Chasing Calloway

Two - My Worst Nightmare

Song Of The Chapter || Carolina - Harry Styles

𝐑𝐇𝐘𝐒

If I never got out of this class, it would be too soon.

Professor Price had decided to talk with all the intrigue of a sloth today. I couldn't blame him, the man was pushing seventy and still teaching the same Algebra class that he first taught when he was forty. Still, usually he had some sort of flair when talking about this stuff. It didn't help that I usually understood none of it.

I was here to play hockey, not to solve the value of x.

The Wakeford bobcats were one of the best college teams in the country, so it wasn't even a question when I packed up my bags from sunny Florida and moved to Michigan the second I got the offer letter. It was my whole life.

The team lived up to the name. We qualified for the NCAA's every year. We've even gotten close to winning. Making it to the Frozen Four two of the three years I've been here. It helped that I was one of the star players, the last two years we have been pretty much unstoppable. For the last three years I've been able to live out my dream, but the dream didn't come without a few strings attached.

For one, there were shitty General Education classes. I'm well aware that just about every college has them, doesn't mean I have to like it. If it were up to me, my major would just be Ice Hockey. But I have to take business classes on top of my practice. General Education classes do not help, I happen to hate them so much that I pushed all of them off until I had to start them in junior year if I ever wanted a chance of graduating on time. No graduation means no going pro, and no going pro means everything was for nothing.

I couldn't afford that.

Second, being on a hockey team in Michigan comes with its fair share of social drawbacks. Most of them being that people I don't know already know way too much about me. I'm not talking about stats, but there are a handful of...fanatics...who could probably tell you my blood type if they were asked. Dating someone would just get in the way of what's important, so anything outside of one night stands is out of the question.

Third, and most annoying of all-

"Relations!" I heard a voice in the small lecture room shout. I turned my attention to a girl who was quietly whispering her next words and someone I know far too well failed to hide his laughter.

Garrett Blanchard.

Freshman year was rough at Wakeford. I barely got any play time since it's pretty customary for most freshmen on the team to be benched. When I finally got to prove myself at the end of the season, I thought that I would be unstoppable by next year.

Then Garrett Blanchard entered the scene.

A freshman who got play time at the very first game. He was good, no one could deny that. But the whole reason he got play time is because our team captain at the time knew him from high school or something. Apparently, both of them were in the same school district which was only an hour or so out from here. They grew up on the same extra-curricular hockey team. Over half of the team did. It was then I realized that Wakeford University plucks these kids from that area and practically trains them to go here. They knew each other, relied on each other. Only each other. It was fucked to say the least. I realized just how much of an outsider I was last year. I was the exception, not the rule.

But this year, they would be voting for team captain. The captain decides who gets play time. I have to prove to them that I would be the best pick out of any of the juniors. I can't just play as good as the guys who grew up in Michigan, I have to skate circles around them.