Sparkling Fear, page 24
"That sounds good," I smiled.
The party was pretty spontaneous, and I wasn't entirely sure it was a good idea at first because of all the shit he'd been through. But when I told the three boys about my idea, and they didn't think it was a bad idea and advised their help, I was much more sure.
"So the plan is in place then?" I rubbed my arms because it was freezing, and the wind was strong up here on the roof terrace.
"It looks like it," he said, nodding and taking a sip from his champagne glass.
My feet were aching. Although burning was more like it. I felt like I'd been walking on heated nails all evening. I thought it would only be half as bad to walk in high heels all evening.
I lay down under Charles' comforter and watched him lie down in bed with Simba on his arm. On the way back, Charles and I had a discussion about whether Simba should sleep in our bed or in his cat basket.
In the end, we agreed that he would sleep in his basket or where he feels more comfortable, but as long as we were still awake, he could lie in bed with us. Jude had told us and taken photos of Simba lying anywhere but in his basket. Between the shoes by the wardrobe, in the pile of laundry in Charles' bedroom, and under the comforter that Carter slept with on the sofa.
His biceps tensed as he propped himself up on his elbow. "How's the preparation for the contest going?"
"Pretty good. Thanks to Holly, I've finally finalized the choreography, but I'm going to dance barefoot because that makes it easier," I said.
"Barefoot? So no pointe shoes?"
I turned a little more towards him and played with the silver filigree chain around his neck. "That's what we've adapted the choreography to. It's modern dance."
Charles looked at me. "Then I guess my present won't really fit."
He turned away from me and leaned over the bed, pulling a slim package out of his drawer. "For you."
I carefully took the package in my hands and looked at him, hoping to see from his gaze why he had something for me.
"Now unwrap it!"
"Charles!" I said, completely overwhelmed as I saw the pointe shoes, throwing my arms around his neck and hugging him as tightly as I could.
"Think of it as an early Valentine's Day present," he smiled.
"But they're far too—"
"Don't you dare say it."
I was definitely the happiest girl in all the universes that existed. I really had found my first, and only love, as well as my best friend, in Charles. And I couldn't wait to experience life and the future with him. "Are you coming to the contest?"
"Of course, Sunshine."
I stroked his cheeks with my thumb and felt the short stubble of his beard. "Thank you, Charles. For everything," I whispered against his lips before giving him a short kiss.
"Stop thanking me. It's the least I can give you back. You're the reason I'm still here. You're my sunshine."
I've never felt so close to him as I did right now. I didn't mean our bodies, but as if an invisible string connected our souls.
"I love you, Captain."
"I love you too. More every day," he kissed me.
If my past self asked me in September if I was still afraid of falling in love, my answer would be: Not anymore because with the right person, love can be so beautiful and magical.
I got caught by the right person.
Chapter Fifty-One
Charles
The atmosphere was tense. I clenched my hands into fists and tried to concentrate and relax which didn't really work when I already sat in class.
I focused my gaze on the rubber floor that was laid out in our locker room. My nervousness grew with every moment, and Weston running back and forth in front of me in full gear only worsened it. The season was slowly coming to an end. The game against the Easthill Gladiators should have started a long time ago, but for some reason they wouldn't let us on ice.
Suddenly, the coach burst into our locker room, and I got up from the bench. He looked anything but excited, and from the look on his angry face, it would only be another couple of minutes before we could get on ice.
If the game would even take place today.
"The game will be delayed another few minutes," Coach Henderson said, rubbing his wrinkled forehead. Just as he said that, the announcer also announced the delay out in the arena.
Weston was still pacing back and forth. "Why?"
"The team was ordered to a drug test."
Heat shot through my body, and I felt like my blood was going to start boiling in my veins.
Drug test? Now? There really couldn't have been a more stupid time. My teammates looked at me with a look that meant Do something, Captain.
I just shrugged my shoulders, because there was nothing I could do at that moment, but I knew that it was going to end really badly for someone on our team.
"We're going to search your bags first before taking a urine sample from everyone," the coach explained.
This was a bad joke.
Two people from the drug testing organization explained that we had to leave the locker room as a team so they could search all our bags. It was nothing new, as it was common for universities that focused on sports to be drug tested annually or every few weeks.
Searching our bags was the least of my worries, as my flask was in my car. The urine sample was more of a concern.
"Coach, what are you doing? We should have been on the ice ten minutes ago," I asked, hoping to get some answers. "Is this another joke from the Gladiators?"
This team was to blame for having to cancel a game from last season because they wanted a drug test, but from the look on Coach's face, I was almost sure it wasn't the Gladiators.
"No. They're being tested right now, too," he mumbled into his beard.
I walked over to the others standing in full gear at the front door of the locker room and told them what Coach had just told me. "He doesn't know anything either. The other team is also under investigation."
I couldn't hide my anxiety from my friends any longer, so I pulled Weston aside. "Weston, I think I really fucked up."
"What?"
I rubbed my face and felt the beads of sweat running down my forehead, and it felt like a sauna under my jersey. "I can't give a urine sample," I said as quietly as I could. Weston's look turned to anger within a second.
"Charles, don't fuck with me."
I tried to stay calm and bit my lower lip.
"Are you on speed?"
I looked at my teammates to make sure they hadn't heard. "No, God damn it." I hissed. I would never take drugs that made me push myself to improve my performance on the ice.
Never.
With my thumb and index finger, I tried to show the amount of alcohol I had consumed. "I had a small, tiny sip in the car to calm myself down before the game."
I knew that alcohol wasn't the solution and that it was the stupidest of all, but on the way here, I felt like I was about to have a panic attack. Who was going to help me if Leni wasn't there? I tried to call her, but she didn't answer, and then I didn't know how to help myself.
"You're not fucking serious, Charles. You know what the consequences will be if they find out you've been drinking."
Weston almost sounded like my father.
Oh, fuck. My father.
"Yeah. Fuck yeah. I know." I rubbed my face again, and the thought of the consequences of that little sip of alcohol tightened my throat.
"They're not going to find out."
I looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"There are two possibilities." Weston took another step toward me to speak even more quietly. "Either we're next to each other in the toilets, and you give me your cup under the alcove, so I can pee in there, or you go to the toilet after me, and I won't flush."
"Weston, if this gets out that you helped me, you're fucked."
With my words, I tried to talk some sense into him, because he was really stubborn that way. Once he'd gotten something into his head, you couldn't talk him out of it.
Unless your name was Luna Montgomery.
He'd already gotten a warning from the coach for seeing through Weston's plan when he provoked the brawl on ice, so I got traded.
"But they won't. We'll handle it, okay?"
As I said, he's a stubborn guy.
"It won't work. They'll control the toilets."
I'd talk him out of it, for sure. I knew the four of us would take the rap for each other, but not in this situation. Not when he had just signed the New Jersey Devils contract.
"Weston—"
Before I could speak any further, I heard Coach Henderson yell my name. Something deep inside me knew something had been found. Not by me, for God's sake. But from someone on the team and because I was the captain, he called after me.
I turned around. "Come with me!" He looked at me angrily. So angry that you'd think devil horns were about to grow out of his forehead. I did what he said, and my friends and others from the team followed him into the locker room. One of the women doing the drug tests held up a small, clear bag of white powder.
I furrowed my eyebrows and looked at the coach. If I was going to get told off because we actually had someone on the team sniffing drugs, that would be more than unfair.
"That's your bag, isn't it?" The woman with the pinned-up blonde hair pointed at my bag. Did I just see that the drugs were found in my bag?
Fuck.
I felt an icy shiver run down my spine, and I had the feeling my heart was about to give up.
It was my bag, and it would be stupid to lie now. There was a small hockey skate with a round plate engraved with my number sixty-eight hanging from the bag. Carter, Weston, Henry, and I all had a tag like that with our back numbers.
"Yes, Ms." I said meekly, knowing that agreeing to her question would only confirm their suspicions. The shitty thing about this whole fucked up shit was that I had never seen this bag with the white powder before.
I tried to understand what was happening here, but there was nothing but emptiness in my head right now. I couldn't even tell what day it was.
Coach groaned in annoyance and shook his head. "Tell me that's not your bag, Whitfield," he growled.
"Coach." Any attempt to talk my way out of this situation now was futile, because how was I supposed to explain it to the coach, let alone my teammates and my three best friends?
"I'm not your coach anymore."
I looked up at him with a jerk before looking at my friends.
"You are disqualified from the game. Your contract is terminated with immediate effect."
"Coach," I said angrily. "I've never seen that bag before. I swear."
It was hopeless.
"That's it, Whitfield!"
Those words left little cuts on my skin, and I felt like I was going to puke on my hockey skates.
"You're going to talk about everything with the dean."
That was it, not only for ice hockey, but also for ESU. I was screwed, and, if my dad found out about this, I would be homeless. I turned back to my friends who looked at me with so much disappointment, I've never felt more humiliated in my entire life.
"I don't know how the drugs got there," I tried to explain myself further, but the sentence didn't change the faces I was looking into. Weston wouldn't believe me either way after I told him I'd been drinking before the game.
"Pack your stuff. Leave your jersey here. You don't deserve that back number and the C on your jersey!"
Without objecting, I sat down on the bench and loosened the laces of my hockey skates before slipping into my sneakers.
"Coach, can I talk to you for a minute, please? I want all this—"
"The game will be delayed a few more minutes. Captain Charles Whitfield has been disqualified from the game," the announcer's voice said through the microphone, and now several hundred people knew that something had happened. It would only take a few minutes for the first rumors about my disqualification to do the rounds anyway.
I grabbed my bag and walked after the two women
"Charles," Weston called after me. He pulled me back by the shoulder, and before I could react, he punched me in the face.
"I would have helped you, you fucking asshole," he snarled before Carter and Henry pulled him back and the coach walked between us. "Fuck you," he called after me as I left the locker room.
Not only had I lost my place on the team, but I had also lost my three best friends. I was taught back then that there was no losing on the ice.
Whitfields didn't know how to lose.
We won, or we learned and grew. That's what my dad always said, and that's what he taught Paisley and me the first time we stepped onto an ice surface. The better I was at winning games on the ice, the worse I was at keeping the most important people in my life because who knows who else I would lose.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Leni
Walking upstairs with two bags slung over your shoulders while trying to light the candles on a cake, as well as the twenty-one in the middle, proved extremely difficult.
I really hoped it was past midnight because I left my phone at home before work. My shoulders were about to collapse because I had quite a long day at university and had to borrow books from the library for an exam.
I carefully unlocked the front door to our apartment, hoping Charles wouldn't hear me and Simba wouldn't run out. It was dark in the apartment, and only through the burning candles could I see his silhouette sitting on the couch.
Perfect. He was at home, and the glowing red clock in the kitchen showed that it was already past midnight. My surprise went according to plan. Nothing could ruin this plan now.
I grinned like a child who was allowed to eat a mountain of vanilla ice cream. My eyes focused on the candles because I was afraid they would go out if I walked too fast. I put the bags on the floor and took off my shoes. I approached the sofa. "Happy birthday, boyfriend." I smiled and stood in front of the sofa waiting for his reaction, but when he didn't show a single reaction, let alone turned his head towards me, I knew something was off. Was the cake with the candles and the two candles in the middle making a twenty-one too cheesy?
Something was very wrong here.
"Charles," I said his name firmly. "Look." I stretched out my arms and held the cake a little closer to him, but he sat there frozen.
"Can you please just stop this?" he said very quietly.
"But it's your birthday and Valentine's Day," I said, because I didn't remember him ever hating either of those days.
"I'm no longer on the team."
Wait, what?
I immediately placed the cake and the small paper bag with his gift on the table and turned on the small lamp that was on a dresser in the living room.
Despite the dim light, I saw enough to understand why Charles was the way he was. I slumped my shoulders as I saw him sitting there. His eyes were red, and his jaw was slightly green. The drops of his tears could be seen on his grey sweater.
"What happened?"
Charles took a long drink from the vodka bottle. "They found cocaine in my gym bag," he laughed ironically.
I widened my eyes. I've seen that blank look in him before, and it was when he told me about Ethan's death and how he was feeling knowing he was gone.
"Don't play with me," I said with so much incredulity, hoping some of his terrible humor had just come through.
"Leni, why the fuck would I be playing with you?" he roared, and I flinched as his words filled the room.
I hesitated. "I'm not going to ask you if you're taking some." With those words, I tried to convince myself that what he said wasn't true. I knew him well enough to know he wouldn't do drugs.
"They took away my position as a captain and voided my contract with immediate effect," he sobbed, wiping his sleeve under his nose. "I went to see the dean. My parents have been notified. They'll arrive in the next few days."
I sat down on the sofa. "What does that mean?"
"I can finish the semester, and then that's it for me at ESU." Only then did I see that Simba was lying next to him between all the pillows and resting his head on his thigh. "You need to find something new to live with Simba."
I shook my head. "No!"
For the first time, he turned to me and looked at me with his glassy eyes. "What do you mean no, Leni? I'll be leaving college in two months and moving back with my parents, if I can still call them my parents by then or if they haven't ripped my head off," he said, aghast.
I scooted closer to him on the sofa. "We can do it." I tried to calm myself down a bit with these words because it just scared the shit out of me. "We are boyfriend and girlfriend. We'll find a solution."
Charles looked at me, dumbfounded. "Do you think so?" There was so much irony in his voice. "I lost everything. Everything," he shouted, getting up from the sofa. Simba twitched and jumped off the sofa.
"You got me, Charles."
"I fucked up. Again! Again, Leni," he continued to shout at me, and I had the feeling that his words would push me into the sofa.
"Stop yelling at me like that."
"I'm sorry," he tilted his head back. "I'm a bad friend, a bad son, who's in the eyes of my dad a disappointment and a bad boyfriend."
"You aren't." My voice broke, and I felt tears welling up in my eyes because I don't want him to think that. "Do not say that."
"God, damn it. Just listen to yourself," he laughed. "That's it for me, and it's better for you when I leave. I'm only hurting you and… and, I don't fucking know."
"Yes, you would hurt me when you leave now and you don't even know what you're saying. You're drunk," I sighed. Because, judging by the bottle, I was very sure that he had reached that level after a night of partying.
Charles staggered back and forth as he concentrated on drinking. "I know exactly what I'm saying. Every fucking word," he slurred, setting the glass bottle down on the kitchen counter with a loud thud.
"Charles, please. We've been through so much. I definitely won't leave you alone now."
