My Hockey Alpha

Nina

I tried calling my mother after I discovered that the baby picture was missing, but unsurprisingly, she didn’t answer Cursing to myself, I hung up the phone and decided that it was too late now to worry about it, the damage had already been done, it was late at night, and I had work in the morning.

The next morning, I awoke with a start to the sound of my alarm and rain pattering against the window I crawled out of bed, showered, dressed, and made my way to Tiffany’s office with a cup of coffee from the dining hall in my hand. It was so hot that it burned my hand a bit through the cardboard, but I was too focused on getting out of the rain to care

“Good morning!” Tiffany called from her desk when I entered, her voice chipper as usual I managed a tired smile and shook my umbrella off before coming in the rest of the way and hanging my jacket on the hooks at the back of the room.

“Morning,” I said, wincing as I burnt my tongue on a sip of the scalding hot coffee. “What’s on the agenda today?”

Tiffany squinted her eyes to look out the window before looking back down at the pile of paperwork in front of her with a frown. “Well, I was going to suggest making our rounds to the sports teams today,” she said, “but it looks like the weather decided to throw a wrench in that plan. So, I guess we’ll just try to get through this paperwork.”

I nodded and pulled up a chair If I was being honest, I was glad to just spend the morning in Tiffany’s office; I didn’t particularly feel up to walking around all morning and dealing with sweaty football players who would, no doubt, be asking questions about my ” relationship” with Enzo.

Tiffany must have been able to read my mind, because thankfully she didn’t. ask any questions either, allowing us to work in silence for a while

After a couple of hours of silently scouring through physical exam records, health reports, and statistics, Tiffany threw her pen down on the desk and leaned back with a sigh. I looked up from my work to see the attractive middle-aged blonde rubbing her eyes and yawning.

“Didn’t sleep much, either?” I asked.

lifting them over her head and bending to each side in a stretch as she watched the

I knew what she was going to say before she even

“Mad wolf ”

that I just spoke out loud, albeit under my breath. Tiffany, thankfully, didn’t seem to hear me or at least,

know,” she said in a somewhat dreamy, thoughtful voice, “when I went to school here, there was a similar string of illnesses. We called it

to race through my mind. Had werewolves been

about what it

wasn’t much different than it is now, really,” she said finally with a shrug. “I was a lot like you, actually. I had a wonderful group of friends in the hockey club. I wish I stayed in touch

I pictured her with her group of friends. Something about it made me smile;

a tall metal cabinet at the back of the room, opening the doors and standing on her tiptoes to grab a shoebox off the top shelf. She turned back toward me with a smirk and carried it over to the table with both hands. It was dusty and the cardboard was crinkled around the corners from age She opened it with a grin to reveal a pile of polaroid photographs, handwritten notes, and various other

cloud of dust that was floating in front of her face from abruptly opening the box. I smiled and leaned forward on the table, sitting on my knees in the chair. I felt like a child again, asking my mother to show me an old

There were so many pictures of Tiffany and her friends; pictures from Halloween parties where she wore matching tiger costumes with her friends, pictures of them sitting around a campfire with bottles of beer in their hands, pictures of her smiling

entire group together — the hockey club, judging from the handmade banner they held up with big, cheesy grins on their faces. Tiffany was right in the center,

recognized the white-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes that belonged

once mentioned that she

that looked like it had been torn apart, judging from the little white line from the underlayer of the photo paper being exposed. I held the photo

She furrowed her brow and took the photo from me, her eyes momentarily flashing with an emotion that I couldn’t quite read before she abruptly cleared her throat and put it back in the box, snapping the lid