How It Started (A Prequel to Left Alone in the Dark)

Chapter 5

He began driving my car back to the hotel. "What we need to do tomorrow is find you an actual apartment here in Boston. 2 bedroom because I'll be visiting you a lot, and expect Brad coming randomly into your house asking for a sleepover, he does that a lot" Patrice said making me laugh.

He settled in.

"Since there's only 1 bed I'll sleep on the couch it's fine" I pointed out. Patrice immediately frowned.

"Why would I let you do that? no way that's happening. Your sleeping on the bed and if anything I'm sleeping on the couch" Patrice said.

"No" I said.

"Yes"

"No"

"Yes"

"You know what I'm not even arguing with you holy crap" I said, throwing a pillow at him.

I helped him set up the couch and we both sat down on it.

There was a couple moments of silence.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Asked Patrice.

"Honestly yes. I need to let it all out" I said, making Patrice nod his head.

"So how was your dad like?" Patrice asked, slowly and calmly.

"Well he was tall, unlike me, I'm tiny. Uh well he had big ass brown eyes, like I do, blonde hair, that turned into brown hair. That's why I have dirty blonde hair. He had muscle." I said.

"But I want to know like his personality, I want to know why this man is your hero" Patrice asked.

"My dad- well, he got me into hockey. I was 2 when I learned to skate. He taught me. By 4 I was on a league. He was my role model. I wanted to be like him when I was older. He was brave, outgoing, amazing" I said, "he was the explanation of a dad of your dreams"

Patrice nodded his head slowly, "he sounds like a great dad"

"You mean sounded, he's not here anymore" I corrected him.

"Claire, your dad is still here, not physically but mentally. He's right here" Patrice said pointing to my heart.

Patrice quickly got up from the couch, and took a piece of paper, drawing a heart on it.

He divided the heart into 3 parts.

"Look, this is a diagram of your heart. 1/3 of this is your dad, the other 1/3 is hockey, and well the last 1/3 is..." Patrice said making me quickly cutting him off.

"God" I said, making Patrice laugh.

"Well I was going to say me, but okay then" Patrice said acting offended, but laughing.

"That's what I said though" I said laughing.

"No... You said God" Patrice said.

"You are God though. You are the God of hockey" I explained, making Patrice laugh.

"That's probably the most flattering thing I ever heard in my life. Thank you" Patrice said laughing.

"No problem" I said grinning.

There was a few moments of silence but Patrice ended it.

"Are you gonna go to Buffalo?" He asked.

"I'll try to make the funeral, it's probably next week or somethin" I responded.

"I'll come with you" Patrice said.

"You have hockey though" I said.

"Well I'll take a day of few off, no big deal" he said.

I laughed.

"Do you want to hear a story Patrice? It's about hockey" I asked.

Patrice nodded his head excitingly. "I love stories" he said.

"I love telling this story to people, I just feel like it's one of the main reasons I started hockey. I wanted to accomplish something, but be different then everyone else while doing it." I said.

"Okay so basically, I was 12 years old, and was in a boys only tournament. They didn't have a girls one so I sneaked into it as a boy. So basically I acted like a boy, talked like a boy, I even tucked my hair into a wig." I said.

Patrice started grinning from ear to ear.

"So as I was saying, midway through the second period, I got checked, and my helmet flew off, with my wig. The whole audience went nuts. They were shocked that a girl was on the ice. That was probably the best day in my life, you know why? Because I proved them all that a girl can play hockey with boys, and from that instant, all of the boy into tournaments changed into both gender tournament in my county." I explained.

Patrice stood in shock. "That's amazing! Claire, trust me that's an awesome experience. I would tell a story but I can't think of any good ones" Patrice said smiling.

Patrice and I ended up gossiping and getting to know each other till 2 am in the morning.

Probably not a good idea since we had to be at Ristuccia Arena early morning tomorrow.

But we didn't care about that. This was the official start of a friendship that would last a life time.

So I hope you guys enjoyed this small mini prequel to left alone in the dark! I already started writing a sequel so be prepared for that. I'm really sorry that I promised you that this would be 10 parts but I'm really anxious to start the sequel so yessss.