My Hockey Alpha

Nina

I didn’t want to believe Enzo.

I couldn’t believe Enzo! Werewolves? Talking skeletons? None of that was real. Surely this was all a daydream or a hallucination. I just needed to get home, sleep, and destress. A good night of sleep and a hot shower would make me feel better and I would realize that all of this was just in my head.

After nothing but nightmares all night, I resolved to march straight over to see Edward and see if he could help me. I was resistant to his therapy before, when I had the incident with the cadaver, but now I was completely open to it. There was no way any of this was real. I needed serious help.

I crawled out of bed and put on a university sweater, jeans, and my glasses; lately, my contacts were burning my eyes from lack of sleep, so I had given up on them altogether. Besides, people looked at me less with my glasses on. They helped me blend into the nerd crowd, so the popular girls who wanted my head on a pike for being caught with Enzo would leave me alone.

Once I was dressed, I went into the kitchen. Lori and Jessica were still asleep, so I slipped out without having to interact with anyone and made my way across the quad toward Edward’s office.

Edward let me into his office and had me lay down on the sofa.

“More nightmares?” he said. I nodded and explained to him what I saw last night.

Edward sighed after hearing about my encounter with the talking skeleton and Enzo and sat in his chair across from me. “Close your eyes… Good. Now I want you to repeat after me. There is no such thing as werewolves.”

“There is no such thing as werewolves,” I repeated.

such thing as

no such thing

while he turned on a metronome. The slow ticking of the metronome lulled me into a somewhat dazed state. Next, he described images to me; peaceful scenery, like the ocean at sunset, or a field of flowers, to help me relax. I started to breathe deeply and felt my heart rate slow down, and soon I was completely susceptible

with my progress and told me to come back if

for me outside

concerned. “You look like you haven’t

glasses up on my nose. “Just stressed,”

will do that to you,” Tiffany said. We walked

their tournament soon so we’ll be doing lots of physical

begun to fall and it was really starting to feel like autumn now. With the morning fog and the smell of autumn in the air, I was feeling a

that I’m glad you’ve stuck around so far,” she

my lip and looked at the ground. I had still been planning on talking to the dean for a reassignment, but now

were already a quarter of the way through the semester.

went inside. The team was already practicing their drills when we entered. Justin was too focused on his form to pay any attention to me thankfully, and Enzo only shot me a quick glance before returning to training

I walked over to the bench

nearly as intense as the last ones,” she explained. “Just basic stuff. Checking for injuries,

work as Tiffany started calling over the hockey players one by one for their exams. She stood off to