My Hockey Alpha

Nina

“Nina?” Jessica asked, finally making me tear my gaze away from the door where the two new transfer students had just disappeared through. “Knock knock. Anyone in there?”

I shuddered as I came back to my senses and turned back to face Lori and Jessica, who were looking at me with concern. “Sorry,” I said, forcing a fake smile. “Just got a little distracted.”

“I’ll say,” Lori replied, pursing her lips. “You have got to stop staring at that new guy. His girlfriend is gonna get pissed.”

I nodded and headed back to the fitting room. “I know,” I replied. “I’ll stop.”

But as I took off the black dress and changed back into my regular clothes, then paid for the dress at the counter, I still couldn’t quite get my mind off of what I had seen in the mirror. As the boy and I locked eyes, it really did seem as though his face was morphing into Enzo’s. And for a moment, I swore that he recognized me, too. But as soon as I turned around, he looked nothing like Enzo again, and he didn’t seem to recognize me at all anymore. Maybe I needed therapy or something, because this was getting out of hand. Lori was right; if I kept staring at that boy every time I saw him, his girlfriend would certainly start to get suspicious — and I didn’t need another Lisa on my hands.

After we bought our dresses, Lori, Jessica and I made our way over to the cafe to enjoy some coffee and pastries. It was just like it used to be — if I pushed my strange familiarity with the new boy, my apparent looming insanity over losing Enzo, and the fact that a quarter of the stores on this little shopping strip were boarded up because of the Crescent attack. Then at least I was able to pretend that everything was normal.

As we stepped into the coffee shop, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. The two new students weren’t here, so I was able to just focus on enjoying coffee and pastries with my friends. We ordered our food and sat down, and I couldn’t help but smile a bit as Jessica prattled on about how excited she was for the dance and how good we all looked in our dresses. In a way, I almost felt like I was in high school again and as though it was the day before prom. I also couldn’t deny the fact that I was excited as well to have a bit of fun — not to mention the fact that the fundraising from this dance would be good for our campus.

were sitting together and chatting, however, when I suddenly felt someone bump into me. Something warm

and

standing beside me. She was staring down at me with a cardboard coffee cup in her hand — which was now empty — and although she apologized, she didn’t actually seem regretful at all. In fact, when I looked into her eyes, I could tell that she did it on purpose. There was a hint of

Selena.

was Selena. I could see it in her eyes. The way she looked at me was too familiar,

anything, her appearance quickly faded back to that of the new girl. I blinked a few times, feeling confused. But by then, Jessica had apparently

accident?” Jessica said, standing. “I saw

eyes. “I did not! There’s a

should buy her a new one; not only

standing and dabbing at myself with my

dress,” Jessica insisted, her hands balled up into fists at her side. “You needed this, Nina.

her head toward the barista, who was walking our

of us then and folded her arms across her chest. “You four are disturbing the peace,” she said. “If you can’t break it up and calm down, then I’m

sorry,” I muttered. “We’re sorry,