A Rollercoaster Kind of Rush

I wiggled my fingers, feeling the white cloth gloves tugging into place around my hand. After pulling one of Evan’s toques onto my perfect naturally straight hair, I pulled the fur hood of my Hollister coat over it.

Skipping down the stairs, I couldn’t help but to grin. This was the first real day of winter, and North Dakota didn’t let me down. It was like a winter wonderland in Grand Forks, and just because I was a junior in college didn’t mean I was too old to play in the white flakes.

“Are you ready?!” I squealed, jumping off of the bottom step and into the living room. Evan laughed, zipping up his grey Northface jacket. He picked up my Uggs off the floor as I sat down on the couch. He knelt down in front of me and grabbed my calve lightly, and easily slipped the boot onto my left foot, and then did the same with the right.

He smiled, standing and grabbing my hands to pull me up too. I grinned widely.

“Ready?!” I asked, looking over his shoulder to look out the window so I could see all of the boys out on the lawn engaged in snowball fight. Evan smiled, showing off his perfectly white teeth.

“Sure am, baby,” he said, pulling his toque down over his ears before he laced his bare fingers with my own cloth clad ones. My eyes trailed up from his hand to his eyes, where I raised my eyebrows.

“You’re not going to wear your gloves?” I wondered. He just shrugged, so I rolled my eyes. “You’re going to get sick, and then I’m going to have to take care of you,” I informed him, tapping his nose with my covered index finger. He rolled his eyes, grabbing my hand just as I was about to tap his crooked nose once again and pulled me out into the white wonderland of snow.

The moment we stepped outside, I realized that everyone was split into two groups, half on one side of the lawn and half on the other, the middle concrete walkway that had just been shoveled marking the center line.

There was a couch on each side, along with other random objects like trash cans that were built into a fort. Suddenly, a head popped up from the left size.

“We call Avery!” Brett Hextall announced, jumping over the old couch and running towards me.

“Fine, we’ll take Trupp,” Mario Lamoureux caved begrudgingly, rolling his eyes as he too appeared from behind the left team’s fort.

I laughed, looking at Evan as he pouted while Brett pulled me away from him and over to the other side, leaving our footprints to add to the already damaged snow.

Chay Genoway grabbed my hand, pulling me down to a crouch beside him. Behind the fort, uncountable amounts of snowballs were stacked up, ready to be wailed at anything that moved. I shook my head, a grin coming to my face as Chay explained to me that he and I were going to stick together when it got crazy and everyone disobeyed the boarder rules.

“A-vuh-rey!” A female voice squealed just before a weight pounced onto of me, sending my body into the snow. Mika grinned, all of her weight pressuring my stomach.

“Get the hell off of me,” I groaned, gasping for air while I pushed her off. She fell backwards into the snow, just as I had, and turned her head towards me, with a pout fixed on her model like features.

“That hurt,” she whined. I rolled my eyes before matching her pout and sitting up. I shivered, feeling the wet snow already soaking through my jeans.

“I’m sorry, Meek-a-boo.” Pushing the hair that was now snow coated out of my face, I watched as Mika’s boyfriend, Davey Toews, help his girlfriend out of the snow, before he brushed off the back of her. I rolled my eyes, returning to my spot next to Chay, who smirked at me before he returned his eyes back to the other team’s fort, where a head occasionally peaked over.

“The war starts soon,” Brett whispered, squatting down next to me before he dragged his finger that was coated in black paint across my cheekbone. I tried to pull away, but his other hand held the back of my head, keeping my in place. “It’s so we know who’s on our team,” he explained. I just nodded, feeling the cold paint glide across my other cheek with his finger again.

I heard what could only be described as a battle cry emit from Mar’s mouth from the other side before several of the guys on our side stood at once, whipping the snow balls that they held in their hands.

I looked at Mika and Phoebe, who sat only a few feet away, and shrugged before we all stood and began to join this so called war. Thinking fast, I ducked, the snowball that Brad Eidsness had aimed just missing my head. I straightened back up, showing Brad my smirk just before a snowball collided with the side of my face.

Chay laughed loudly, completely stopped in what he was doing. I glared at him, grabbing a snowball and shoving it down the front of his jacket. Chay jumped a bit, frantically unzipping his coat to get the cold water out. I laughed at him, but stopped when he looked up and glared at me. He took a step towards me, and my eyes widened, before he lifted some snow and shoved my face into it.

I gasped at the cold contact, and quickly reacted. Picking up two handfuls of snow, I reached for the front of Chay’s layers of sweat pants, and shoved the snow into his boxers. He mocked my gasp and shuddered before he looked up at me with concentrated eyes. I sucked in breath, and took a step back just before he pounced at me.

I jumped over the couch and into the war zone, Chay following after me as I ran and got hit with multiple snowballs. But as I ran from Chay, this started a full out riot. Everyone who was hiding away jumped out from the forts and started throwing snowballs at anything that moved.

Looking over my shoulder just in time to see Chay get occupied by a few people. I grinned, feeling two people grab a hold of both of my hands and pulled me around to the back of the house.

Both Danny Kristo and Phoebe leant up against the house, catching their breath. “Dear jesus,” Danny muttered, pushing his soaking wet hair out of his face as his teeth chattered. “You think they’d give up on the whole ‘Freshies must die’ thing by now.”

Phoebe and I laughed, rolling our eyes at our friend’s maturity level. “Definitely not going to happen any time soon,” I told him. He sighed, his whole body shivering.

“We need a game plan,” Phoebe suggested, taking her soaking wet gloves off of her hands. I nodded and was about to speak before a body whizzed by us.

“Freshie!” A deep voice yelled, while Evan and Ben Blood followed the first body. Danny shuddered, thankful that the two upperclassmen didn’t spot his head of red hair.

“I’ll be back,” I announced, pushing myself off of the house. I crouched down, scooping up a handful of snow in my gloves and rounding it into a ball in my hands.

As I walked, my eyes scanned around the yard. The white blankets of snow covered every inch, since had stopped falling from the sky. The flakes glittered in the sun, and the bright white blinded anyone who wasn’t ready for the glare.

Biting my lip, I turned my head left, just to see a smirking boy emerge from the side of the house, making a beeline for me. My eyes widened as I automatically raised my arm to throw the ball, but he was too quick, and pounced on me, resembling a cat.

I was once again sent backwards into a bank of snow, only this time, before the impact, Evan slipped his hand behind my head, bracing me from any hit it could take when I fell back.

He fell on top of me, catching himself with his knees that were on either side of me. He smirked down at me as his right hand, the one that wasn’t supporting my head, sunk into the snow just beside my cheek.

“You weren’t really going to throw a snowball at me were you?” He asked confidently, the smirk never leaving his lips. I looked up at him with innocent, wide eyes.

“And so what if I was?” I flirted, my fingers slipping in his front belt loops. He ducked his head down towards mine, so slow that it seemed to be a centimeter every five seconds. He waited until his lips were only an inch from mine to speak.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to do this,” he whispered across my cold lips, his warm breath colliding with the freezing flesh, heating them immediately. His teeth pulled at my bottom lip lightly before he roughly crashed his slightly chapped lips to mine.

Our lips moved together in a frenzy of a battle for dominance. His soft tongue slid against my bottom lip, begging for entrance. Once inside, he deepened the kiss, while I pulled on his belt loops, tugging his whole body to cover mine.

He pulled away from the kiss to trail kisses across my cheek and over to my ear where he once again used his teeth to tug softly.

“Let’s go, ah, make some hot coco,” he whispered into my ear hotly. I smirked, pushing him off of me playfully. I giggled as he pouted and laid in the snow. Extending my hand, he wrapped his around mine. I pulled him up and sprinted towards the warm, dry house.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Using the back of my hands, I rubbed feverishly at my eyes. With a sigh, I stood on my tippy toes, trying my best to look over the heads of the tall boys that were scattered around the living room.

It shouldn’t have shocked me that Evan would bring me to this party and then completely disappear. I should have realized that he was going to do this when he asked me to come with him.

Pursing my lips, I grabbed a shot from the hand of the guy who was walking by me and downed it immediately. I place the empty double shot glass back in his hand and continued pushing my way through the crowds of people.

This was your typical legendary North Dakota party. They were pretty desirable by anyone who was planning to attend the university. But being from here, they got old fast, when I was still in high school. The big party scene was wearing me down, and I just wish we could just chill out with a few friends and have a few beers.

But Evan always insisted that we made appearances at these parties. Our freshman year at UND was winding down, and Evan found it necessary to party it up. He claimed it was a making memories kind of thing.

Annoyed, I navigated through the groups of people, looking for the first place that I could just sit down. I found my way to the couch, and plopped down onto the first open space I saw, not caring that there was a group of five or so guys surrounding me with raised eyebrows.

“You don’t look like you’re having too much fun,” one of them commenting, gaining my attention. I looked these boys over. Two sat to my left, and one sat on my right, and two were standing, leaning against the wall. Typical frat boys, with collared shirts, perfect hair and a beer in hand. I shrugged, not minding them simply for the fact that it’s nice to get some attention sometimes.

“I’m just stressed,” I admitted, running my hand through my silky hair. One standing nodded, showing that he understood.

“Let me go get you a drink then,” he smiled, before disappearing into the crowd. I sighed, knowing it probably isn’t a smart idea to drink tonight, but not caring too much.

“So if you don’t mind me asking, what’s got a pretty girl like you so stressed out?” The one on my right asked, leaning up, his elbows placed on his thighs. I sighed, and shook my head.

“It doesn’t matter,” I answered shortly, not wanting to just dump all of my problems onto these guys that I didn’t even know. One on my left leaned back into the couch.

“Oh,” he started, “so it’s guy problems then, eh?” A blush rushed to my cheeks as I nodded, confirming his accusation.

“So who’s the lucky guy?” One asked casually. I sucked my lip in, chewing on it with my front teeth as my eyes scanned through the crowds of people once again.

“Evan,” I told them weakly, “Evan Trupp.”

“The hockey player?” I nodded. “Impressive.” I smiled painfully, if only they knew how unimpressive that really was.

“If he’s obviously causing you so much pain and stress, is he even worth it?” One on my left asked just as the other came back with an unopened beer for me. I smiled thankfully up at him and cracked open the can, taking a long drink before answering.

“No, probably not,” I said truthfully. He just nodded and silence fell over us as I once again

“Okay, you need a distraction, obviously, but first of all, I’m Kevin,” boy on my right introduced, “the kid to your left is Tyler, to his left is Kyle, and those two are Jack and Bobby,” he nodded towards the two who were standing.

“I’m Avery,” I told them, trying to remember all of their names.

“So, Avery, do you want to hear a story?” Kyle asked me, grinning at Tyler, who I decided was the cutest of the group. He had that whole tall dark and handsome thing going on with his dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skin, with perfectly soft features.

“Sure,” I accepted, not exactly sure what I was getting myself into.

“Well, one night, Tyler here got insanely wasted,” he started, clapping Tyler on the shoulder, who just grinned. “He decided it would be a bright idea to cut all the legs off of the ironing board and surf it down the stairs. I’m not going to tell you, but I’ll show you what happened,” he said, pulling a video up on his Blackberry.

He pushed play and I saw the same boy who sat next to me stumbling and slurring his words from the top of the stairs. He stepped onto the ironing board and all was a smooth ride until he hit the fifth stair from the bottom. He flew off and fell head first into the door. All the guys in the background laughed loudly, and by the end of the video, I was laughing hysterically too.

“Twenty seven stitches and a mild concussion,” Tyler told me proudly, lifting his bangs to show me the scar across his forehead, which only caused me to laugh harder. I raised my hand from my lap, feeling the warm feeling that alcohol gives you, and traced my fingers lightly across the white scar.

“Avery?” A familiar slurred voice called from behind me. Turning my head in his direction, I quickly removed my hand from the boy’s forehead, but Evan had already seen. His cheeks flared him and his eyes were glassy, which told me from the first second that he was already wasted.

“I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re already looking for new guys?” He asked loudly and obnoxiously. I opened my mouth to speak, standing from the couch, keeping my beer cradled in my hand.

“Please, Evan, can we not do this here,” I begged, my eyes wide. He rolled his eyes.

“No, I want answers now!” He demanded before taking a chug of whatever was in his red cup.

“What do you want me to say? Evan, you left me alone. What did you want me to do? Wait for you alone by the door until you were ready to leave?” I asked incredulously, not believing that he was really blaming this on me, and that he was jumping to conclusions.

I looked towards Matt Frattin and TJ Oshie who were standing near, begging them with my eyes to do something. TJ nodded, stepping towards Evan and saying something to him. But Evan just shrugged him off, before stumbling drunkenly.

“Well, I’m sorry you’re smothering me!” He yelled, gaining a lot of attention from the people surrounding us. My jaw dropped at his words. I went to tell him off, but he cut me off. “I leave you alone for five minutes and I come back to check on me and you’re trying to get with other guys?”

“Uh, actually bro, she wasn’t trying to get with any of us,” Tyler cut in, standing from the couch behind me also. I turned around and give him wide, warning eyes.

“Not now,” I hissed, willing him away. Evan looked Tyler up and down and shook his head with a laugh. I closed my eyes and sucked in some air, fearing the worst.

“You really think you even have a chance with this guy? You’re lucky you even got me,” he slurred, “you’re nothing but a worthless slut, Avery Lenz.”

The tears filled my eyes immediately. I took a step towards Evan and shoved my beer can into his hands, succeeding in spilling some of the bitter liquid onto his white shirt. “You, Evan Trupp, are the biggest asshole I have ever met in my entire life,” I spat before I pushed past him, TJ and Matt and out of the party.

I walked down the sidewalk of a part of Grand Forks that I was only vaguely familiar with. The tears flowed freely, leaving streaks of my makeup down my cheeks. The city was cold, and since I had left my hoodie with Evan, my bare arms were chilled in the cool night.

How could Evan be so insensitive to completely humiliate and degrade me like that in front of so many people? Never has he actually spoke to me like that, no matter how drunk he was. I have never in my life been that embarrassed.

Just thinking about it, my cheeks got warm as the tears started to fall even harder. Thunder echoed, just before the clouds let out their wrath, letting large water droplets pour down from the sky.

I sighed, feeling myself become soaked to the bone. My teeth chattering, I walked into the small park at the end of the street and sat down on the swing, not caring much that the expensive phone in my pocket is probably getting water damaged.

I sat on the swing motionless, just sobbing and crying for what seemed to be hours before a saw a shadow enter the park, the cloudy, still rainy night not letting me see any descriptive features.

My heart started to beat faster as scenarios flashed through my head. What was this man going to kill me with? Knife, gun, his bare hands? My heart started to beat even faster and my hands clutched around the chains of the swings so hard that my knuckles turned white.

As I saw the face of this man, every ounce of fear left my body, and I instantly became annoyed, and upset once again. I took a shaky breath, my lungs refilling.

“I’m sorry,” Evan told me, seeming to have sobered up as he sat down on the swing next to mine. I looked over at him. He was staring straight ahead, pushing his dripping hair from his face. His dark brown eyes shifted over to me, looking into my own blue eyes. His eyes were sad, bloodshot and regretful. Suddenly, I felt every feeling of anger fade away.

Evan had that affect on me. I would never be able to stay mad at him. Especially when he looked at me with those gorgeous deep eyes. Just like that, I was okay. Nothing was wrong anymore.

“I love you,” he whispered, extending his hand towards mine. I nodded, slipping my hand into his so he could lace our fingers as we sat on the swings.

“I love you too.”