My Way Back to You

Chapter 2 | Practice For Goalies

Anthony

Hockey has been both a blessing and a curse the last 3 years. It's the crazy chaos in my life that I've always dreamed of having. To top it off, my dad is my coach.

He's helped me catch up for not being in hockey for any of my high school years. That's a curse.

I've been going to school for athletic medicine and I'm 2 more years away from my degree. But the way I have broken school records in hockey, I might just make a career out of it.

I think about Lydia and the day we officially went our separate ways. It was after our preformance and we had just won silver. Coach Carl was on the sidelines waving his arms in excitement.

While we were still on the podium with roses in hand, I placed one beind Lydia's ear. She gave me a tight hug and asked, "Is this really it?"

I remember the pain I felt as I nodded. As much as I didn't want to lose her, hockey was what I truly wanted, and as I drove myself home that night I whispered to myself "If it was truly meant to be, fate will find my way back to her."

I wonder how much she must have changed in the 3 years I haven't seen her. Would I recognize her if I saw her? Would she recognize me?

I need to focus on this homework. We have our first test in a few days and I can't work uphill all semester. I've been working on my clinicals for school the last week and I'm absolutely exhausted.

Cody, my roommate, has gone out and picked up coffee for me before he goes to his classes. We met when getting paired up for rooms freshman year of college and we have been inseparable since. He's majoring in psychology and also does hockey on the side.

Cody plays offense and his nickname is "Code Red". I can usually be found playing forward, but I have been practicing goalie for a while on and off. I've never gone goalie during a game yet.

"The usual." Cody slides the coffee cautiously towards me as I sit at my desk with an unamused look on my face. Homework is so annoying.

I take a sip and crack up, "You goofy goober, you get me something different every time. The fuck you going on about a usual?"

Without a word Cody smirks and does a mini salute as he heads out the door. Some days I wish his long blonde curls would get caught in the door as he closed it.

I finish my homework and snooze on my desk while listening to music. I don't have any classes for the rest of the day so I didn't bother to set an alarm.

I woke up 2 hours later to a text from Cody, "You coming? I'm waiting for you in the parking lot outside the dorm."

Crud.

I still had practice tonight.

Practice started in 40 minutes and it took around 10 minutes to get there. However, the guys get there early to watch the last game's film.

I sit up off my desk and crack my back and neck. Sleeping while slouched over on a desk is not the brightest idea.

The stairs in my dorm echo through the stairwell as I head down to Cody's red mini cooper. All the guys make fun of him for it but he claims to have bought it as a joke.

At least I don't have to drive, and that's all I care about at the moment.

We drive through the winding roads of Kimberly University. The campus is set between two highways and surrounded by a thin forest. There's hiking trails for the public and I appreciate that it's a secluded campus. No where near a city, and everyone lives off of the gas station just outside campus.

We arrived at the rink in a huge dome building. Hockey is what Kimberly is known for. The outside of the rink is a weird orangeish metal with a white roof. Ugly if you ask me but it's the inside that counts.

The inside of the locker rooms are yellow, black, and silver. Which is a win because yellow is my favorite color.

The cold air hits our faces as we walk through the rink to get to Coach's office to watch the last game's film. We won 3-2. It was against one of the best teams in the state so Coach was pretty proud.

Tonight we planned to party over it.

I sat down with the guys on one of the two couches in Coach's office. The huge flatscreen tv sat at the other end of the room on the wall. Watching games pre practice is entirely player led meaning Coach just leaves the door unlocked.

Zach turns the tv on and we begin to watch the game. We make fun of each other and discuss what we should have done. Hindsight is 20/20.

Coach comes into the room 20 minutes later and motions with his arm to get out and get changed. We walked down the stairs of the hockey complex upon the concrete stairs that echoed through the metal building.

After getting into our gear, we lined up to get on the ice. One after another we jumped on the ice and went around the rink getting a feel for our newly sharpened skates.

We were directed to do our warm ups and practice low, sharp turns. Coach wants us to be able to flip around faster to keep up with faster teams.

My dad / coach then separated the rest of the team from the goalies. Me in training. We stretched on dry land. The assistant coach, Nick, met with the three of us and discussed the previous game. He's an ex NHL goalie.

By the end of practice we were all breathing hard. As we stepped off the ice, guys were tearing their gloves and helmets off, their hair wet.

The locker room was quiet. Through the midst of the silence Zach whispers "Is it still on tonight?"

"Are you kidding?" Cody replied, "Of course. We will just lie a little lower."

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