Moment of Truth

Chapter 7: Friends

"Yuzuru, Javi, you guys need to stop doing quad battles during practice," I chide the guys as Yuzuru and Javier are doing a quad battle again while Coach Brian and Coach Tracy left the rink to work on some paperwork that went wrong.

"You can't tell me what to do," Yuzuru calls out to me before doing a quad Loop. He lands it perfectly.

"Uh, Coach Brian gave you your orders so you should follow them."

Yuzuru sticks his tongue at me as he skates around the rink. I shake my head at his childish action. I lean against the wall behind me. I start to play with Yuzuru's Winnie the Pooh tissue holder, Pooh-San. I mess around with one of its ears.

"Oh Marie, lighten up," Javier says skating up to where I am.

I huff at Javier. "You know you should be working on your entries to your jumps, Javier."

"Call me Javi, chica. You always call me Javier. We're friends, and my friends call me Javi."

"Javi, you should be working on your entries."

"Marie!"

Javier skates away from me and prepared for a jump. He tries to do a toe loop but ends up crashing. I shake my head at him. Javier laughs it off and Yuzuru helps him. Yuzuru skates up to me and grabs a tissue from his Winnie the Pooh. He blows his nose and leave his used tissue next to the Winnie the Pooh. Javier comes up and does the same thing, but that causes Yuzuru to whine as he doesn't like when other people take tissues from his Winnie the Pooh. I learned that in the first week of being around Yuzuru.

"Use your own, Javi!" Yuzuru whines childishly.

"Sorry, I forgot my Mickey Mouse today," Javier apologizes sheepishly.

"Hmph." Yuzuru pouts deeply before skating off.

"You upset the baby," I tease Javier as I hand him a small packet of tissues from my bag. I've learned to always have tissues on me because these skaters seem to always need them.

"He'll be fine," Javier laughs it off. Javier skates off again. He tries another jump and lands it. I clap for him.

I look over to Yuzuru and he prepares for a jump as well. His landing is a little shaky but he doesn't fall. So I clap for him as well. Suddenly I hear my phone go off. I check it to see a number I haven't seen call me since I left the Philippines.

"Hello!" I say excitedly into my phone.

"Mar, I hope you haven't forgotten me," says the voice on the other line.

"How could I forget my best friend? I was starting to think you had forgotten about me."

"Never, Mar Mar."

I realize I shouldn't be on the phone in the rink so I head over to the reception area. I sit on a bench near the rink. Claire sees me and waves. I wave back. The guys don't need me right now so I can take this call.

"I was just waiting to save enough money to get a phone that I can call you with," the voice explains.

"Well I'm glad that you did. I was starting to miss you."

"Kaibigan*, I miss you too."

"Ricky, tell me how it is over there. I miss home."

"Everyone misses you and your family. It's kind of empty with you. Come back. You're starting to sound like an American."

"Well I'm in North America and everyone around me speaks English, so I need to speak English here. What time is it over there? It's almost 11 am here. Isn't it late over there?"

"It is, but I had to try to talk to you. I was hoping it wasn't too early over there."

"Well it isn't too early there, but it is definitely late over there. Go to bed. Call me when it isn't late over here."

"Fine. But you better answer when I call. I miss you. We're all worried you'll never come back. That you'll fall in love with some Canadian boy. Then you'll never come back."

"How could I fall in love with a Canadian boy? I'm too busy over here to be finding a suitor. I'm sure I'll find myself a nice Filipino boy just like what my parents want and come back to the Philippines. And I will just make sure you don't call too late. I'd hate to lose sleep. I miss you too. Bye Ricky."

I hang up my phone and head back to the rink. I come back to see Javier and Yuzuru scrambling back on to the ice. When did they come off it? I would've seen them come by if they did. Weird.

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Foreign Words:
Kaibigan: friend