How To Love A Dead Boy

Chapter 23 | Shiver

"Well, I'll buy a new pair of socks and shoes if they get damaged. Now stop fussing about and get into school. We're both going to be late," she replies. You've got an answer for everything, don't you? If you just let me do what I want to do, and shut your mouth, maybe we both wouldn't be running late. 

With that thought I open the passenger door and step out, the rain already beginning to soak into my blazer. I shiver at the thought of my shirt sticking to me all day while I wait to dry. Slamming the door shut, I sling my backpack over my shoulder and glumly walk up the street to the school. There's a honk from my mother and I turn around to see her driving away.

"You don't look the same without your yellow coat and red shoes out here in the rain. I'm not sure if you're even Lucy Ainsworth," Ryden chirps next to me. He turns me around to face him, moving some wet hair out of the way to take a look at my face. I roll my eyes. 

"Nope, there you are," Ryden laughs to himself. I smile and a sudden cold chill runs through me.

"Come on, stop standing around in the rain and get inside before you catch a chill," he says, placing a hand around my back and running with me into school. Hmph... If worse comes to worse, he can always take the role of Johanna, I smile to myself. 


It isn't until lunchtime when the rain stops. I walk down the second storey hallway to the girl’s bathroom, with Ryden by my side. Inside the bathroom, I check for anyone before letting Ryden inside and he looks around the room. 

"Not much different to ours really. Minus the urinals, that is," he comments.

I snicker; classic boy thinking that girls bathrooms are magic or some shit. At the hand drying, I press the on button and shove my head underneath. Two hours after I'd walked 200m in the rain and my hair still left little puddles if I stood in the same spot for too long. 

Running my hands through my hair, I toss it about under the heated air from the hand dryer in an attempt to dry it as much as possible. 

"Hey Lucy? Aren't you meant to be at hockey training?" Ryden suddenly asks over the roar of the hand dryer.

I freeze, my hands grabbing handfuls of my hair as I trace back to yesterday. Dexter; winter hockey team. I'll see you at lunch tomorrow; it'll be good to have our star player back, Dexter's words echo in my mind. 

I let out a loud cursing fit, before turning off the hand dryer and taking Ryden's hand as I storm out of the bathroom.

"Come on. After all, I am doing this for you," I tell him, before breaking into a jog down the hallway.

Almost tripping while going down the stairs, I drag him to my locker and down to the change rooms. There's no time to usher him out; I just remove my uniform down to the underwear and pull on my P.E uniform, not bothering to do my shoelaces, instead just shoving them between the side of my runners and my socks. 

Ten minutes after Ryden's reminder, we're walking out onto the hockey field where the girls and guys teams are doing laps around the field for warm up. Coach sees me, and he frowns; an expression he is well known for throughout all the years. 

He taps his watch three times as I come up to him, panting a little from all the rushing about. 

"Sorry I'm late Coach. I forgot about today's training," I tell him, even though I'm well aware that Coach has never been one for excuses. Noah tried that a few excuses on him to get out of sport back when he was here; it usually ended up with him doing double the work. 

"Being part of a team at this school means always putting in 150% Lucy; but because I'm just glad I don't have to recruit some useless girl to fill in the spot, you get off this time. But next time, you better like repetition because you'll be running 'round this field no less than thirty-five times," he tells me. I let out a sigh of relief. 

Just as he finishes talking, he looks past me and I follow his eyes to see the teams pooling back into the field. Dexter sees me and waves; I wave back with a smile. 


Training went well, well, minus the rain that started ten minutes into a game between the girls and guys. 

Once again, I find myself soaked form head to toe, my hair back in a ponytail to keep it from dripping in my face. I walk out of the change rooms and see Ryden, still dry as bone, standing outside the door. While before it had just been me getting dressed, now there were another twelve girls in there so I had told him to wait for me outside. 

"So when do you guys actually start playing on the ice?" Ryden asks as we walk back up to my locker. 

"The first fall of snow... or when a pond nearby becomes frozen solid enough for us to start practising on ice... I thought you'd know that. I've seen your name on some of the championship plates in the hallway," I reply. 

"Yeah. I played when I was about fifteen... but I was out practising on some pond I found with Harry. One moment I was swinging for the puck, the next thing I know, I've fallen straight through the ice. Mum never let me out the ice again, even if it was an actual ice hockey arena," Ryden explains. He lets out a short laugh and I look at to him. 

"What?" I ask. 

"It's just... I just remembered how she locked my skates away in the safe. I saved up and bought another pair, but I was always too afraid to take them out of the box. It was like I committing a terrible sin by even touching them. I was such a mummy's boy; it would have been the end of the world if she got mad at me. They're still hidden in my room, brand new, tight enough to give you blisters..." he trails off, entering a world of his own. 

I smile. How ironic. A boy who loves and respects his mum; forced to live with a girl who'd rather her mum to on her business trip that have her arms around her. In a way, I wish I could have the same feelings and image of my own mother...

Another cold shiver runs through me and disrupts my thoughts. 

*           *           *

Later that night, the reason for all the cold shivers makes itself clear. I lie, propped up by my pillows, in my bed, a box of tissues at my side and hot lemon water on my bedside table. The light from my lamp creates a warm glow in the bedroom, and I look up from my book to Ryden, who sits at the end of my bed, with his legs crossed. 

He looks up with a smirk. 

"Told you that you'd catch a chill."

Smartass.