity dorm, after a few hours of crashing on Evan's couch to sleep off his queasy stomach and a good talk with his brother, he returned.

Although the sight Adam returned to the night before was far from what he expected, instead of being able to sneak into his room silently, he was met with a dorm full of miserable teenage hockey players covered in itchy fireant bites who were crying about what the Ducks. Part of him, had secretly cheered for his former team as he heard but that fleeted when Riley saw him. The bite covered Captain demanded to know where Adam had been and accused of him of being warned by Charlie or one of his former friends about the prank. Adam truthfully denied it but it made no difference.

"Look Banksy, I don't know what you are trying to pull here but we are going to destroy your lil Duck friends tomorrow and if you do anything to try to help them, I will make damn sure you never play hockey here again at Eden Hall. You got me?" was the threat Riley gave him. Adam knew he could do it to , with his father having a in with the Dean and not playing hockey wasn't something he knew he could live with.

So against the will of his own heart, he had dawned the Warrior red and black once again. The only hope he had in is heart at that time was maybe he could at least try and explain himself to Charlie. He did try to but his suspicion had been right, the one Duck's player he considered his best friend didn't want anything to do with him but that wasn't the worst part. It was what Charlie called him that pained Adam the most, "Preppy." As innocent it may have sounded to some, he knew the meaning behind it, that it held the same connotation as "Cakeeater". The nickname that Charlie had never called him in the years he had known him. He had been the one who had never seen Adam as the privileged rich boy from Edina with all the breaks but welcomed him as one of the Ducks right away. Yet in one stupid night, Adam knew everything had changed between them and that was almost enough for him to lose it. Without another word he sadly retreated to Warrior's box, with the hope that he could sink into the bench enough that the rest of the Varsity would be too preoccupied with the game to even notice he wasn't out there.

Unfortunately it only lasted one half of the game before Riley realized he wasn't on the ice. "What the hell are you doin in here!? Get your ass out there and cover Conway" he had yelled at him. Poor Adam had been filled with such turmoil, stopping Charlie right then was the last thing he had wanted to do but he knew if he didn't listen to Riley right then, he could kiss his hockey career at this school goodbye.

So Adam knew he had to put aside everything else aside and just play emotionless, a way he had learned back in Hawk days. He decided then as his blades touched the ice, that this is the way he would play the rest of this game and maybe the rest of his days he was forced to be a Warrior. Because to him being a Warrior wasn't much different then being a Hawk, there was no heart and not feeling of family in this team unlike the Ducks. Hawks flew alone and Adam had felt utterly alone as a Warrior too. So why shouldn't he just play the game on auto pilot, no feeling and especially no love for the game? He wasn't a Duck any more and as he skated after Charlie, he resigned himself to that until he found himself face first cold ice in the goalie's crease. It had took him a even second to register that Charlie had him pinned down, he had never seen his former friend ever play that way and yet at that moment he chose to take all of his anger at the Varsity out on him.

But Adam couldn't blame Charlie really because at that moment that morning, something snapped inside him too. Maybe it was all the anger that he had been holding back since he made Varsity or maybe it was more then just that. Maybe it was all anger over everything that happened the last few years that decided to rear it's ugly head in him taking his anger at Charlie, just like he was doing to him.

And with one "Fine!" everything they had been and perhaps everything they might have been was gone.

This cold truth resonated in Adam's mind as he let the lockerroom shower hide his tears, he wasn't a Duck, he wasn't Charlie's friend, and he wasn't even a emotionless Hawk anymore, all he was, was alone.