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Eye Contact

(Jordan's house)

Jordan Banks sat on his bed in his old bedroom with his earbuds in his ears. He and his parents had just moved back to Minneapolis two weeks ago. There were so many memories held in this very neighborhood, on the very pond back behind his house. He walked to his bedroom door and looked up to the Ducks poster that covered the entrance to the attic.

He pulled the string quietly, trying not to make such a racket. He climbed up the stairs and pulled the attic door back into place. No one knew about it, except one. This one person was gone though, she had moved away before he did. He had made a mistake the day she left, and he never got to say he was sorry. It hurt him just to think about it. She was his best friend, and he did her wrong.

He opened the doors to the small balcony that looked over the pond. He glanced back at her house, the one that was owned by the one and only, Lillian Conway. He could see her balcony to her old room. He remembered that he used to sneak out of his house at night and climb up to the balcony and sneak in her room. They would talk, and laugh, and her parents wouldn't know because they were downstairs sleeping. He smiled, remembering the good old times.

Secretly when Jordan was little, he imagined them growing up and getting married. He laughed to himself at how ridiculous it sounded, but to be honest, he never let go of the thought of seeing her again. Something told him that soon was his answer. He could imagine it himself, he would apologize to her, make sure that she knew that he was wrong and she wasn't. He wanted to set things right, but he never got the chance to talk or see her over the years even though their dads were still good friends. When their parents got together, they would stay separately at their own grandparents houses. He was quite upset.

Then he imagined at how different she must look. Being older, she must be taller, prettier, figure coming in. He couldn't help but think that she would look like her mom. They did look alike in a photo they received in the mail back when she was 11, except she was blonde and her mother was a little more light brunette, and they went on vacation and ended up sending a postcard to his parents.

His thoughts were faltered when a rock was thrown up on the balcony, hitting his foot. He looked down to see a tall, brown haired boy with freckles on his face. He looked up smiling. Jordan smirked back, knowing that he knew this person, but needed a closer look. Just then, the kid started climbing. Only one person knew how to do that, and that was Lily. Jordan narrowed his eyes as the boy slid over the ledge, and inside the attic.

"Jesus, Banks. Did your room get higher off the ground? And since when do you have a balcony?" His voice clicked in Jordan's mind.

He laughed. "Dude this is the attic but don't tell anyone. Got it Averman?" Jordan said, making sure that it stayed between the two of them.

"How you doing, Banks?" Connor Averman asked as Jordan took his buds out of his ears.

"Good man, feels great to be back, and I'm staying." Jordan said happily. Connors face lit up in delight. "I'm also playing hockey, so I'm assuming since you live in the same neighborhood, we're gonna be Ducks together?"

Connor nodded his head. "Yeah! Definitely man! First pre-season practice is this afternoon and we're gonna wear our dads first Duck jerseys like we did when we were little right?" He looked down, realizing that he was already wearing his. "Oh, well this thing doesn't need cleaning anyway." He laughed.

Jordan joined. They talked about everything that was going on in their lives, and what did happen while they were apart for the three years. Jordan moved when he was 11. Connor and him were like brothers, and nothing could keep them from talking, until they lost numbers and could never find out their new ones.

"So, did you know that some family moved into the Conway's old home two weeks ago?" Connor asked. Connor lived next door to them.

Jordan glanced over at Connor, raising an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah, some girl and her parents. They're from Florida. They had the license tag on the back of their truck."

"Any idea of their names?"

Connor shook his head. "No, and I haven't bothered to go up and ask. She looks familiar, but it can't be the person I'm thinking of. It couldn't be."

"Lily?" Jordan's voice was soft and low. Connor nodded, then started shaking his head, as if a billion thoughts had run through his mind. Jordan got up and walked to the small refrigerator and opened it and grabbed a can of pop. "Want some pop?"

"Sure." Jordan brought him some and leaned back against the ledge of the balcony. It was about noon. Both boys were homeschooled by their parents because of traveling so much over the years. Averman traveled less, but Jordan knew he didn't want to go to a regular school, just so he could miss days he needed.

Just then Connor stood up and walked to the ledge. "Look." He said. Jordan turned around to see a girl walk out on to the balcony of what used to be Lily Conway's room. He could barely see her, but she was tall and had blonde hair she wore a yellow long sleeve shirt on and had light denim skinny jeans on. Jordan couldn't help but agree with Averman on how familiar she looked, but their was something about her that made him know that it wasn't Lily, but he just didn't know what.

"Conner, how did you know that I was back?" Jordan realized he never was able to contact Connor because of the connection loss a year ago, and Jordan didn't know he was moving back till a month before they decided to move.

"I was hanging out with one of my friends Landon Duncan, and we ran into your dad yesterday as we were skating around the lake. I had asked to see you, but he said that you were in town with your mom. Told me to come by later, but Landon didn't leave until late, and I rather would have spent time like this just talking, instead of having Landon, whom you don't know into our conversations that he wouldn't understand." Connor had a point at the ending. It would have been awkward to talk in front of his friend, especially when mentioning Lily.

Jordan nodded in understanding. "So, who's the coach for our team?"

"I don't know to be honest, the last coach bailed. He moved to California." Connor didn't seem to upset about the coach leaving.

Just then, the two boys heard a name being called from down stairs. Jordan looked up. "That'd be my mom. I have to go do some reading for school, and then do some chores, and then get ready for practice." He smiled.

"And that's my que to leave." He hopped over the ledge onto the roof. "Thanks for the pop, I'll see you at practice."

"Be careful Averman." Jordan said while closing the door.

Just before the door officially closed, Averman called out, "hey Jordan," Jordan opened the one door again, and looked down at Connor. "It's good to have you back, bro." Then Connor hopped down safely and made a run for his house.

It took Jordan five minutes to get down the steps and have everything locked back in place, before his mom knocked on the door. He immediately put the buds in his ears and turned the volume up, while sitting on his bed with sports illustrated in his face. His mom walked in and smiled. He saw her and played everything cool.

"Hey Mom." He said a little to loud, still with the music blasting in his ears. He took the buds out and turned off the music. "Wow, I said that really loud didn't I?"

She laughed and nodded. "At least you were reading something." She looked at the magazine he was still holding. She grabbed the book on his desk and sat it in his lap. Les Miserables, not the book he would have chosen, but his mom insisted. This was at a 10th grade reading level. He was only in the 9th, but then again, he was in all of the honors classes, so he was intended on reading higher level reading books. It wasn't that he didn't like reading, it just had to be the right story to read. He hadn't even started the book.

"Here, if you read the first section, which is not that many pages, ill let you off early. You at least need to read a section every day. If you space it out correctly, it's not as bad as what it seems." She said.

"Mom, there's over 1,300 pages in this book. It'll take me forever to finish it." Jordan complained.

"That's why I'll quiz you every other section you read, just so you're understanding it." She saw his expression and sighed. "Jordan, honey, this is being counted as your yearly grade. It's a big grade. And I know you can do it."

He looked at the book for a minute and then opened to page one. "Good. Only the first section. Then when your done, I'm gonna asked you a question relating to it and if you answer me correctly, I'm gonna let you move on and do a couple things around the house to help me and then get you ready for practice." She kissed his forehead and walked out of his room.

At first Jordan thought that it was a sappy beginning, but then it turned out okay at the end of the first section. He walked downstairs, confident enough to know the answer to his mothers question. He assumed she was going to ask the a more difficult question, but when she asked, "what was the Bishops name?" He literally flipped out of his chair.

"Really?" He scoffed. "You made me read 48 pages that I examined for like five minutes each just so you could ask me what the guys name was that was in the first paragraph, no wait the first sentence?"

She laughed at his remark. "Well, what's his name?"

"M. Charles Francois-Bienvenu Myriel." He said as he shook his head.

"Don't expect me to do this every time. You need to read it no matter what. You never know what I'm going to ask you." She said very clearly. "Now go start your load of laundry and clean your bathroom. Make sure things are picked up in your bedroom, and then put you hockey stuff right outside the door so when your dad gets back, he can take you to practice."

He got right to it. Knowing his mother, she inspects everything and wants to make sure the house is cleaned up nicely, just in case people ever come over. He didn't have much laundry since he keeps up with it. The benefits of being an only child and having your own living space upstairs. He scrubbed the sink in his bathroom, and made sure the floors were water free. When he got to his room, he made his bed, and set his laptop back on his desk where it belongs, and put away the clean clothes he had just taken out of the dryer.

He grabbed his hockey bag out of his closet and put on his dads old Ducks jersey, just like he said he would do for Averman, and he made his way downstairs. His dad came home just in time.

"Hey son, let me just go change my shirt and we'll be out of here." He said, walking to his room. Jordan said he'd wait in the car, and his mom had wished him luck.

Jordan breathed in. He was pumped. His dad came out and hopped in the drivers seat. "You excited?" He asked.

"Definitely! I mean Connor's gonna be there, so I'm excited." Jordan said.

"Oh, so you did see Connor today? Sorry, I was going to tell you last night at dinner, but the thought had slipped my mind." He said apologetically.

Jordan shrugged. "No problem. You had a lot on your mind yesterday, so I wasn't worried about it. Right now I'm just ready to get on the ice. I haven't been since we got here and it's driving me crazy."

Adam Banks laughed. "I know son, I know."

Once they got to their destination, they walked in and a lady told them that the arena was closed for peewee practice. "I'm actually here for practice ma'am." Jordan said nicely. She nodded, and went back to working. He sat on the bench, putting his skates on and adjusted his pads before skating out onto the ice to meet seven pairs of eyes including Connor's, which make eight.

He skated around and stopped by Jordan's side. "Banks, I want you to meet the team." He paused before going into introductions starting from the left to right. "This is Devon Neilson." He pointed to a guy a little shorter than me that had a 50s hair do, but it seemed to have fit him. He had green eyes and was tan. Didn't look like much of an ice skater.

Connor continued. "Lawrence Mark." He was taller than Devon, and had long shaggy brown hair, and brown eyes. Jordan immediately thought of him as one of the pretty boy types. "And his sister Kylie." She was next to his side and took off her helmet. Jordan would have never had guessed she was a girl until she did that. She and her brother had a similar resemblance to each other, especially when it came to their eyes.

"Landon Duncan, and his sister Lizzy." The boys name he recognized from their earlier conversation in the attic. He was tall and lanky, had short, strawberry blonde with a red tint hair color, and bluish-green eyes. His sister was very blonde with long hair and same color eyes.

"Michael and Zach Germaine." Michael was the same height as Lizzy with longer dark curly hair, and dark eyes with a few freckles. Zach was shorter with short light brown hair, puppy dog brown eyes and freckles everywhere on his face.

"Rafael Goldberg." He was short and a little chunky. It wouldn't surprise Jordan if he took on the goalies position, just like his father had. He had black hair, brown eyes, and wore glasses.

The last kid looked like he was up to no good. "I'm Cole Johnson." He said himself with an attitude. He was shorter than Jordan, with dark brown hair with red streaks going through it, he had hazel eyes and really long eye lashes. He tried to make himself look intimidating, but Jordan just ignored it.

Connor finally concluded. "Team, this is our newest member Jordan Banks."

Devon skated up to him and shook his hand. "I remember, we were in the third grade together, and so was Lawrence and Rafael." He looked at Conner. "And this kid." He put him in a head lock and messed with him.

Just then a man skated out onto the ice. He looked really familiar but he just couldn't place his face. He had a slight beard, with kind eyes and an athletic build body. He wasn't old, he was young, couldn't be more than 35, well at least he didn't look it.

Connor tapped Jordan's shoulder. "Man that's the dude that moved in next door in the Conway's house."

"You sure?" Jordan asked.

"Yeah, I saw him working out in the yard yesterday at lunch, I think he's trying to fix up the old fire pit."

The man got finished talking to Jordan's dad who seemed to have known him by the look on his face.

"Hi everyone, I'm Charlie Conway and I'll be your coach for this season." He smiled. Jordan's mouth hung slightly open.

"Well," said Connor dumbfounded. "That's why he looked so familiar."

Jordan's mind began to race, if Charlie Conway was here, living back in Minneapolis, then that meant-

"Coach!" A girl called out from the outside the ice. Jordan couldn't believe what his eyes were processing. She wasn't that little girl he played with anymore. She was a women.

Coach Conway skated back over, and he had asked her a question and she shook her head. Her eyes drifted to the ice. The one thing in her eyes that stuck Jordan like lightning, and that was fear. Her eyes held fear. That was odd to him, she had never looked like that before when her eyes looked at the ice, but her head shook vigorously and she held out her hand. Coach had handed her the keys, and he skated back towards the group.

Jordan had never took his eye off of her. Then she locked eyes with him, and she knew. She studied his face when the moment of realization came. She broke eye contacted and looked over to his father who was sitting down, not far from where she stood. He smiled and waved, and she smirked and did the same. Then she looked back at Jordan. He decided to do the smart thing and give her a smile and lift his hand to wave. This time she smiled and waved back, before turning around to leave the building.

He turned to face the group. "Coach Conway?" Asked Kylie. "Who was that?" She asked.

"Oh, that's my daughter Lily." He said.

Devon's mouth dropped. "What? That's Lily? Wow, I didn't even recognize her!"

Lawrence added, "that can't be Lily! She so different! Besides if that were her, why isn't she out here?" Clearly he did know her well enough to know that Lily lived for the ice.

Coach sighed. "To explain the exact reason, would take forever. But long story short, there was an accident and she got hurt. Don't be to harsh on her guys, she's been through a lot in the past two years." He looked at Jordan and Conner after the last sentence. "Alright let's get warm ups started."