A/N- I told myself it would be over with chapter 2, then I got inspired. But this is really the last chapter. *shrug* (We'll see how long that lasts.) Mostly Charlie's POV this time. A little lighter than the last two, I finally got some decent humor in-yay! The Ducks still belong to Disney. Pokémon, Dogma, and Air Force One belong to... erm... whoever owns them... which is not me.
*****
Last week's little chat on the roof took a bit of a toll on me. I've done a lot of reflecting lately.
I remember when Banks first came into the Duck locker room. Everything got so quiet. We all just looked at him, and he looked so uncomfortable... so nervous, so alone, so... afraid? I had never seen a Hawk so humbled. And it felt good. But then, for some unfathomable reason, my heart broke for this newcomer, this Hawk who was now a Duck.
Without even thinking about what I was doing, I stood up to welcome him.
I was glad Jesse stopped me, I really had no idea what came over me.
It wasn't until I found his sketchbook that I realized how much of an impact my offhand action had. There were so few smiles in that book. Yet I was smiling.
"I don't get this guy. He's too nice..."
I remember when McGill shoved him into the goalpost. It was unspoken among the Ducks, that he was our rallying point, after that. Defeating the Hawks, for this Hawk who was now a Duck. None of us were really even friends with him yet.
We did become friends. It was quite a learning experience. He was about as different from me as anyone could get. He was calm, I was short-tempered. He was reserved, I was outgoing. He never seemed to fit in, I had always fit in.
Yet we were friends. We would hang out. He would coach me, help me improve my game. We stuck together. It seemed like going to Eden Hall could only strengthen that. Jesse, Banksie's best friend on the team, was going to spend a year in Colorado with his grandparents. There was only one other person for him to hang out with, and we were ready for a lot of fun.
If only we'd known.
But that's the past. Currently, our resident ex-enemy (twice over) is sitting alone at the edge of the soccer field, watching the team practice. I know for a fact that he has no interest in the game. But I guess there's not much for him to do but practice, homework, and watch other sports. After all, he's got no other close friends on the team, and I don't have a lot of free time anymore. I'm otherwise committed.
Speaking of my other commitment, I've got a date with her tonight. She's been getting a little annoyed with me lately. Two days ago she finally got me to spill about Banksie—she immediately decided he needs a girlfriend. Girls!
Linda and I made an agreement that we don't get together at all on days when we've got plans for the evening, so we can hang out with our other friends. Well, now's a perfect example of why that agreement's such a good idea.
I march up to Banks and grin at him. "Enjoying yourself?"
He looks up at me for a moment. "Of course I am. Don't I look like it?"
"No."
He laughs. "Okay, you win. Why aren't you off with Linda, huh?"
"We've got plans. Later."
He shrugs at this, and turns his attention back to the soccer team. I think they're scrimmaging, though I wouldn't know a soccer game if it slapped me across the face. "Who's winning?"
"How should I know? You've been distracting me."
"Who was winning before I came over here?"
He shrugs again. "The team in the red and white jerseys."
Both teams are in red and white jerseys.
That clinches it, he's not near as absorbed in the practice as he's pretending to be. I grab him by the wrist and yank him into a standing position. "You know what, Banksie? We are going to go rent a movie, make some popcorn, chase my roommate out, and have a serious re-bonding session." He starts to protest. "And if you complain about it, the movie's gonna be Pokémon."
"I'll come, I'll come!" he yelps. Good—I didn't want to watch Pokémon either.
*****
He obediently followed me to the movie store. Just to see what he'd do, I headed straight for the Pokémon stuff anyway—he unceremoniously dragged me to the action/adventure section. After half an hour of combing almost every inch of the store we finally wound up with Air Force One, which neither of us had seen before, and Dogma, which the whole team gets together and watches about every two weeks.
And now, with Guy elsewhere, and fully equipped with popcorn, soda, TV, and five hours of free time, we are sprawled on the floor of my dorm room.
Halfway through Dogma, though, I notice that he doesn't seem to be enjoying the movie as much as usual. "Banksie, what's up? You okay?"
He hesitates. "Fine."
Yeah, right.
"Didn't we just go over this trust issue last week?"
"Yeah, but..." He nods to the movie. "Otherwise occupied."
"No, that's no excuse. I said this is a re-bonding session. You don't have movies at bonding sessions to watch them!" He laughs, but sobers up pretty quickly. "C'mon. I'm only trying to help..."
I know he doesn't mean to, but Banks has this great way of making me feel totally useless whenever I try to talk to him. At least, about serious things.
For a minute, I think he's ignoring me. I almost miss it when he finally replies. "I was just thinking," he mutters. "If you had been assigned to Varsity, nobody would've acted any different towards you."
I read his tone easily, but it takes a moment to totally sink in. Is that jealousy in his voice? But he's not done. "Or if it'd been any of the others, for that matter. Hawk or no Hawk, when will you guys stop thinking I'm going to stab you in the back the first chance I get?"
Whoa. Didn't expect that. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it would have been something about Varsity. Not the Hawks. "Most of us don't even remember you were a Hawk." I feel a little bad about that, it's not entirely true. After all, I was just thinking about him being a Hawk a couple hours ago. But to all intents and purposes... at the very least, none of us hold it against him. "You still worry about that?"
He stares at me for what seems like an eternity. "What do you think?" I can see he's trying to hold back tears. He won't cry in front of me again. "You think I just forgot all about the first ten years of my life when I became a Duck? You think I stopped thinking about what I used to be like? You think it's easy to be forgiven?" He looks away, and I know he's lost his struggle.
My heart breaks all over again.
I have no idea what to do about this. "Banksie, I—"
"Don't." He shakes his head. "I can't handle this again. Just... don't." He stands up and tries to leave.
I get up as well, to block his path. I can understand him not wanting to deal with this right now, but he can't keep running away. Maybe our last talk didn't settle things as well as I thought.
"Move."
I'm not going to move, and he knows it. He can't make me move, and he knows that too. He's slightly taller than I am, but he's also skinny and—for a hockey player—very nonviolent. At least off the ice.
"I'm not moving." We have a brief but intense staring match, which he wins. I can't begin to describe what I saw in his eyes. But that doesn't mean I'm getting out of his way.
"I thought not." He sighs, backs off, and sits on my bed. "All right. What do you want?"
What do I want? What kind of question is that? I want to know what's wrong with him, why he can't just lighten up and see the good in himself for once. "I want you to lay off yourself for a bit and have some fun."
"Fun? Isn't that what practices are for? And games? I have plenty of fun."
Why didn't I expect him to say that? Everybody knows he's got no room in his life for anything but hockey. One track mind, I guess, beatings, when he's not beating himself up he's playing a sport where you beat everyone else up. "There's more to life than hockey."
"Not to my life."
"If there wasn't you wouldn't have been here watching movies with me, now would you have?"
He pauses, calms down, considers that for a minute, and shoots me a mock-indignant look. "You threatened me with Pokémon! That's blackmail and you can't use my decision against me! That's got to violate some amendment..." He grabs my American Government book, lying sadly neglected on my desk, and starts flipping through it. Having sufficiently distracted me, he does something totally unexpected. He flings a pillow at me.
He's rather off the mark, seeing as he's splitting his attention between me and the book. But if it's a pillow fight he wants... I catch the projectile and clobber him over the head with it. He vaults behind Guy's bed, still holding my textbook. "I'm warning you! I've got a 900-page book and I know how to use it!"
"That's low."
"Yep."
I lunge at him right as he says that, catching him off guard. Within seconds we're on the floor, weapons aside, playfully trying to kill each other. He's succeeded in making me forget about our conversation—we'll have to finish it later. But for now I can't bring myself to spoil the moment. He's actually laughing.
It's been forever since I heard him laugh.
I pin him to the floor, and he grabs a discarded pillow and shoves it at me. When he tries to get up I grab him by the leg and he ends up flat on his face. He turns and smacks me with another pillow, and suddenly he freezes.
I heard it too. The sound of a door opening.
Guy walks in casually, not noticing us at first. "Hey! You guys... having... fun...?"
"Of course. Don't we look like it?" Adam tosses a third pillow at him.
Guy is not one to mess with when it comes to pillow fights. He jumps into the fray without a second thought, and before I know it, we have achieved total chaos.
For a minute, things seem back to normal.
*****
Adam's POV
I'm going to have a hell of a shiner by tomorrow. Someday, Guy's going to learn to hold the pillow so he won't be punching people out. But I don't mind. Ducks wear their wounds proudly, even when they've got nothing to do with anything done on the ice. Besides, it was still fun. It was worth it.
Another day, another drawing.
It's kind of an odd one this time. Just a lot of feathers. Duck feathers. And Ducks bashing each other with pillows. Go figure.
The entry is far removed from most of what I've written this year. A little lighter, a little more cheerful. No, make that a lot more cheerful.
"Guy in a pillow fight's a scary thing. Just wait'll the next time we end up on opposite scrimmage teams, he'll get his... Things are going okay with Charlie. We've got a long way to go still, but we should get everything sorted out—probably by summer break, when it won't matter for another three months, but that's okay! Even I can tell we've made progress. For now, I'll settle for that."
I put the book away.