Carlos was awoken by his cell phone buzzing. He hated that noise, it sounded like a jackhammer. He slowly rose to see who it was. Kendall. He quickly answered it, missing his friends.

"Hey Carlos!"

"Hey buddy!" Carlos exclaimed, really excited to talk to Kendall.

"Listen, James and I were planning on going to the rink for a quick game of hockey. You in?"

Carlos wanted to just get up and go right away, but then he remembered his project plans with Logan. "What time were you guys planning on going?"

"Whenever we feel like it. Why? Do you have to do something?"

"Yeah. I have to work on my project with Logan at around noon, but that shouldn't take too long. We could meet up at around two?" Carlos hoped that it was okay, he really missed his friends.

"Alright. I'll call James. I'll see you at two!" Kendall told him as he hung up.

Carlos suddenly felt really excited. The past three days had been weird, the school year so far had been weird. He missed the balance of sophomore year and the years before that. He had hung out with the guys, played hockey, and held a steady relationship with Jennifer. He longed for that again. Everything happens for a reason, he told himself.

"One of our plants died." Logan announced as they were setting up their project.

Carlos shrugged. "Oh well."

Logan raised his brow. "Oh well? Death is such a sudden thing, death is such a scary thing and all you have to say is 'oh well'?"

"Logan you're overreacting. It's just a plant."

"You're right, I'm just being… stupid." Logan muttered.

Carlos put down the pencil he was scribbling notes with. I sound like such a jerk. "No, I'm being stupid. I've never experienced death like you have… I don't even know what I'm talking about. You had to go through what happened to your dad, I don't quite understand how that feels."

You don't even the know the start of it… Logan sighed. "No, just forget about it. I should be more positive. That was a long time ago."

And the results of his death are still torturing me now… Logan shook the thoughts out of his head. He was just angry at his lack of sleep. They quickly finished their project and put away the plants. Carlos didn't know what to do with the dead one. What if Logan gets offended if I throw it away?, Carlos asked himself. He kept it there hoping Logan would take care of it.

Carlos looked at the clock. It was one-thirty. He had to get ready to go. "Listen Logan, I have to run down to the rink to play some hockey. Do you wanna work on the project tomorrow, or…?"

Logan did, he liked having someone to hang out with. "It's up to you. I doubt you want to work on this project all weekend though."

"Alright, Monday then?"

"Sure." Logan was somewhat disappointed, but he really did need sleep and he was expecting one or two day jobs this weekend anyways.

Logan picked up the dead plant and threw it away. I need to get over it.

"Carlitos! Long time, no see!" James shouted as Carlos skated onto the ice.

"What are you even talking about? We sat together at lunch yesterday and we have three freaking classes together." Carlos laughed.

"I know, but we haven't hung out with you in a while."

"Dude, you guys keep going out on dates and now I'm dateless! You can't blame me."

"Well, guess what? No dates right now so let's play some hockey!" Kendall exclaimed.

The boys skated around the rink and got the small match started. Carlos felt unstoppable as he glided on the ice, he felt unstoppable being the center of attention like this. He glanced up at the giggling girls on the bleachers and the smiling kids surrounding the rink that wanted to be just like him when they were older.

He had forgotten this feeling over the past three days. He had fun with Logan, but this was the life he was used to. He felt stupid for liking the attention and the popularity, but he had earned it; he was nice to everyone and he worked his ass off to be one of the best hockey players on the team. This was what he lived for and he wasn't going to let being dateless take it away from him.

The boys shredded the ice for about thirty minutes. Spectators watched in awe at the small game. It was two against one; James and Kendall against Carlos, it had been Carlos' turn to play alone. It was hard having an uneven number of players. Maybe Logan knows how to play hockey…

Eventually, it was time to part from the game and let everyone skate, Carlos had lost. They sat down on the bleachers and started taking off their heavy hockey gear.

"Great game guys. I feel like we haven't played in forever." Kendall said as he gasped for breath.

"The season starts soon, so that's good." James panted.

They decided they would just skate for another hour or so and then go out to eat. They watched the Zamboni start to ride around and clean the ice. The driver looked slightly drunk and the vehicle was going faster than usual. The driver braked quickly and was thrust out of the seat and onto the ice.

"Oh shit!" James shouted.

The man tried to crawl away from the huge Zamboni, but he kept slipping and falling down. People screamed in horror at the scene, some ran for the gates of the rink in attempt to rescue him, Kendall included. The gate was locked and the potential heroes were to frantic to manage to unlock it.

Carlos watched in terror was the driver was run over by the Zamboni, it was a gory and gruesome scene. I should have closed my eyes… He watched as people screamed and ran out of the building, James was pulling on his arm. There was blood all over the ice.

Behind all of the commotion, he watched the still moving Zamboni. He watched as it smeared the driver's blood across the ice. He saw something strange though, a slow moving black cloak crossing the ice towards the machine.

"Come on Carlos!" yelled Kendall as he pulled him.

The boys quickly ran out of the building.

They ate in silence, still horrified by what they had just witnessed. Carlos had never been depressed while eating at his diner, it was too filled with good memories, but today was different. I'll never shrug death off again…

"We were so close to saving him…" Kendall said quietly.

James looked down at his food and played with it with his fork. "It was his time, I guess."

His time? What does that even mean? What determines when your time is?

"Carlos, you haven't said a word since it happened…." Kendall remarked.

"I've never known anyone whose died."

James and Kendall looked surprised. James frowned at him, but then tried to smile. "It's going to be okay, buddy. We'll get through this. We're the amazing three and we don't let anything bring us down."

Carlos took a bite of his food. "Maybe you're right. Move along. We have one life to live and dwelling on the sorrow isn't going to make it any better. This is the only life we've got and we've gotta live it big time."

The boys smiled at each other in agreement.

I just had to make the corny reference at the end. :]