Fire & Ice

eleven

**Trigger Warning for violence against women and homophobia.**

            Cassies eyes haunted me all week, whenever I closed my eyes there they were. School was a nice distraction for a while but I felt like the universe was against me. For whatever reason I spotted Cassie around my classrooms every time I left. On Monday she was actually waiting outside my English classroom when class let out and walked with me to my last class of the day. I was still wearing the sling to make sure I would be good to go for practice Tuesday. Cassie told me about her first class of the day while I tried not to focus on how good she looked. After my last class of the day I went back to the dorm and basically hid out in my room all night.

            Tuesday there was no way to avoid her as we had Psych together mid-morning. Once class was over I rushed off to the rink as I brought everything I needed for practice with me to avoid walking back to the dorm with Cassie. Much to my displeasure once I got to the rink Coach didn't want me practicing. I put up a fight and he finally allowed me to skate with the team but once they started drills I was off the ice and on the bench to watch.

            I was disappointed but listened to him. It sucked having to sit on the bench and watch the team play without me. I tried to not let it get to me and helped out in a drill by throwing pucks onto the ice towards the end of the session.

            After all the girls left for the rest of their day the girls I coach started to arrive for their lesson. Two additional girls are joining the group today which rounds them out to five. I will most likely keep it at five to be able to give them all the attention they need to improve on the ice. Once everyone was suited up I met them on the ice and we had a light day together. We worked on conditioning since I couldn't really use a stick today.

            When the last of the girls were picked up by their parents I made my way off the ice to the front of the rink and picked up a shift to work public skate tonight. I was on skate rental duty which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. When my shift finally ended I picked myself up something for dinner at the market and went back to the dorm. Cassie was sitting on the couch with a friend I didn't recognize when I walked in so I just turned in for the night.

            By Wednesday my shoulder was starting to feel a lot better. The achiness was fading and so was the bruising. After Cassie patched me up Sunday night I stopped using the icy hot patches. I didn't want to become dependent on them so I just stuck to ice after that. When I left my second class of the day Cassie was once again waiting for me outside and she looked kind of shocked.

            "You aren't wearing the sling?" She asked as I started to make my way down the hall.

            "Yea, the bruising is starting to fade so I thought I could leave it in my room. The team trainer will look me over tomorrow at practice and I'll go from there." I answered.

            Cassie didn't say anything else as I walked her to her second class of the day. When I turned to leave her at the door it looked like she was going to say something to me. I paused in my turn and gave her the chance to speak but she just closed her jaw and walked into the classroom.

            After my classes were over I went to work. Today I was on rink guard duty for the public skate session. I was happy to have Travis' roommate Elliot as my partner for the night. There are two public skate sessions tonight and we had guard duty for the first. I got to know him a little better and it put me at ease to know Travis is rooming with a genuine nice guy. After the first session was over we moved onto working the front door and it made me wish to be back on the ice. When my shift was over I made my way to the hockey house and got to see Travis for the first time since coming home. We ended up getting dinner together and just caught up on our first games.