A Love-Hate Relationship

21~ Having a Little Fun

Johnny

I hit the puck, watching as it slid across the smooth ice and into the goal. The other team's goalkeeper dove to the side, trying to block it. He slid on his skates and fell, giving me the win.

"That's 1 to 1!" Kevin called out from the sidelines.

I smiled, high-fiving one of my teammates as I skated. I glanced over to the sidelines, seeing Marissa coming in with her backpack on.

I was a little confused. I expected her to walk home with her friends. Why would she have stayed?

We continued the game for a while until the score was 7 to 3. I threw down my hockey stick and drummed my fists on my chest, letting out a victorious Tarzan yell.

All my teammates tackled me to the ice, pulling my helmet off and rubbing their knuckles on my head. When the pile up was over, we got off the ice.

Marissa was sitting at the bleachers, reading a book. Her backpack was next to her, seemingly empty. It was the opposite of what it usually was; filled to the brim with books and notebooks.

"What are you doing at school so late?" I asked as I walked to the bleachers to take my skates off.

Marissa glanced up at me from her book, which I recognized as her copy of Rillia and the Diamond Crown. Of course.

"It started raining, so Mom said to wait for Dad to pick me up. He's working late today. Ballet was canceled because we were supposed to practice outside. It's coming down pretty hard out there."

"Don't one of your friends have umbrellas or something?"

"Yeah, but I didn't feel like cramming under an umbrella while trying not to get my hair wet. I just washed it yesterday."

I rolled my eyes. "You girls. Always fretting about your hair." I lightened my voice to imitate a girl. "'Oh, my hair's a mess!' 'Oh, I need to put frilly and sparkling pins in my hair!' 'Oh, I don't want the wind to ruin my hair!'"

She hit my head with her book. "Shut up. You don't know how it feels," she said. "Plus, I don't mind staying at school. I got to see your game. Got some homework done at the library. It's pretty chill."

"That explains the empty backpack." I patted her bag.

She sighed. "Yes. Thank God. And now I can distract myself from the fact that I'm skipping ballet this week."

I leaned back, a smirk growing on my face as I got an idea.

"You know what would be really fun?" I said.

"What?"

"Well, in my freshman year, my best buds and I went up to the intercom room. And we started talking over the speaker, right? Nothing bad, just saying nonsense and making everyone laugh. Then the security guards came in."

"Security guards?" Marissa stuck a bookmark in her book, finally closing it and putting it aside.

"Yup. You see, a few years before I started high school, some idiots insulted a group of students over the intercom and got suspended, so they put some guards there to avoid it from happening," I explained. "But we knew a way past them, and we got in there and said a bunch of stuff. So, they're about five or six guys who take their job seriously, and when they came in, they literally chased us around the entire school."

She laughed. "What did you say?!"

"Nothing! I don't remember," I chuckled, remembering how we ran all over campus like escapees from prison. "I just know it brightened everyone's day, made them laugh. Even the teachers were laughing. Principal Bean gave us detention, but he let us go because we didn't really do anything bad. We didn't insult anyone. We just played around."