𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙢 / 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙚

"it's cool"

I heard a shattering noise come from the locker room as I followed the other Varsity players through the door. When I finally got inside, Cole was standing over his used to be Varsity jacket, now in multiple pieces on the floor.

Our locker room had been turned into Antarctica. Everything was frozen from our benches to our lockers to our bags. Cole nodded his head to the top of the wall behind us. I turned to see written on the wall in shaving cream "VARSITY SUCKS ICE". 

I pushed through the group of boys and made my way to my locker. I was surprised to see that it was only partially frozen. Like someone had started to freeze all my stuff, but had decided against it halfway through. 

Still though, my favorite USA sweatshirt that I had brought back from California and my hockey bag were completely ruined. I was angry at that.

Rick shook his head. "Ducks." 

He slammed his fist against the open door of his locker, shattering his Varsity jacket. 

I couldn't blame him. 

_

At lunch the next day, I avoided the Ducks and stuck with the Varsity. I still didn't have any friends on the team but it felt weird to sit by the same people who had frozen my stuff for seemingly no reason.

We had only been sitting for a couple of minutes when Rick got the whole team up and approached the JV table. I was next to Adam who looked a little bit pissed off. I kind of felt bad for him. All of his stuff had gotten frozen by our old team. His old friends. 

"Hey congrats on the Blake game." Rick said sweetly, which I knew wasn't genuine.

"Yeah right, we tied." Charlie responded.

Rick put his hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Hey, a point's a point. We're all warriors now. You guys proved your guts. You all set for dinner Friday?"

"Dinner?" Russ asked.

My ears perked up too. I had heard Rick briefly mention something about Friday night dinner during a practice, but I was never filled in on any details.

"Well it's an Eden Hall tradition. Varsity got to treat the Freshmen to dinner. So round up your posse and meet us at six, at the Minnesota Club, downtown. Anybody need a ride we can take you." Rick looked around the table and smiled. "I mean, you guys do like steak and seafood, right?"

"Yeah we do." Charlie responded and the rest of the team agreed.

Cole took a step in front of Rick. "Look, I don't like you pukes, alright? But this is a tradition. And at Eden Hall, I learned to care about tradition."

He turned around and walked away, following the rest of the Varsity team. That left only Adam and me standing there. 

"It's cool." Adam smiled at our old teammates and I leaned over to him.

"Do you know about this?" I whispered.

He nodded and walked away. I guess I was getting left in the dark about Varsity plans. I started to follow Adam when Charlie reached out and grabbed my arm.

"Ella, we all... well we wanted to apologize."

"Okay." I pulled my arm away from Charlie and faced my old team.

"We didn't mean to freeze your stuff, honest." Julie looked at me with a pleading look in her eyes. 

"Yeah," Russ continued, "I stopped right when I realized that it was your stuff I was freezing."

"And I'm sorry for what I said about you still being a Hawk." Charlie gave me a sad look. "I was just mad and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. You're still a Duck. Always."

I nodded at my old teammates. "Thanks guys. That means a lot. Is it okay if I sit by you guys again at lunch?"

"Duh!" Connie smiled and I took a seat next to her. 

We hugged and I spent the rest of lunch talking with my friends. It was a good day.

_

finally a bit of a feel good chapter, yay!