Update time! I'm so thankful for all the amazing reviews you guys gave me on the last chapter. There were 25 reviews! I love you guys! They helped me a lot and I'm trying really hard to make this a good story. You'll get to see a little of Percy's life in this chapter as well as more scenes on the ice rink. There's not a huge change of scenery because the party won't come until the next update. But I hope you guys like this update!
Disclaimer: Don't own
Calypso groans, rubbing her arm and running a hand through her hair that now had some snow in it. Getting on her knees, she uses the wall surrounding the ice rink to pull herself back up.
"Callie, you ok?" Annabeth asks, skating carefully over to her friend and making sure to stay close to the wall in case she fell as well.
"That depends on what your definition of ok is. I'm having flashbacks to elementary school when I was just learning how to skate." She says exasperatedly.
"You're telling me. I don't think I've ever felt this uncomfortable in a pair of skates before." Annabeth agrees, staring down at the wide patted skates.
"What are you talking about? You're doing amazing. I haven't seen you fall once."
"Hey, I've come close at least five times in the last few minutes!" She argues, grabbing Calypso's arm to steady her. They begin to skate together around the perimeter of the rink, making sure to stay within an arms length of the wall.
"I still don't really understand the point of this. I mean what were the coaches thinking? Renting hockey skates for us and figure skates for the hockey players. That's insane!" The caramel colored hair girl complains, making sure to say it so that only her and Annabeth could hear it. The last thing she needed was for one of the coaches to make her condition.
"Well look at the bright side. We seem to be doing a whole lot better than the guys." Annabeth replies, gesturing over to a group of the hockey players who were struggling to say upright. She almost laughs when Leo falls for the second time when trying to get back up.
"That's true. I'm almost positive Christina or Hedge are going to start making us do stuff other than just skating around the rink though. I should start preparing myself to fall more."
Right after she says it, Christina blows her whistle for everyone to gather around her. It takes a while before everyone comes together but eventually after many wobbles and near falls, everyone stands around the two coaches. Annabeth has trouble trying to stop in her skates. She was used to having a toe pick at the front of the blade but hockey skates didn't have those.
"For the remainder of practice Coach Hedge and I will be taking our teams to opposing sides on the rink and we'll be having separate team practices. This will not become a regular thing but for today it is. You will have to stay in the skates you have on though. The purpose of the switch is to manage your stability and speed even with blades you are not as familiar with. When you return to your usual skates tomorrow your skills should show improvement. That's all. Tridents team is on that side and my team is over here." She explains, skating towards the left side of the rink. The figure skaters follow her lead and the hockey player's move to the other side, still struggling to keep themselves upright.
Annabeth will admit that hockey skates were pretty comfortable compared to figure skates. There was so much more patting and they just didn't seem to be hurting her feet as much. That didn't mean she enjoyed them though. She felt so out of place and not herself with the skates on. She was so used to the snug white skates that she always practiced in not these thick heavy black ones.
Christina had them do a few small drills. They balanced on one leg, practiced forward and backwards swivels, and even did an exercise where they had to learn how to come to a stop in hockey skates. Annabeth didn't really get the point of that one. They were figure skaters and after today they would go back to using the toe pick to stop so why learn how to stop in hockey skates? There were a few falls here and there but their team looked like pro athletes compared to the Tridents team. She stares across the rink at the others.
Coach Hedge seemed to be having them do several exercises involving leaning in different directions and skating at an angle and it was not going well. Maybe now they would see how hard it really is to skate in figure skates Annabeth thought as Jason fell backwards onto the cold ice. It seemed like they all ended up losing their balance at one point, everyone except Percy. That boy seemed to be surprising her day after day.
He was a little shaky of course and he might have stumbled once or twice but Annabeth was pretty amazed at how fast he'd managed to recover and keep himself from falling. He had a look of pure determination on his face, he liked to be challenged. She admired that quality, as she had it herself. None of them had to wear their hockey gear today so Percy skated in some jeans and a black hoodie. She notices that his eyebrows furrow in concentration as he looks down at the skates and in that moment he almost looks…cute.
"Annabeth!" She hears someone shout. She nearly falls, putting her hands out in front of her and looking embarrassingly over to Piper who was staring at her curiously.
She can't believe she had just said, or rather had a thought that Percy looked cute. Where the hell did that come from? They weren't super cliché archrivals anymore but she was supposed to be thinking of him as someone she could just barely tolerate, nothing else.
"Coach called for us come on." Piper explains, taking her by the arm and carefully skating over to the team.
"We're going to finish off practice with a few small jumps. I won't be making you do really hard ones because I don't want to risk anyone spraining an ankle. I know hockey skates aren't made for jumps but trust me when I say that if you can perform a clean jump in these skates, when you try it in figure skates it'll be near perfect. That said, lets try a waltz jump."
They spread out and Annabeth begins her approach. She stumbles but manages to hold her balance before jumping up and putting one skate down to land on. The blade comes in contact with the ice but not in the way she hopes. She feels her cheek on the cold hard ice a moment later. She sits up, her arm starting to feel numb from the ice. She had landed on her side and knew that tomorrow she would be finding a nice purple bruise on her hip. She glares at the skates on her feet. She could have easily landed that if she were in figure skates. Calypso comes over to her putting her hand out for the blonde. She takes it thankfully.
"Guess it's my turn to help you." She teases, bringing Annabeth to her feet. Calypso almost ends up falling as well but Annabeth grabs onto her when she's standing up and prevents that from happening. They seem to do a little dance before they're both somewhat stable once again.
…
"Pick up the pace boys! You should be able to do this in your sleep!" Coach Hedge shouts, observing his team skating around half the rink practicing forward crossovers.
"I think he's forgetting the fact that we're in figure skates." Jason says, coming up to skate next to Percy.
"It's Hedge. He doesn't give a crap. Meanwhile we're all here trying not to go face first into the ice." He replies as they complete another small lap around the half rink.
"Well we are. You on the other hand seem to be doing fine. You're like the only one who hasn't fallen. Complete opposite from Leo."
"Hey I heard that!" The curly haired male shouts, slowly catching up to the two of them. It takes a little while but eventually he's level with them.
"I'll have you know that before today I hadn't touched a pair of figure skates in my life. Now I'm starting to realize why too. These things are so uncomfortable and stiff."
"I'm pretty sure none of us have figure skated dude. Can't argue with you on the uncomfortable factor though. I have to give them props, they skate in these daily without looking like it's killing their feet." Jason says, gesturing to the other team across the rink that was now attempting small jumps.
Percy follows his gaze, looking over to see a particular blonde taking her approach for a jump. The moment she comes down to land it her skate doesn't touch the ice right and she falls. Calypso comes to help her up and they manage to retain balance after a minute. They were wearing hockey skates today but it was pretty impressive that they practiced in such stiff skates every other time.
"Yeah, I guess." He shrugs nonchalantly.
"Mom I'm home!" Percy yells, slipping his Adidas slides off by the door and dropping his duffle bag at the bottom of the stairs. He notices that his feet were still a bit sore from the skates he had to practice in today.
"In the kitchen!" A voice calls. He heads straight before making a left where the dining area and kitchen were located in the small apartment.
When he sets foot in the room he smiles when he sees his mother at the stove cooking what looks to be like some spaghetti with meatballs. He expects to be greeted with a hug and a kiss but what he gets instead is the opposite. She turns around with her arms crossed on her chest, a menacing look plastered on her face as her brown eyes bore into his.
"Practice ended over an hour ago. Where have you been?" She interrogates. Percy was significantly taller than her but that didn't mean she wasn't super intimidating when she wanted to be.
"I was just out with a few people. Lost track of time sorry." He replies. Sally Jackson's expression changes to one of disapproval as she looks at her son.
"Percy…you promised you were going to stop getting into trouble." She sighs, not really knowing what else to say.
She hated when he didn't let her know where he was. Last time it had happened he had come home with a black eye from having been involved in a fight at a party. Another time he'd come home smelling like smoke. He claimed that it wasn't him but a few of the people he was around were smoking. Either way, she didn't like the people he hung around outside of playing hockey. They made him into someone completely different. Luckily, she hadn't had any confrontations with the cops about him but she felt that it was bound to happen.
"Mom I'm fine. Stop worrying so much. Is dinner almost ready? I'm hungry." He says, bringing her in for a quick hug before looking over to the food.
"It'll be ready soon. Go get cleaned up and it'll be waiting when you come down." She tells him, spinning back around to finish up dinner.
He returns around fifteen minutes later wearing some gym shorts and a t-shirt, his hair slightly wet from the shower he had taken. The two sit down at the small wooden table in the kitchen. Percy's stomach growls as he looks down at the delicious looking meal.
"So how was practice today?" Sally asks, using her fork to pick up some spaghetti.
"We had to switch skates today. The guys and I all had to practice in figure skates and the figure skaters used hockey skates. It was awful."
"Well maybe now you understand that figure skating is harder than it looks son." Sally says proudly.
Ever since he was little she had tried to get him interested in figure skating. She used to be a skater herself when she was in high school and a rather good one. She made the mistake of stopping when she got to college and regretted it more than anything. It was just as much a boys sport as it was a girls sport but Percy was fascinated by hockey and didn't seem to think figure skating was as interesting. Somehow he'd gotten into the mindset that figure skating shouldn't even be considered a sport and was stupid. To this day the two disagreed on the topic. However, lately he seemed to be realizing that it was challenging and required a lot of work.
Percy mumbles something incoherently back that sounds sort of like he's in agreement and she smiles. Even though she initially wanted him to figure skate she was happy he played hockey. She could tell he loved the sport and he was very good. She went to as many games as she could when she wasn't working as a waitress at her day job and he always impressed her with his skills on the ice.
After they finish dinner Percy helps her with the dishes. He goes to put something on TV for them to watch but Sally stops him.
"It's Wednesday night. Shouldn't you be doing homework?"
He groans, placing the remote back on the coffee table and heading upstairs to his room where his backpack lied with homework assignments over the past week that hadn't been touched. He attempts to do the overdue assignments and that night's homework for about twenty minutes before a wave of sleepiness comes over him and he lays back on the small twin bed in his room. Deciding to just do some work in the morning, he drifts off to sleep.
Chapter 7 complete! There's so much more to Percy's life that I didn't put into this chapter and that's because I didn't want to just dump everything about his life into this one update but you'll be finding out things along the way probably through Annabeth's eyes. No, Percy isn't in a gang or anything he's just a bit of a delinquent and there's a reason for that. I'm trying my absolute hardest to put more feeling into my story and make you guys picture the scene but not overload it with detail. Lets try for 20 reviews this chapter. I know we can do it! See you soon.
REVIEW, REVIEW AND REVIEW!
-M