My Hockey Alpha

Nina

By the time the symposium came, I had spent the past few days trying my best to solely focus on my presentation. I decided that I couldn’t let my feelings for Enzo impede upon my grades in the exact same way that he couldn’t let his feelings for me impede upon his performance in the tournament. So, I didn’t see him at all for that time, although I couldn’t stop the negative thoughts and nightmares despite that.

The day of the symposium finally arrived, and I was well-prepared. I had a presentation put together on anatomy, and had spent hours practicing my presentation in front of Luke, who used his past as a talking skeleton to give me pointers and correct my mistakes.

I was well-prepared enough, in fact, that my presentation went incredibly well. I finished my presentation and stepped off of the stage, smiling in reaction to the applause coming from the small group of attendees, one of whom was my professor.

“Well, Miss Harper,” my professor said, approaching me as I packed up my laptop and other materials, “I must say that you gave an excellent presentation. I’ll award you the extra credit.”

I couldn’t help but smile even wider. “Thank you, Professor.”

“Remember that this is a one time thing,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “I hope you’ll try harder from now on to be present in class and stay on top of your work.”

I nodded vehemently. “I will. Thank you again.”

The professor smiled, then left. I decided to stay at the symposium for a while longer and listen to some of the other presentations, as well as to walk around and look at the other projects that were laid out on tables around the gymnasium.

As I walked around and looked at all of the projects, I suddenly felt a familiar presence in the room. I froze for a moment, then jerked my head up from the particular project on mold that I was looking at, only to see none other than Enzo standing on the other side of the room.

He had his head bent and appeared to be looking at a project as well, but as I stared at him, he suddenly lifted his head as well and made eye contact with me.

His brown eyes began to glow ever so slightly red when he saw me, but he quickly looked away.

I figured that it was too late now to pretend that I hadn’t seen him — besides, I was curious as to why he was here instead of practicing hockey — and decided to make my way over to where he stood.

“Hey,” I said sheepishly as I approached, stopping to stand in front of him. “Surprise seeing you here.”

muttered. We kept a respectable distance between ourselves, but I could still pick up a bit of his scent from where I stood, and it took some focus to not let it get to me. “You did

then as there was an awkward silence between us, before my eyes finally fell on the table we were standing

I scanned the posterboard, my eyes

project on biology or anatomy; it was a project on

Specifically, their weaknesses.

On the other half of the poster board, there were bullet points of

bullet, a wolfsbane flower, and the handle of an axe — the head had been removed, of course, to keep with the rules of no weapons being allowed on campus, but below it was a small card that mentioned how werewolves could not regenerate

stomach. When I looked back up at Enzo, his

made this,” he said, gesturing to the sick project. There was no name attached

think…” I began, my voice trailing

shrugged, glancing over at his shoulder. As he did, a couple of other students quickly looked away. I wondered if

wanna man up and try to kill me himself, so he’s

him, Enzo suddenly gritted his teeth and kicked the table, sending it toppling over and causing the project to scatter across the

said incredulously. “You can’t do

allowed to blatantly suggest killing me to an entire host of angry and

his table isn’t gonna help your cause,” I whispered, bending down to pick up the scattered items as people looked

his breath, then helped me pick

there a problem here?” an attendant, one of the professors, said as she walked

my head. “No, sorry. It was an

me, but at Enzo — but didn’t say anything else and walked away, seeing as how we cleaned up the mess.

like that,” I whispered. “I’ve been trying really hard to get more people to your side, and it’s been working. I know you’re angry and that what happened in the tunnels

solemnly as he stared at the

go,” I said, turning to walk away. “I