ʙʀᴏᴋᴇɴ sᴋᴀᴛᴇs | ɢ. ɢᴇʀᴍᴀɪɴᴇ [1]

[1] Mel for short.

Melanie took her mother into a snug embrace as her driver pulled up. She sighed at the idea of leaving her little brother Jordan behind in Massachusetts while she settled in Los Angeles.

Melanie has been playing hockey since she was a young girl, really it was her entire world. She had lived with her mother and two brothers in Boston Massachusetts since she was a little her. However, her dad passed away unexpectedly a year ago which made a hard impact on her life due to them being very close.

Melanie had stopped playing hockey for a bit until a month ago when she got one of the best calls she could have gotten. She got a call informing her that she was selected to play for Hendrix hockey in Los Angeles with a group of teenagers. Of course, she was so excited about the opportunity to show off her abilities, but Melanie had severe separation anxiety from her mother that made it hard to stay anywhere else but home.

"Mel, you're going to be great," said her mother, rubbing her thumb across her cheeks.
"I'm not sure whether I should leave you guys," she pulled Melanie into a squeeze, and both of her brothers joined. They let go, and her brothers places everything carefully in the car.

She took a deep breath and fell deep into the seat of the black Mazda that was parked outside of her house. She fidgeted with her fingers and pant strings the whole ride there. It wasn't even fifteen minutes before Melanie started to freak out. The driver pulled up, and the airport employees began taking her luggage out of the car and taking her to the gate of the plane. She sniffed, covering her tears as she boarded the plane. The flight was going to be long 5 hours, and she knew it.

She woke up to all the people on the plane getting off, so she preceded to do the same. She yawned and stared longingly around at the Minnesota airport. She saw a sign that revealed her name, and she smiled. There were two boys standing with the man in a suit.

"Melanie Taylor?" he asked, and she nodded keeping her jacket tight.
"Melanie, this is Dwayne Robertson and Luis Mendoza," she grinned at the two boys.
"Are we ready?" asked the man, and all three of them nodded as they started walking through the airport to the car.

The three of them were in the car, but the man was assisting with the luggage.
"hello," Dwayne grinned as if he had a chance to shine, "im Dwayne Robertson from Austin Texas, yeehaw," Melaine chuckled at the brunette boy acting silly in the passenger seat.

"Luis Mendoza, Miami Flordia," he stated, gazing down at his feet. "Melaine Taylor, Boston Massachusetts, but you can call me Mel if you want to," she grinned, and they both nodded.

They got to know each other and danced to country music the whole time because Dwayne was in the front with the station lists. Before Melanie left, her best friend Elena was really hoping that the boys would be cute, and when she saw Dwayne and Luis, she knew that Elena would be excited.

When they arrived at the hotel, she had a room with a goaltender named Julie, the sign on the door said Julie The Cat Gaffney. What kind of name is that? Julie came with another group because the flights were separate, so she had space for herself.

"Hello!" they were all standing up to see the man who selected them. "I am Don Tibbles of the Hendrix Hockey apparel,"

Melanie stared at the phone, wanting to contact her family. "You're going to have your first practice tomorrow morning with your new coach and team at 9 a.m. so be ready for breakfast in the lobby by 6:30 a.m. And dinner will be served at 6 P.M tonight," the three nodded and gave them their luggage cart to take to the rooms.

She slid off her shoes when she got to the room and made her way to the phone on the side of the bed. She dialed her home number in anticipation, but the device didn't let her call the number because it was a long distance. "Damn it," she said, walking to bed in frustration.

She sighed and took out her novel, The Outsiders by the S.E Hinton. When she left Boston, she studied it with her classmates, but now she doesn't know whether the team is going to read it or not. She was progressively becoming more tired while reading until she fell asleep.

Julie walked into the room, and when she saw the brunette, she chuckled a little. Julie walked around and shook her a little bit. "Melanie, it's time for dinner," she said softly. Melaine yawned and sat up. "You must be Julie," her voice was raspy. "Yup," a smile was planted on her face as she walked toward the entrance. Melaine took her shoes and followed.

**
It was 9:50 A.M. and they all sat in the locker room. "I'm so pumped for this," Dean said, wearing all the black. They all had different colours to endorse where they came from, Melanie was wearing black and yellow.

all the ducks were nervous about getting new teammates, but they were also excited. Melanie, on the other hand, was terrified by them, not accepting her. "Tell me about my new team," the coach said.

They were all impressed with all their skills, Luis was super fast. We gasped a little as he couldn't stop and crashed into the boards.

Julie was a fantastic goalkeeper, Dwayne had tremendous puck handling skills, Kenny was great at figure skating, and Dean was a great enforcer. He was a complete goon, though.

Mr. Tibbles began to introduce Melanie, and that's when she began to get nervous.

"Melanie Taylor, she's been playing hockey for a very long time and has some of the skills you may want to check out," he explained, and she started doing her thing. Coach said something, but melanie couldn't hear, that made her anxious. Once they were done, they all began to fight. Melaine was never a fight kind of girl, so she just stepped aside.

"Everybody freeze!" Bombay yelled and everyone stopped and looked at him. "Now we didn't come here to fight, we came here to play hockey. We are Team USA, you represent your country,"

"That's right," Tibbles said and Bombay already looked irritated.

"Now I want you to be-," He started.

"Everything that you can be, right? You gotta raise yourself up," Bombay had a serious look on him, and he stopped. They just laughed a little bit.

"Alright, lets start with a scrimmage,"

"Great Scrimmage!" Tibbles blew his whistle, and Bombay was definitely agitated at this point.

"Hey, you don't need me here, I've got an appointment anyway, with Mrs McKay, she's the team tutor,"

"Don," Bombay said, holding out his hand for Mr Tibbles whistle.

"You will get it back at the end of the school term," Everyone laughed at his comment.

"Alright Ducks, show em what you got, scrimmage!" He blew his whistle, and they all got in position. Melanie had a face-off with one of the blonde boys, Guy Germaine. When they got low, Guy grinned. "Guy Germaine," he said, reaching out his hand, and she grabbed it. "Melanie Taylor, Mel for a short," he smiled, and the whisle blew. Melanie pushed him down and instantly felt bad, but didn't show it.

They were all doing so well, the ducks were fine, but the six new players they got helped a lot. As the scrimmage ended, Dwayne attempted to grab them with a rope, and after, they were dancing. It was definitely a fun day for Melanie, and she's happy she didn't neglect this opportunity.