i laid in bed, dreading the day that was ahead of us. my brother and his friends were gonna be there to support me, but i feel like it'll just end in ridicule. i heard a slight tap at the door and looked to see adam.

"the bus leaves in like fifteen." he told me, speaking lightly.

i sighed and sat up, running a hand through my hair,"thanks."

he stared at me for a second, still trying to be helpful,"it's really gonna be okay."

i nodded, not interested in playing into his words,"thank you, adam, really. i appreciate what you're saying, but i don't wanna talk about it."

he smiled flatly, a little disappointed, but i think he understood why i was being like that,"i get it. just change, and i'll stop trying to be a hero."

i chuckled lightly,"yeah, okay."

he tapped the doorway and walked out. i regretted letting him walk away solemnly, but i just couldn't be who he wanted me to be. he wanted me to play into his words and get inspired by them. but that just wasn't how i worked. i was definitely a pessimist and not even his pretty face could change that.

once i was changed, i sluggishly made my way onto the bus. it would seem i was the last one to make it, because everyone was staring at me when i arrived.

"glad you could join us, babe." dean rolled his eyes.

i scoffed, plopping into the seat next to charlie,"i'm not your babe, puck head."

he shoe back,"we're all puck heads, stupid."

i stuck my tongue out at him, the child friendly version of my middle finger.

charlie sighed as the bus started to move,"leave her alone, portman."

dean winked at me before turning and talking to fulton. i thrusted my hand back, like i was going to hit him. of course, i didn't, but it did earn a laugh from charlie.

i turned to him,"i suppose you want me to thank you."

he shrugged,"do whatever you want, scar. i just work here."

i laughed and shook my head,"well, thank you."

"no problem."

i felt a pair of eyes on me and turned to see banksie himself. he looked at the floor and smiled. even when i was in the worst mood, he still managed to be very cute.

which, i'll admit, now was not the time for me to be thinking about that, but i was pretty much always thinking about that, so what was a girl to do?

"are you nervous?" charlie asked.

i chuckled, turning back to him,"terrified. you?"

he nodded with wide eyes,"those guys are like 7'10, 190 pounds, and thirty years older than us."

i shrugged, staring jokingly,"i'm sure we'll only get minimal brain damage, a tbi is the worst casescenario."

charlie laughed,"yes, a light arterial bleed would be a nice sentiment."

"a minimally invasive shanking would be tolerable." i added.

charlie smiled in amusement,"totally."

when the bus finally came to a stop, charlie groaned. i laughed and got up to leave the bus. my nerves had subsided, but i knew they'd come back any moment.

as soon as i stepped off the bus, i heard a familiar voice yell,"scarlett!"

i turned to see my brother's friend, wilke. my face broke out in a grin as i ran to hug him,"wilk!"

he grinned as we pulled away,"how's it going? you gonna win?"

i laughed,"you clearly haven't seen the other team yet," i saw jack walking our way, so i knew i had to get out of there quickly,"i've gotta go in and change, but it's good to see you."

he nodded,"yeah, okay. i'll see you later."

i walked inside, not bothering to respond, as my nerves had come back angry. as soon as i was in the locker room, i changed as quickly as i could trying to have this disaster fly by.

coach walked into the locker room in a monkey suit and we all burst out laughing. it was terrible, his hair was slicked back by what i could only assume was some kind of grease, and the suit just looked stupid for a coach to wear.

i covered my hand with my mouth, trying to contain the laughter,"oh, coach what happened?"

averman decided to add on to my teasing,"hey, nice jacket. did you get two pairs of pants with that?"

i nodded,"seriously, you've gotta be joking."

"nice hair cut, what did you lose a bet?" averman continued to taunt.

coach snapped, getting very angry, very quickly,"lay off, averman and gilinsky."

i raised my eyebrows and slid my knee pads on, deciding the room had heard enough of my voice.

"my bad." i stated, grabbing my helmet and walking out with adam.

adam looked down at me,"guess you went a little too far?"

i looked at him cluelessly,"i guess so. is he always like this?"

adam shook his head immediately,"no, i don't know what's wrong with him. rough day, maybe."

i nodded as we reached the stadium. i heard the various chatter of hockey watchers, which only solidified my fear for what was yet to go down.

i took a deep breath and shook my hands and feet out. we did it in theatre to help calm us down before opening night. it's supposed to shake out the nerves, though i wasn't sure it was working.

"facing off on this beautiful day, is team iceland and team usa!" i heard the enthusiastic announcer over the intercom.

we skated onto the ice and i felt the overwhelming amount of applause. it was nice that everyone was so excited for us, but i think they'd be disappointed very soon.

i made my way to the box and sat down.

"scar!" i turned to see my brother, front and center.

i half smiled, trying to swallow my nerves,"hey, jack."

"gilinsky! center." coach yelled at me.

i slid my helmet on, grabbed my stick, and hopped out of the box.

i met face to face with gunnar stahl, who looked smug as ever, ready to take me down.

the ref blew the whistle and i was immediately knocked onto the ground. my helmet smashed against the ice and my head felt like it was being stabbed repeatedly. nonetheless, i got up and skated towards the puck. if any of these boys were gonna take me down, i would have to be incapacitated to let it happen.

i stole the puck from some neanderthal and one of the enforcers checked me back into the boards, stealing the air from my lungs. i waited for the whistle to blow, but heard nothing. at the very least, it was a cheap shot. it deserved a whistle.

"are you okay?" jesse asked as he skated by.

i nodded and skated away from the wall, trying to catch up with iceland as they went to make a goal.

and, yet again, i was knocked onto the floor landing right on left arm.

"banks, gilinsky switch!" coach yelled out.

i got up and skated to the box as adam jumped out. i looked up in the stands to see both my brother and his friends were gone.

i let out a sigh of disappointment, knowing i had let him down. i could imagine what it was he was thinking of me right now, but i didn't want it to distract me from the game. so i pushed down the feelings of dismay and focused on the scene in front of me.

iceland made a goal causing a reset. i silently cursed, watching frightfully as dwayne got the puck, showboating as usual. the icelanders crushed him and adam stole the puck just in time to pass it to danny.

he flew by, going faster than i had expected. he lined up to shoot the puck and just as he was about to hit it in, stahl checked him, causing him to fall on the ground.

"this is a shit show." i muttered to no one in particular.

"i'm sayin." jesse rolled his eyes, taking a sip
of water.

ken jumped onto the ice doing his spins, but iceland was one step ahead and knocked the poor guy over. he skated back in the box feeling woozy.

team iceland made another goal and coach called us all over, my head still pounding almost as fast as my chest.

"where's our concentration?!" he yelled, causing me to scoff, as if he had been concentrating the last few weeks,"you guys are running around like a bunch of chickens with your heads cut off!"

"we're trying our best!" jesse defended us.

coach shook his head, continuing to insult us,"well your best isn't good enough. blow this and we are one loss away from elimination. you guys may wanna go home early, but i sure as hell don't."

he sent us back into the game, with me replacing charlie and we started up again. my blood was boiling, not only because of iceland, but because coach had the audacity to talk to us like that, when he hadn't even been acting like a coach.

adam went to face off and as soon as the puck was dropped we were knocked to the ground. i got up immediately and stole the puck, just very vengeful and vindictive at this point. i was out for blood.

i was thrown out of the way and the puck was stolen. i curled my fists and let out a yell in frustration, not that anyone could hear. goldberg went to save the puck but, of course, he was too slow and the siren went off again.

"you're off, goldberg!" coach yelled.

goldie smiled, thanking his preferred deity, and julie pulled up slipping on her gear.

i turned and smiled, glad that i julie was getting her chance. suddenly the whistle blew, announcing julie was out of the game along with dean. i whipped my head around, wondering how that had happened so fast.

i looked to see two puck heads on the floor as julie skated off. i appreciated how daring she was, but now really didn't seem like the time for this to be happening.

goldberg came back on looking like death's dirty cousin. we started again and i passed the puck to fulton, trying to get something out of this game. he shot it as hard as he could and i thought maybe, just maybe we'd have a chance.

i heard a crunch and saw that the goalie had caught it. luckily banks got the rebound. iceland tried to get him, but they all ended up falling or running into each other.

the siren went off and i seriously wanted to kiss adam. he managed to do what none of us could. he smiled and lifted his arms up in victory only to have a stick smashed over his left one. i gasped and skated up to him.

"are you alright?"

he wasn't exactly enthusiastic with his response, leading me to believe he wasn't alright,"fine. let's just keep going."

the game finished 12-1 and I was kind of glad my brother hadn't come back. i wanted to cry, but at least he didn't know about the score.

our heads hung low as we skated into the locker room the sense of defeat suffocating us, tying our mouths shut. we had nothing to say.

we started to change out of our gear when bombay stormed in slamming the locker room door causing me to jump. he was acting like a crazy person.

he started to yell, rage taking over,"twelve-to-one! you know what comes in mind when I think of that? pathetic! you guys came out here to play hockey!"

"what about you, huh?" jesse sneered, having more guts than any of us.

coach scoffed,"what about me, jesse?"

julie spoke up,"coach stansson knew everything about us! they knew exactly what to do, to beat us."

"where were you, coach?" danny questioned, crossing him arms over his chest,"malibu? yeah, that's a couple hours away from us. no wonder you couldn't make it to coach. l.a traffic's a bitch."

i raised my eyebrows in surprise. he's never talked to a coach like that. he's never talked to anyone like that. i rested my hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

"yeah, and you spend all your time driving around in fancy convertibles talking to all them sponsor fools." luis spat.

"or spending all your time with that Iceland lady. eating ice cream with the enemy huh coach?"

the bomb fulton had just dropped caused all of us to stare at coach, wondering what he had to say about that one.

he only seemed to get angrier,"hey! what I do in my free time is none of your business. is that clear?"

i scoffed and shook my head, knowing he was full of shit,"it is our business, when you would rather do that than coach us."

he glared at me,"i do coach you. maybe you guys need to learn to listen."

i laughed, glancing at the ceiling, tired of his lies,"you know, everybody said that you were this amazing teacher. that you cared about every single person you coach. they said you were all hands on, and amazing. guess they had it wrong, huh?"

"don't talk to me that way, gilinsky! you're supposed to be one of my best players? what happened out there?!" he started to question me, to deflect the blame from himself.

i didn't even dignify the question with a response. instead, we all started to get out of gear once again.

"what do you think your doing? we've got practice." coach told us.

i rolled my eyes, slipping my jersey back on. he was going to be the death of us all.

he made us do drills skating from one end of the rink to the other until about ten o'clock. the game ended at four.

when i thought we were done, he decided to come at me,"gilinsky! stay. you've got another hour."

i bit the inside of my cheek to keep from snapping,"sure thing, coach."

i wasn't sure why he had decided to attack me, but he just kept going,"you know, scarlett. you would do a lot better at hockey, if you just stopped blaming everyone else. you're just weak. you're weak and you don't wanna blame it on yourself, so you find someone else. you're staying another hour to strengthen you up. maybe then you'll actually be my star player."

i rolled my eyes, deciding not to say anything. the white hot rage i felt for him couldn't be put into words, it would just be a lot of cursing, followed by a few punches thrown. and that couldn't happen, so instead i just did my laps.

at eleven, coach left and i went back to the locker room to change. when i was in there alone, i broke down tears falling onto my gear.

i slipped on my shoes and walked out of the rink continuing to cry. about everything.

i had no idea where jack was, i'm exhausted and dehydrated, and coach said some terrible things. i mean, who even was this guy?

not to mention, it was dark and the los angeles streets are not the place you wanna be as a female with nothing to protect herself.

"scar?" i heard a voice say.

i looked up to see adam. i quickly wiped my tears.

i sniffed, rubbing my nose with my sleeve,"hey, adam. what are you still doing here?"

he smiled lightly,"i waited, so i could walk you home. it's dark outside."

the sentiment was nice, and if i wasn't so upset, i'd maybe be able to take it in. but i couldn't, so instead we just walked in a comfortable silence.