We win the game 3-1 against the Cold Ones. My stomach hurts like hell and my eye looks even worse than it did an hour ago. I'm going to tell people I fell on a puck trying to skate. Is that believable? I feel like I would do something like that.
Noah and Cole drop me off at home instead of having me go out for dinner with them. Their eyes have been soft the entire night. Not a single other emotion other than fear and sadness have been on their faces. They know how bad my pain is, but they don't want to ask me, because they know I'd probably start crying.
I immediately walk up the stairs to my bedroom. My stomach isn't up for eating anything and I don't want to explain my swollen eye right now.
I hear footsteps come into my room after a few minutes. I pretend to be asleep.
"I'm not falling for this whole sleeping thing. What happened?" Cara sits on my bed, pulling the sheets from over me, then notices my eye. "What happened!"
"I was skating and I tripped and fell. My face hit a hockey puck", it seems like a pretty good lie.
"I don't believe you. Stand up and walk. You weren't on the ice between when you were home earlier and after the game". She says, pulling my hand a little. I hesitate before getting up from my bed. I walk as normal as I could.
"Lift up your shirt. I want to see your stomach". I shake my head furiously. "Well I don't think you hit just your eye. You're walking funny. I know this walk, the same walk I had when I fell and landed on that log last summer".
Cara hurries over to me and lifts up the corner of my shirt, revealing my bandage wrapped abdomen. "What the hell Mere? Tell me what happened or I tell Dad". That's what scared me the most. My father was scary when it came to this stuff. What dad wouldn't be?
"Okay fine. But if you tell anyone, I will literally kill you," she nods. "I was attacked by a hockey player from the Foxes tonight. He hit me, punched me, then kicked me. The guys found us during the middle of the attack, and if they weren't there, I would need surgery or end up in the hospital or something."
Cara brings me to the bathroom to take a close look at my stomach. "Did he kick you with his skate, 'cause the dark bruised line down the middle would say so". I don't know, did he? There was so much pain that I don't even remember what he was wearing. Or if he even had the skates on. Maybe that's what Coach was talking about. I always have so many layers on, that's why I'm not bleeding, or he could have had blade covers on.
"I think he was wearing his skates, I can't really remember", I wince as Cara traces her finger along the edges of the larger bruise on the side of my stomach.
"I think he was. You're lucky he didn't kick you any harder, or you would have an enormous gash", I wince again when she says 'gash'.
Cara leaves the bathroom for a second, going down the stairs. She comes back up with 2 ice packs and a new wrap. She applies one ice pack to my face and the other to my stomach. Cara wraps the bandage over the ice pack, so I don't have to hold it.
We walk back into my room and Cara grabs the sweatshirt that I stole from her last week. "Put this on, and keep it on when you have the ice pack. It hides the mass of the pack and Mom and Dad won't think anything of it because you wear it constantly anyways. With the eye, we need to come up with something, it's too bad to cover with makeup".
"I fell on the ice and a hockey puck stopped my face from hitting the ice", I say quietly. Cara nods for a second, contemplating the thought.
"That could work". We both smile a little.
Cara leaves me so I can go to bed. I take my shoes off and wince as I lay myself down. My phone rings on my bed side table. The screen lights up with a selfie taken from Cole and Noah. The name reads Bestie. I hit accept and pull the phone to my ear.
"Which one are you?" I ask sarcastically.
"It's your second boyfriend", I remember last week when Noah introduced himself and Cole to my mother.
"Oh hey, Cole".
"Hey Mere, how you holding up?", he says bringing us back to all seriousness. I guess I shouldn't say all seriousness. Nothing about our conversations will ever be serious.
"Well, Cara found out about it, and I haven't faced my parents for them to see how bad my eye is swollen. And the guy supposedly kicked me with skates on. Cara noticed a deeper bruise line down the middle of the wound. And my eye is too swollen to cover with makeup so my parents will have to find out what happened, but not about my stomach. The sweatshirt I took from Cara hides the ice pack I have under the wrap on my stomach".
"I'm so sorry, Meredith. I wish I had gone with you, even if it was just down that hallway. I feel horrible about it and so does the rest of the team. But I do have to talk to you about something. It's not bad, but it's been on my mind for the past few days. What happened between us at the pool on Sunday? Did anything actually happen, or am I completely overreacting?" I had pushed it out of my mind, when we got super close in the pool while we were splashing each other.
"I don't think anything happened. We just stopped and I ended up super close to you. We are friends, and at least for now, I want it to stay that way. I love being friends with you and your team. You guys are so fun!" I say. I really mean it, too.
"Okay good. I feel the same way about just being friends. Now get some sleep princess. Talk to you tomorrow".
I say good night and hang up the phone.
I fall fast asleep.
Edited: 3/2/22
YOU ARE READING
Just Another Goal (Counting on Hockey #1)
Romance*Book one of the Counting on Hockey series* To Meredith, watching hockey was torture. But her sister was a hockey player. She wanted nothing to do with hockey, even thinking about it made her angry. But she had her reasons. Starting 10th grade at a...
