Now I just had to find that boy and make him regret what he said tome…
______
I stormed into the huge arena seeing red, and not just because that was one of the team’s colors. I was still fuming over what TJ had said to me. I replayed it over and over in my head the last hour of the drive, making me more and more angry. I couldn’t think of anything else as I made a beeline straight to the box office and asked for the manager.
“I need to talk to a player!” I yelled at him angrily.
The old man in the booth looked back at meconfusedly.
“I’m sorry, young woman. But I don’t think I can make that happen for you today,” hesaid.
“I. Need. To. Talk. To. TJ. Freaking. Vonnie,” I forced out between clenched teeth, trying to ignore the cold sweat I was feeling from being in a huge crowd of strangers.
“Ellie?” I heard a familiar voice say behind me.
I whipped around to see Sav, looking taken aback. She was dressed stylishly with ripped skinny jeans, boot heels, and her husband’s large jersey overtop. I probably looked like a crazed woman with my hair all a mess from my stressful drive.
“I need to talk to TJ. Right now,” I told her, trying to relay my frustration.
She nodded swiftly, with a look of understanding and motioned for me to follow her.
“Everything okay?” she tested as she power-walked me to an elevator away from the crowd of fans making their way toward their seats.
“Not. At. All,” I punctuated each word as I said it.
“I get it. These boys,” she sighed. “I swear they have the emotional intelligence of middle schoolers half thetime.”
When the elevator stopped moving, it opened to an ugly concrete floor and cinder block walled hallway. I could hear the echo of some kind of ball being kicked around.
“They’re playing their warm-up game called suey over there,” she pointed down the hall. “Keep walking and you’ll run into the boys. Someone will find TJ for you,” she assured me. Come up to box suite 110 when you’re done to fill us girls in. We’ll help you out. We’ve all had that look.”
She reached forward and pulled me into a quick hug, surprising me. I missed a beat before reciprocating.
“Indie and Johnny are up there with the ladies right now, they’d love to see you too,” she said.
I nodded, turned on my heel, and marched my way toward where TJ would be.
33. TJ
“Mine!” I called out and ran to kick the ball back into the circle. I loved playing suey probably just as much as I loved playing hockey. I knew a couple kids on my junior team that said they only continued to play hockey because of suey. It was such a simple game, but so fun. All you did was stand in a circle and kick the ball up and not let it touch the floor, but we went to extreme lengths to keep it going. It also helped to kick our quick-twitch muscles into gear for the game.
I was focusing on my next kick when my shirt was grabbed from behind and I was pulled around.
“Noooo!” The group yelled as the ball fell to theground.
“Yessss!” I shouted triumphantly, because I was spun around to face My Girl.
But the next thing everyone heard: a splintering slap to my face.
“Jesus! Ow, Ellie! What the hell?!” I yelled at her, holding my stinging cheek and feeling betrayed.
“That!” she yelled with a finger pointed at my face. “Is for being mean to me!” She seethed. Her lower jaw was protruding- the tell-tale sign of her anger.
“You called me selfish!” She blew hair out of her face. “You called me weak! You called me a BITCH!” she yelled up at me with crazedeyes.
“Oooooh!” I heard my teammates chorus together behind me.
But I couldn’t help it.
