Change My Ways

Tomorrow came quicker than expected. Before my brain could comprehend, my body was wrapped in a white button up shirt, a nice pair of black dress pants, and a pair of black flats. It wasn’t too dressy, but dressed up enough to make a nice first impression. Instead of throwing my hair up in a ponytail I took the extra half hour to straighten it and then decided that a little bit of make-up wouldn’t kill me either. By the time I was finished, a smile morphed onto my face. It was twelve in the afternoon, and I had to stop stalling.

My black leather purse was over my shoulder as my car keys jingled in my hand. Through the small front room of my dorm, I opened the front door and started walking down the hallway, flashing the occasional smile at whoever was in the hallway. A few guys that the names of slipped my mind, and a few girls that were friends with my roommate Julia who was never really around anyway. She was always with her boyfriend in his apartment leaving me to have the dorm room all to myself.

When I reached the bottom floor of the building, my eyes caught onto an all too familiar boy and everything inside of me quickly turned to ice. My mood was good, the day was going well so far, why did this obstacle have to come up, and right before I get into my car and drive over to the building holding the people I could be spending the next three months with?

Instead of making a scene and running back to the elevator, my mouth opened and took in a huge amount of air until my lungs were filled. As the air came out through my nose, my legs started moving, navigating me through a few crowds of people which were dangerously close to Ryan, but in the end, I was fine and any awkward conversation was avoided.

Open palms pressed against the cold glass door, another smile arose on my face and forced my mouth to open to show all of my teeth. Out in the sunlight of the city as the cool summer air hit my face, the smile widened. Not only was it a good day inside, but it was absolutely beautiful outside, for me at least. I don’t know many other people who find this twenty degrees weather enjoyable, but for me, it is. There’s just something about the smell of the air that puts that stupid smile on my face.

Reaching my car, I unlocked it and plopped myself down in the drivers’ seat. The air inside of the car was just as cold as the air out, so as the key twisted in the ignition, the engine roared to life and my fingers quickly made their way to the knobs on the console, turning the heat all the way up and directing every vent in the car on me.

The yellow envelope still lay on the passenger’s seat, unopened. My eyes found their way to my hands, and seconds later, my hands were filled with the envelope and my fingers were feverously working to open the small tab and pull out the contents of the folder. Successful, I pulled out a huge pile of papers which were all my old tests from Dr. Carpenters class, most of them bearing A’s, and then a huge letter of recognition, instead of reading it, I tucked it behind one of my tests and pulled out another piece of paper. It showed the hours the boys would be practicing and directed me to come in any time during them. Luckily, they had one going on today from twelve to five. Chuckling at my good fortune, I shoved all of the papers back into the envelops, set it on the passenger’s seat, turned the heat down a notch, and then started my drive to Madison Square Garden, the huge tooth bearing smile still lit up on my face.

The luck placed unto me today had lasted until I took my first step into Madison Square Garden. The Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino that I could not resist to get with the lack of traffic was in my right hand along with my keys, and my wallet with all identification, driver’s license, was in my left.

Before I managed to take another step a security guard had spotted me and stopped me from going any further. His eyes were hard and brown, his face was worn and tired, and just by the way he asked who I was, you could easily tell he hated his job.

“I am Jessica Andretti, interning here in the athletic training… department?” My eyes were huge as the man reached down to is radio and clicked the button. Staring at me, he muttered something and then turned to me, an annoyed look on his face. He rudely asked me what my name was, and with a small voice I answered back trying to hide the fact that I was intimidated by him.

A minute or so passed by as he just stared at me, brown eyes latching onto me. As the seconds ticked by slowly, my skin started to crawl. He wasn’t ‘checking me out’, it as more of a 'you’re a waste of space' stare, the kind of stare someone would give to a cheater or a murderer.

Finally, as if someone heard my silent pleas, the radio came to life and ordered the man, whose name was Abraham, to take me down to the office of Mr. Ramsey. As the message faded into the air, he grunted and ordered me to follow him. Doing as I was told, I pulled my arms into my sides and drank more from my drink in hand. It wasn’t because I was thirsty, but because if I didn’t have something to preoccupy my mind, I was going to throw up or pass out from the nervousness.

After four flights of stairs and a few hallways, I was in a huge hallway with loud music and muffled voices. This is when my nerves drove to the edge and hung their ready to jump if anything else made me feel out of place. “Here she is”, the man mumbled and then disappeared from my side, leaving me all alone in the empty hallway now occupied by one other man.

“Jessica Andretti?” He asked giving me a small smile. With a nod, he stuck his hand out and as I grabbed it, he shook it quickly, a huge smile on his face. “When I received your paperwork I just couldn’t say no. You’re a very bright young girl, I hope you understand that. Now, I am Jim Ramsey, everyone calls me Jim and you I’ll do the same. We have a few rules around here that have to apply to you since you’re only…” he looked at me and went to say twenty when I cut him off and muttered nineteen.

There was a moment of silence and then he smiled widely. “Ah, you better watch yourself, we have a couple of new players on our team this year, one of them is actually nineteen, great kid though”, I nodded and watched him keep walking down the hall toward the music. “So, I’ll show you around and then introduce you to a few people. Once that’s all over we’ll go back into my office and talk about what this internship is all about, I mean you do want-“

“Yes!” I said quickly and blushed a bit as the man started to laugh. After patting me on the back for my enthusiasm, he informed me that we would stop by the weight room first so he could tell me about the equipment they had. Nodding, I watched as a few boys in equipment walked passes, eyed her down, and then quickly started whispering. With a heavy sigh Jim turned to me and informed me that they were like little girls, always talking about something.

After a shared laugh, he turned and lead me into a weight room where four boys were on machines, two on bikes, one doing pull ups and another lifting. Jim walked away from me for a moment and then quickly cut the music. All four boys stopped what they were doing and turned to him, whining about shutting off the music. As I suppressed a laugh I had to agree with him, they were like young girls.

“Boys, this is-“

“Jessica!” As my head jerked up to the boy who called my name, my neck cracked, but as I studied the boys face, all small pangs of pain in my neck washed away and as I looked into his deep brown eyes my whole body went numb. “Jessica Andretti! Retz!” The lower half of my jaw detached from the top and as the gears in my brain started to turn; my eyes finally realized who was speaking to me.

Unfortunately after the second I realized Brian Boyle was speaking to me, a glass shattering scream filled the room and probably a good portion of the arena. Losing all control over my limbs and mind, I ran up to him and locked my arms around his neck as he lowered down to lock me in a huge hug. As he twirled me around, we both laughed like we did when we were younger.

Once my feet were back on the ground I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my hair, messing up my perfect part. “When the hell did you get into the NHL! How come I didn’t get an invite or a memo! Krista, why didn’t she text me!” I said hitting his shoulder playfully. He chuckled and shook his head informing me that he was picked up out of college and Krista, the brilliant true blonde she was, had lost my number when she switched from AT&T to Verizon.

With a heavy sigh I shook my head and looked up into the dark brown eyes of the boy that was a key part in most of my childhood summers back home. Chuckling, he pulled me into another tight hung and then took a step away from me, shaking his head like a father who had just seen his daughter for the first time in three years.

“Well, that was unexpected”, Jim chuckled and looked over at me. “Anyway, back to the tour”, he looked at me and with a genuine smile went on, “You don’t know anyone else here do you?”

An amazing mood now placed over me, I looked over at him and shrugged. “I guess we will have to find out”

After the whole reunion wore off, all of my attention was put on Jim and his explanations of a few of the machines and workouts done on them. After a half hour of him talking about everything to do with the weight room, charts that had to be filled out, bottles that needed to be cleaned and what not, he directed me out of the weight room and down the hall. It was time for me to meet the head coach and assistant coach who was running a mini scrimmage right now.

Stomach now in knots, I took a few small steps toward Jim and felt the grip on my Frappuccino tighten. The plastic crunched in my hand as it closed in on it. The loud blow of a whistle rang through the hallway. The light sound of ice blades slicing through the hard ice sent shivers up my spine, and every step I took down that hallway, closer to the ice, I felt sick. It could be because I was nervous about being ogled at by other players, maybe because of the coaching staff, but most of my nerves, I believed, came from the fact I haven’t been near ice since my last boyfriend, and those memories always make me sick, not because they make me sad. They anger me, every time I remember a moment from my past relationships, I think about what is wrong with me, how I ruin everything I have.

A frown was placed on my lips as my head became parallel with the ground. Shutting my eyes and inhaling deeply, I jerked my head up and went to open my eyes when my body walked right into what felt like a brick wall and I fell back to the ground Frappuccino splattering against the floor. “Oh, are you alright!” I opened my eyes to see the liquid all over the rubber like floor. Taking a deep breath my eyes parted just enough to see two people kneeling over me. “Jessica?” I looked over to Jim and took a deep breath then straightened my back.

“Jessica”, a new voice entered my head. Blinking hard and rubbing my neck, my head swiveled and met the same deep brown eyes that bumped into me yesterday. Sucking in a deep breath, I looked down at the palm of my hands, red, and sighed. “Here let me help you up”, the boy that I bumped into yesterday took his glove off and stretched his arm toward me. Taking it, I scrunched up my nose as I felt the sweat from his hand hit mine. As I got back to my feet, he quickly pulled his hand back and rubbed it on his pants before quickly running it through his damp hair.

He flashed me a small smile and then looked down at the ground and frowned. “I’m really sorry about that… Again”, I chuckled and looked back up at the boy. His eyes were a chocolaty brown; his hair was almost the same color in lose curls that fell neatly around his face. His skin was smooth despite the few beads of sweat, and as he smiled two rows of white, straight teeth were shown and I couldn’t help but smile too.

“John, this is our new intern”, I turned away from the boy who was still smiling a little and faced the older man, with a scowl placed on his face as his eyes met mine. “Jessica Andretti, she’s absolutely brilliant. She has an A average in her major’s class. I read over her works, she’s brilliant”, in my peripheral vision I noticed the boy stop smiling and lift his eyebrows to the center of his forehead.

Nodding he flashed me a smile then informed Jim that Del Zotto hurt his ankle. Both Jim and I turned to the boy and noticed him favoring his right ankle. When I looked up into his eyes, they were already locked with mine and I felt a painful jolt in my stomach. Soon that jolt turned into a sickness that took over my whole body. The feeling was familiar; it visited me when I met attractive guys. But I knew it wouldn’t last long, my feelings never do.