As Ripley walked through the halls after the board meeting earlier that morning, she couldn't help but feel... flustered.
So many things were running around in her mind.
Why Adam was all of a sudden back with the Ducks? Why did everyone all of a sudden forgive him? Why did he stand up for her against Rick? What did Rick mean about the cheerleader comment?
There was way too much going on in her mind, and there was almost no room in her head to think about what actually mattered to her: hockey.
Feeling her anger subside was the only thing that kept her going throughout the day. She wasn't sure if it was because she finally got to punch Rick, or if it was because of the insinuation Rick had made.
"Banksie boy still has feelings for the girl. Thought we squashed those when we made that cheerleader kiss you."
The comment ran wild through her mind, as she tossed and turned it over trying to find out what Rick meant.
The sentence was clear, she knew what he meant, but it still didn't make a lick of sense.
If the varsity boys had set up the kiss, then why did Rick come to her personally to tell her about it? And, why did they feel the need to set the kiss up in the first place?
She felt her heart flutter at the thought that maybe, just maybe, Adam had liked her, and possibly still did. But as much as she wanted that to be the truth, she knew it wasn't. He still wasn't even talking to her, if he liked her he'd be doing much more than that.
She tried to pay it no mind, acting as if none of the comments bothered her, and awful habit Ripley kept repeating. She kept up the same facade when lunch came around. She hoped that if she remained quiet, no one would pay her any mind, and she'd be able to think over everything some more.
Unfortunately for her, lunch was nothing less than interesting.
She tried her quiet tactic, and for awhile it seemed to be working. She was able to go seemingly unnoticed by her friends are her eyes trailed over the lunch room, falling on her ex-teammates table.
She noticed Rick was staring back at her, and evil look on her face, and she quickly turned her head back to her food.
That's when she noticed something, someone, familiar making their way over to the table.
"Banksie!" Her friends shouted in excitement as the smiling boy took an open seat next to Averman, which happened to be almost right in front of the girl.
"It's so good to have you back, man." Charlie said, smacking his back.
Adam smiled at the boy, "It's good to be back."
Ripley kept her gaze down towards her food, which didn't go unnoticed, as Connie took in the girls uncomfortable figure.
"The Ducks are back together at last." Goldberg said, leaning back in his seat.
"Ducks fly together." Charlie said, bumping Adam with his arm.
The blonde smiled, "Ducks fly together."
Ripley felt sick at the comment.
What the hell was going on?
Had she missed something? Surely she had. She assumed they must've made up in private or something, because she couldn't recall ever hearing that Adam was openly accepted into the group again.
Even if they had made up, she thought it was bogus. Considering mere days ago her friends wanted nothing to do with the blonde boy in front of her, but now, they couldn't seem to keep their eyes off of him.
She refused to look up, wanting nothing more than to just leave and go eat elsewhere. Eating with the cheerleaders would've made Ripley feel more comfortable than she was now.
"Dude." Kenny bumped Ripley's arm, getting her attention. "Rick won't stop staring at you."
"I noticed that, too." Guy chimed in, "Looks like you're at the top of his hit list, Rip."
The girl laughed, still poking at her food. "I've been at the top for awhile now. I can't wait for the game next week."
Connie laughed at her sarcasm, "Oh well, he had the punch coming. He didn't get anything he didn't deserve."
"True shit, Moreau." Ripley nodded, smiling at her friend.
The table went quiet for a moment, before Averman interrupted the silence. "So... Are we all gonna just ignore what Rick said?"
The friends all turned their attention to the ginger boy, confused. Well, all confused except for Adam and Ripley.
"About... uh.. you know. You two."
Averman looked between Ripley and Adam, and everyone else turned to face them as well.
"Oh come on guys, don't play dumb. We all heard the comment about-"
"Can it, Averman." Julie said, gripping the ginger's arm. "You know that boy will say anything to get a rise out of people."
Everyone nodded and tried to forget the awkward topic, except for Ripley. She wanted to throw up, recounting everything going on in her life.
No, really, she wanted to throw up. She felt like she was going to throw up.
Ripley kicked out her seat in an instant, and rushed out of the lunch room as quickly as possible.
She heard footsteps follow her, praying it was just Connie, and it was.
"Dammit, Averman." Adam yelled at out, loud enough for Ripley to hear even as she was rushing away.
"What?"
She still heard Connie behind her until she made it to the bathroom, bursting into a stall and throwing up all the lunch she had just eaten.
"Go away, Adam!" Ripley heard her friend call out from the hallway. "You know she doesn't want to see you right now, especially right now."
"I just want to make sure she's okay!"
"Fuck off, man!" Connie replied, Ripley taking in how angry she sounded. "Just because all of the other Ducks have forgiven you, doesn't mean we do too. Go away."
She heard her friend rush into the bathroom after that, finding Ripley hunched over in a stall.
Connie turned on a faucet, trying to drown out the hurls coming from her mouth, and made her way over to Ripley.
"It's okay, Rip." She said, pulling the girls hair back into a make-shift ponytail. "Let it all out."
-
"All right, I've been doing my homework on the varsity." Coach Orion said, looking out upon his players. "I'm not gonna lie to you, they're good. The way they wiped your faces in the dirt last time was no fluke. So if you want your pride back, you better be ready to work."
"There's nothing glamorous about it. In the pros, we call it blue-collar hockey. Now there's one thing the varsity does very well. They're vultures around the net. They pick up every piece of loose trash. That's how they beat you. Not with the first shot; the second and the third. They bang in the junk. So if you wanna win, you're gonna have to pick up the trash."
Orion spilled out contents of a trash bag in front of the team, everyone turning away in disgust.
He encouraged the team to clean it up as fast as they could, banging their sticks against metal cans and soggy banana peels.
"We definitely didn't do this on varsity." Ripley said, turning to Connie.
"I bet you're starting to miss it now, huh." Connie teased.
Ripley nodded, "Maybe a little."
The team continued to swipe at the trash, until it was once again piled into the bag.
Orion smiled, "Good work."
The friends smiled, until the saw the man tip over the trash bag once more, unleashing it over the ice again.
"Now, again!"
-
The players were all dead towards the end of practice, all except for Adam and Ripley of course. They were both used to hard practices.
"Grab a knee!" Orion yelled as the group circled around him, falling to their knees exasperated.
He waited until everyone was paying attention before he started, "You guys are not skating like Warriors!"
Ripley and her friends huffed, wondering what he meant because they all thought practice was going great.
"You look like something else." Orion started.
The group looked at him in confusion, before a smirk began to spread across their coach's face.
"You look like Ducks."
They all glanced around in excitement as Orion began to open a box, pulling out an infamous Duck jersey.
"Robertson."
The friends continued to cheer and jerseys went flying as names were called. Finally, everyone had a jersey, except for Ripley.
"And, Bell." Orion said, personally handing her over the jersey. "Welcome to the Ducks, kid."
She smiled brightly as her friends swarmed around her, drowning her in a group hug.
When they finally let go of her, she turned the jersey around, staring at the back.
Bell, 27.