Decisions Ch. 05

Author's Notes: Happy Early Thanksgiving!

*****

Chapter 1:

I glided across the ice, maneuvering the puck with my stick as if I were weaving in between defenseman. Suddenly turning, I sliced my skates through the ice and sent a shower of fresh snow in the air. I drew my stick back against the puck, forcibly bringing it down and giving the puck one hell of a shot. I stared as the puck sailed towards net and smacked it dead center.

"And he scores!" I whooped, throwing my fist up in the air, my voice echoing around the rink.

Realizing that I was going to have to get the puck myself, I skated towards the net. I reached with the end of my stick, collecting it. A grin was plastered on my face as I went back to gently skating around the rink and keeping the hardened piece of rubber situated in front of me. Even though I was perfectly healthy and injury free, I was taking it easy. Nothing too fancy, nothing too fast; just a nice, fun, gentle pace to blow off some steam.

"Is it time to go already?" Stasi called over to me. She skated over to me, catching up once I crossed the blue line to the other half of the rink. Her territory. She was skating around on the other end of the rink, practicing an old figure skating routine that she choreographed herself. She had left me to my own devices, knowing that I liked to go into my own little world pretending to blast imaginary buzzer beaters into the net.

I pulled up the sleeve of my hoodie, checking the chunky watch strapped to my wrist, a gift from my parents. I looked up at Stasi, shaking my head.

"No, it's only 12:32. We should start heading back, though. Just so we're not late."

"Agreed. I don't want to ruin my perfect attendance to Mr. Carson's class. Last one to the bench is a rotten egg!" She sang, taking off for the bench and leaving me in a flurry of snow. I smiled, following her half-heartedly. Even though I was pretty fast on skates, I'd never be able to beat her with her taking a head start like that. Besides, I had a good view from back here. I watched her form admirably, my eyes trailing down to the way her rear end swayed as she skated. It looked almost as if her jeans were painted on her.

Stasi turned around at me as I glided into the Player's Bench. She narrowed her eyes. "You let me win." She accused.

"I just didn't want to embarrass you in front of the crowd." I smiled at her, sitting down on the bench to begin taking off my black hockey skates. "Look how many people are here."

"Oh please," Stasi scoffed, baring her fangs. "I could mop the floor with you in a race." She plopped down next to me, propping her white figure skates on the rest so she didn't have to bend over so much. Grunting cutely in exertion, she reached down, untied the knot, and began to work on wresting the boot away from her foot.

"You couldn't beat me if your life depended on it." I smirked. I reached under my right boot, yanking it off in one powerful go. I sighed in relief, setting the boot down and working on the one on the left.

"You sure about that?"

"Not really." I admitted, looking at her. "You're actually pretty fast. The only person I could beat is Viktor and he's getting better every single day that passes."

"Eh... no. Thanks for trying to make my boost my ego, lyubov, but you're definitely faster than the both of us by a mile." Stasi laughed. "Even though Viktor is practicing like a man possessed."

"No, I'm pretty sure you're a bit faster." I claimed. "As for Viktor, good for him. He'll make the team for sure."

Viktor had been practicing extensively during the offseason for hockey, vying for a spot on the team. He was working hard in the hopes that he'd be able to play on the same line as me, him at center and me at left winger. It was something he had wanted to do ever since he was in middle school. I had seen him played with him a couple of times and he was actually fairly good. His excellent passing skills and uncanny ability to create scoring opportunities out of nowhere complemented my speed and offensive prowess.

All aboard the hype train for the Williams-Sokolov Dynamic Duo! Not the original Chris and Stasi one. I meant the knock-off Viktor and Chris one.

I turned my face back to my boot, starting to get slightly more frustrated with the damn thing. Maybe it'd be smarter to untie my boot all the way before I tried to take it off, like Stasi did... but that'd take too much time and prove that she was smarter than me. I acquiesced on a bunch of stuff when it came to Stasi and I, but I refused to bow down to her lighthearted claim that she was smarter than me, even if we knew it wasn't true.

We both had our strengths and weaknesses when it came to academics. Mine were English, Math, and History. Hers were Science, Foreign Languages, and apparently taking off skates and making it look extra cute while doing so. I continued to struggle with the boot, while Stasi merely pulled her dainty, sock-covered feet out of her skates and slid on her sneakers, which she tucked under the bench before we got on the ice. She made it look so easy.

"You still have the note in your shoe, right?" Stasi asked, once she laced up her shoes.

"The note?" I stopped my struggling with my goddamn stupid I-Swear-I'll-Throw-You-Away boot to blindly feel under my seat for my shoes. Feeling the cloth with my fingers, I latched onto them and pulled them out of their hiding spot. Sure enough, the piece of yellow paper was still safely in it's hiding spot. "Yeah, it's right here."

The paper in question was a handwritten note from Principal Finch. It was a permission slip allowing Stasi and I to hang out in the Belcourt High School Hockey Rink during lunch. The hockey rink had gotten refurbished during the fall and was ready for the season. It was certainly one to behold, seating a total of 3,000 occupants, not counting the few suites. It was affectionately nicknamed the Labyrinth, after the legend of Thesaurus and the Minotaur... or was it Theseus? Thesis? Thesi?

Anyways, Stasi and I had to get the note to deter the anti-monster attack dog/Monster-Student Resource Officer from giving us a detention for "sneaking around and trespassing" during lunch. In normal schools, like at Jefferson, we had Student Resource Officers, police officers assigned to the school. At Belcourt, we had M-SROs. The M-SRO was police officers assigned to schools by the government. Ironically, despite their name, they were all humans. I'm absolutely certain that our M-SRO had it out for me, even though I was a human.

You might ask why we preferred to go into the hockey rink by ourselves when we could be with our friends. In truth, we didn't. We absolutely loved our friends and loved to hang out with them, but Stasi and I never got to have any intimate time these days to be what we were, best friends. Between the often-conflicting busy schedules we currently possessed at this time of year, our private alone time was few and far in between, so I was taking all I could get. Even if alone time meant having lunch and skating around in an empty hockey rink with each other, I'd cherish it regardless. We were doing something we both loved.

"Yeah, it's right here." I said, unfolding it to make sure I had the right note and not some piece of paper that magically appeared in my shoe.

Sure enough, Principal Finch's neat and orderly handwriting stared back at me. I was slightly envious of how nice it looked. I had terrible handwriting, which made it difficult for people to help me with my written assignments, specifically Lucy, who always complained that my paper looked as if a 'chicken had marked it up.'

"Good. I don't want Officer Jenkins to give us another detention with Mr. Durant." Stasi made a face.

"Oh come on, Mr. Durant isn't that bad." I replied diplomatically, not sure where her dislike of Mr. Durant came from. I liked him.

"He isn't. I love him." She laughed.

"I thought you always loved me." I said in mock hurt. "Now you're telling me you love someone else?"

"You know what I meant, lyubov." She said, leaning in and giving me peck on the lips. "Detentions are just a waste of time, is all. Even with Mr. Durant."

The feeling on detentions and Mr. Durant was mutual. Detention was more of a glorified free period or afternoon study hall, except you couldn't talk, you couldn't text, and you couldn't listen to music. You just had to do work and hope time flew by. When Stasi and I were given detention by Officer Jenkins for our first offense of "trespassing", despite having been granted access by Principal Finch, we were sent to Mr. Durant, a tall harpy who taught global studies.

Principal Finch would've waived our detention had the M-SRO not been adamant that Principal Finch was undermining her authority, seeing that we didn't have any written proof that we were allowed to go outside of the designated areas during lunch. In the eyes of the M-SRO, we were breaking the rules of the school and had to be punished. With Principal Finch's hands tied, we were forced to waste our day and go to Mr. Durant's classroom.

I wasn't sure what Stasi was expecting when she and I walked into his empty classroom. I, personally, was expecting some kind of teacher who resembled an officer of the Gestapo in terms of strictness.

What we found instead was something way more fun. Instead of spending the hour after school doing our homework silently and praying for the time to go by fast as we had planned, we instead spent our "detention" after school talking about anything and everything. From videogames to movies to current events to our opinions on the DTOSA, no stone was left unturned. We left his classroom far more later than we expected and promised we'd come back to visit, without the detention of course.

Satisfied that I didn't have any competition when it came to Stasi's heart, I turned back to my boot, tugging at it with renewed vigor. Stasi watched with amusement.

"Why don't you try and do something like... untie it?" She inquired.

"Because... I'll have to retie it when I want to put them back on." I panted. "Almost... got it."

Stasi sighed, reaching over my lap with her hand and pulling on the white lace, loosening the tongue of my boot and enabling me to tug it free. I gave a whoop in triumph, setting down the boot next to the other one that I had mysteriously been able to pull free easily. Stasi gave me her look. Her trademark questioning expression, raised eyebrow, and perplexed smile.

"It was already going to come off." I said, irked.

She smiled wider. An infuriatingly gorgeous smile. "Sure it was, I'm not arguing that untying it had anything to do with it."

"You better not." I grumbled, slipping on my Nike trainers.

"I'm not!" She insisted. "Though... it coincidently did come off easier once I untied it..."

"Stasi!" I wailed.

"I'm kidding!" She laughed. "I'm sure it was already going to come off from all that yanking, zayka, laces or not."

I wasn't sure if that was a concession on her part, but I'll take it. Most of the time, our arguments were fun, playful, and passionate, but when it came to serious arguing, it was akin to an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. It was my plain stubbornness against her equally plain stubbornness. It was cute, funny, and infuriating at the same time because the both of us wanted to win, and neither of us wanted to concede.

However, Stasi must've thought it was a concession as well, even though I'm pretty sure that we both knew it was meaningless. She let me have this one win, just like the one I gave her. My vampire swooped in again, wrapping her hand around the back of my head and giving me a swift, but passionate kiss.

After our lips came apart, she spoke in a husky murmur. "Now come on, lyubov. We have..." She blindly reached for my wrist, grabbing it and pulling it up. We both glanced at my watch, the black face staring back at us. "Ten minutes to get back to lunch so we're not late. Don't want to be marked tardy, do we?"

"No, I guess not." I said, reluctantly giving the ice one last look. Even though football ended on the eve of October, one week ago, I was already going through withdrawls. I was suffering from something that I coined as Athlete's Lament. In the middle of football season, when I was banged and bruised up from all the action, I was counting down the days until the season ended. But, a week after football ended, I ended up starting to count down the days until I was able to pad up once more.

I wistfully smiled when I realized that I probably wouldn't play another down of serious football in my life. Coach Freddy told me that I had a fantastic season, worthy of getting recruited by a Division One school, but I hadn't been given serious consideration by any scouts because of the potential political fallout I could bring on the school. At least I had the ice and the skates to look forward to. I loved hockey.

"Come on. Everyone's probably waiting for us." Stasi stood up and held out a hand for me. I took it, letting her help me up. I reached down for my snow-covered skates, hitting them together to knock off the ice. I didn't want the snow to melt in my locker and ruin all my textbooks. Holding onto my skates in one hand, I picked up my backpack, slinging it over my shoulders.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Yeah... hang on a second." Stasi zipped open her backpack, pulling out her royal blue baseball cap and putting it on her head to avoid getting sunburnt. "Want to stop at our lockers before we go to fifth?"

I nodded. "Sure. I'd rather not carry these around all day."

"Same."

Our skates in one hand, and each other's hand in the other, we left through the player's exit. As we left the building, Stasi and I cautiously peered around corners as if we were burglars. We weren't doing anything illicit! We only wanted to make sure that the Student-Monster Resource Officer wasn't on the prowl. Even though we had a note, I wasn't looking forward to getting stopped.

Satisfied that Officer Jenkins wasn't on this part of campus and likely patrolling the quad, where most of the student body hung out during lunch, we quickly made our way to the first classroom building where our lockers were situated.

Belcourt High School was designed to be a bunch of buildings bordering a large quad. One of those buildings were solely dedicated to administration, offices, and some classes. The other two were entirely made up of classrooms. The fourth building was our auditorium, where most of our drama productions took place. The fifth was the gymnasium and athletic facilities. Overall, it was a pretty nice campus, although it did suck because I had to sprint from building to building to make it to class. The ridiculously short passing period gave me no quarter.

We entered the C-Building, making the quick journey to our lockers. Our footsteps resounded off of the tile, echoing in the deserted hallway. Even though lunch was probably going to end in about three minutes, the hallways were devoid of people, save for the odd student who wanted to be early to class or just wanted some alone time.

After finally getting to our lockers, C314 and C315 respectively, I softly set my skates down on the floor and started to get to work on my combination. Being seniors, we got to pick where we wanted our lockers before the rest of the student body got to be issued theres. I didn't really care where my locker was, as long as it was next to Stasi's. Getting the lock on my first try, I pulled it off, swinging my locker open.

"Beat you." I muttered happily. I picked up my skates, checking to make sure they didn't have any significant amount of water on them.

"Quiet, you." Stasi snarled, still working on her lock combination that never seemed to agree with her no matter what day it was. It was actually kind of funny. Her lock never agreed with her at Jefferson, nor at our middle school. It was as if she was cursed. "Blyad." She swore, banging her head on the door and twisting the lock blindly to reset the entire process. She had messed up, once again. "I hate my lock."

I didn't. It was quite a cute spectacle, seeing Stasi struggle with something so trivial, but as a boyfriend, I had a duty.

"Here, let me." I reached over, brushing her soft, cold hand away from the combination. I put my hand on the lock, letting my magic fingers do the work. I rotated it clockwise, counterclockwise, and clockwise again. "That's... eleven... six... twenty-two." I murmured. After finishing the final twist, I pulled at it, feeling it release and swing open. Stasi sighed in relief, picking up her skates to put them in her locker.

"Chris, I love you so much. I can never get the lock working when I want it to." She wrapped me in a hug, making my face warm... and making another body part hard because of the way her curvaceous body was pressed up against mine. She had no idea what she could do to me.

"Not a problem. I love you too." I replied once she broke the hug. I bent down, picking up my skates and sliding them into my locker.

On the exterior, our lockers were the exact same in regards to dimensions and color. On the inside, they were different. Stasi's was austere and orderly, her books neatly tucked away in the corner. She had nothing in there except an emergency makeup kit, a pair of prescription glasses, a case for her sunglasses, and dental floss for her fangs.

Mine, on the other hand, was a bit more disheveled. My prized textbooks were safely in the corner, but everything else was pretty haphazard. There were pictures of our entire group of friends taped onto the back wall, with the relatively recent picture of Stasi giving me a kiss on the cheek taking the prime spot. Some of Stasi's stuff was also in my locker (because she wanted to keep hers nice and neat), including her emergency SBP. Even though I preferred the live feedings for her, it was still nice to have it in case of an emergency. If I ever bled out or found out I had some kind of ebola strain, I'd at least be satisfied that Stasi wouldn't have to go too far to get fed. I'd probably have to get the SBP replaced soon. It'd been in my locker for quite a while and was reaching the end of it's shelf life.

Overall, my locker wasn't too disorganized. Everything was where it needed to be and I could find it in a pinch. It wasn't like Ricky's locker, where it was a complete biohazard. God's wrath and HAZMAT couldn't clear it out if they tried.

I gently placed my skates inside, leaning them against the wall.

"Did you know that the Royal Family is going to be at the Carnival?" Stasi asked abruptly.

I looked at her from behind the door, shaking my head. "No, I didn't know that. Who told you?"

"Josie did. She actually sounded excited to go."

Since I left the Ball early with Stasi, the Royal Family wasn't able to catch me in time, save for Josie. After the Ball, Anton told me that they expressed clear intent to meet me. It looked like they were going to show up at one of our school events.

I was just about to close my locker when I saw a crumpled up green Post-It Note. That was odd. I never left trash in my locker. That was Ricky's job. I picked up the Post-It Note, uncrumpling it and smoothing it out. A smile lit up my face when I saw the handwriting.

"I love you, Chris Williams. You're my everything and I don't know what I could do without you." I read aloud. I held the note to my chest. "Aw... thanks Ricky." I sighed.

"Yeah, it was totally Ricky that wrote that. He's the 'Your Vampire' that's signed on the bottom." Stasi laughed, peeking at me from behind her door with mirth shining in her crystal blue eyes.

"Yep, totally. Too bad he's not here for me to thank him, so you'll just have to do." I wrapped my hand around the back of her head, pulling her in for a kiss. "Thanks, Stasi. That really made me feel better."