Frostbite

Gray concrete came rushing towards me, courtesy of the yellow speed bump I'd tripped over. I'd stayed after for chemistry tutoring -since it's first period and I sleep through that class- with the idea of heading directly to the rink right after. My plan's flaws came to mind when I remembered all of my hokey gear was still at home, sitting scattered on my floor.

"Oo, Butterfly." Tyler's voice said from behind me as I pushed myself off the ground. "I guess that's only on the ice, eh?"

"Bite me." I spat as I scrambled over to my car and sped out of the parking lot.

Tyler wasn't actually insulting me with such a sissy name, everyone knew me as Benji the Butterfly. Supposedly I glide and fly on the ice, as graceful as a butterfly. Or maybe it's because of my second year when I jumped over a player on the other team, swing my arms around like a retarded moth trying to fly. I don't know, but I'm cool with the nickname, and I made that fucking jump, so it doesn't bother me.

Yeah, I was being a little harsh considering Tyler hadn't insulted me or anything, but I was in a hurry and not in the mood for any jokes. It's almost certain that I'll always be late for practice, so bad they started telling me we start a hour early. I'm still late.

Usually, if someone was late as much as me they'd get kicked off the team but I was one of the best players, Benji the Butterfly, they'd have much less of a chance or winning without me. Instead I just got yelled at and stuck cleaning up all the equipment afterwords. I didn't mind since the ice was mostly clear because people were scared to be on right after us , in case we hung around. So I always had some solo skating time. I like to remind myself sometimes that skating is also carefree and not just a vent for anger. But, mostly, it
s a vent for anger.

I flew through the door and was happily surprised to see my bag siting on the stairs, looking clean and like it had everything in it.

"Hey Benji." Isabella walked down the stairs, her hair pulled into a bun and smock already tied around her waist. Being part Latino, she had long curly black hair and a lighter brown completion. She wasn't very tall, a little on the short side, and had big brown eyes that left no question as to why my mother loved her so much. That and, from what I heard through the walls, she's great in bed.

"Hey Izzy." I yelled as I ran up the stairs, taking three at a time. At the top, I bumped into my mother who was just hanging up her phone and smiled down at her.

"Hey honey. How was school?" The words took so long to travel to my ears I almost ran off rudely before responding. My mom was a tall woman, leaning a little bit towards the heavier side. With short sandy brown hair and hazel eyes identical to mine, she was close to the polar opposite of Izzy. Really, the eyes were the only physical feature I got from her, everything else came from the jackass she finally let me stop calling father, William.

"Late, bad- I mean good sticks. No, stick late. No, wait- words no working, where stick?"

She laughed and patted my chest before pointing to Clary's room. "Be careful, I don't think she speaks caveman."

I burst through the door without knocking to find her sitting on her bed with my longest stick, trying to attach some sort of long plastic thing to the end. Being a manga freak, her walls were covered with various posters of different Japanese creatures and some that were maybe, possibly, human. All of her clothes were once used for, or currently being used for, cosplaying. If they weren't then she didn't buy it and probably didn't wear it.

No one knew were she got her manga addition from. She wasn't my biological sister, she was Izzy's kid, so we knew it didn't come from anyone in my family. But no one in her biological family shows any interest in manga either. And the only other manga freak friends Clary has were turned from functioning members of society by her, so we know it wasn't any outside influence. We've grown to cope with it and pretend we understand her references. Some might say we've even come to accept it since mom and Izzy let her go to conventions all the time, that is, if I'm the one to go with her.

"Clary!" I yelled as I stormed across the room and snatched the stick away from the black haired fourteen-year-old. "What are you doing!?"

"Buzz of, Fly!" She shouted using the, I hate to admit it, somewhat clever response of choice she always did. "I'm trying to finish my Celty custom!"

"Not with my stick you're not!" Pulling the black plastic off in a way so I didn't completely ruin it, I tossed it on the bed then ran down the stairs, almost tripping over the bag I'd almost forgotten again. About to back out of the driveway, I was stopped by Izzy as she ran barefoot towards my car, blue and green footprints trailing behind and too-big skates in hand.

"Benjiii!" She drew out. "You forgot your skates again! Geez, you'd forget your head if it wasn't screwed on. Stuck on? Grown on? Ah, you know what I mean." With a wave of her yellow hand she stopped herself before she went any farther, handing me my skates with her only clean body part.

"Thanks Izzy." Shoving the skates on the passenger's side floor, I was prevented from backing the rest of the way out with Izzy still holding onto the window.

"Don't forget," She said in a surprisingly serious voice to go with the smile still on her face. "We're camping this weekend and you're in charge of the tents and pots and pans. Don't forget."

"Yeah, got late- it pan. No- bye Izzy!" I babbled as I backed out of the driveway and rolled up the window halfway to block out the cool air. You couldn't blame her for reminding me at a time like this, it's when I'm most likely to remember. And there has been times when I was in charge of tents and pots and pans and forgotten everything. Including my own bag. But I was in a hurry and didn't give a shit if I'd remember or not, so I was more than slightly peeved that she had held me up even more.

In a hurry, I fumbled with my padding and pulled on my skates, getting frustrated with how much trouble I was having. I've been doing this for years, shouldn't it be easy by now? And even if I haven't why are they so hard to put on? Who the fuck decided to give players a physical challenge before practice began? What the hell is this fuckery?

"Thestry!" Coach called as I stumbled onto the ice. "You're half an hour late, who the hell do you think you are!?"

After the usual ten minutes of him yelling at me the goalie, and my best guy friend, Nathan, reminded him that there were still some kids around so he should watch his mouth and that yelling at me is only taking up more time from practice. A few more minutes of yelling at me and we started back up.

"Who the hell does he think he is?" I started to Nate. "What the fuck does he think he's doing, yelling at me like that? And there are fucking kids around, what in the whole fucking god damn world gave him the idea that he could cuss around kids? Who the hell gave him the idea he could cuss to us? I don't know what's wrong with this jackass, but I bet he can't even stand straight on this fucking ice, always wearing fucking tennis shoes. What the fuck is wrong wi-"

"Yeah yeah." Nate cut me off as he pushed me to my place. "Shut up and skate, we don't need your temper coming through your mouth."

"Bite me, bitch." I spat at him as he skated away.

"Oh, you'd like that wouldn't you?"

About to yell at him more, I spotted someone out of the corner of my eye. His face was pressed up against the glace, blond haired with a award winning smile plastered on. Below his neck, I saw I not half bad body in a tight white T-shit. I wouldn't mind him biting me.

Just then, I was hit dead on and went sprawling on the ice, sliding halfway towards the goal. After we got to our feet, I waited until the guy who hit me was farther down the ice then made a B-line for him just in time to make it look like I was actually playing and not trying to, at least, knock the wind out of him. He slammed face first into the wall then fell to the ice, looking up at me with a pissed expression.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Fine." He spat back. Whether he knew it was on purpose or he was mad that it wasn't and I was being nice, I didn't know and didn't care. We went back to playing and me venting all anger by hitting every skating body I could. When practice was over I was once again stuck with the job of picking up everything we used, including cones, sticks, and stray pucks as punishment for being late.

For the second time, someone caught my eye. Not only because he was on the ice but because he was gilding around so gracefully, like he was attached to a kite in the breeze. Though his messy brown hair didn't exactly fly around, like it was knotted in place, and his movement hid his figure, he looked like a pretty decent looking kid. I could like this guy. That is, as long as he stopped with all these spinning sissy finger skating like moves he was trying to pull of. What the hell kind of sport is finger skating? Figure. Whatever. You twirl on the ice a few times and lift your legs up for a minute or two. Is there even a scoring system? If you can skate, why waste your time trying to play ballet and play a real fucking sport?

God dammit, all he's doing is tearing up the ice. The Zamboni didn't come out too often so the ice wasn't smooth for much of the day. All retarded kids like him are doing is ripping up the ice to show off a few fancy spins and slips, that's all. What a fucking waste of ice.