Fire & Ice

two

I laid in my bed for a while just breathing in my mom's scent that still lingered on my pillow. I played some music on my phone and ended up falling asleep for a while. When I woke up again it was to the door slamming shut and what sounded like a thud. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and got out of bed to see what the noise was about. Opening the door to my bedroom I looked out toward the front door and found Cassandra sitting in front of the door leaning her back against it.

            "You okay?" I asked unsure if she wanted some help.

            "Can you give me a hand?" Cassandra asked looking up from her lap.

            I didn't say anything about her red rimed eyes or wet cheeks but walked over to her and held out my hand. She took it and I helped her to her feet. I rested my hand against her waist to make sure she was steady on her feet.

            "You sure you're okay?" I asked not wanting to let go of the girl.

            "I will be, do you want something for lunch?" Cassandra asked as she limped out of my hold to our little kitchen.

            "Did you bring kitchen utensils? Because when I looked at the cabinets yesterday they were empty." I asked and watched Cassandra slowly move around the kitchen.

            "Yea, my parents went overboard when I told them I wanted to dorm. They went out and bought a set of pots, pans and utensils. So we don't have much in the fridge so I was hoping that we could do food shopping together to get some stuff to keep here." Cassandra said and looked in the freezer.

            "Sounds like a plan, once I get my hockey schedule we will be good to go." I said and watched as she pulled out a frozen pizza.

            "This okay?" She asked.

            "Yup that's fine Cassandra." Her name just rolling off my tongue.

            "Ew no, Cassie is just fine. The only people who call me Cassandra are my parents." Cassie said put the pizza onto a pan and put it in the oven.

            "You got it Cassie." I said. The new name made me smile as Cassie threw the pizza box into the garbage.

            "So, you're a hockey player hun." Cassie asked and lowered herself into the chair across from me.

            "Yup, here on scholarship to play for the women's team, speaking of, I have a team meeting in about an hour at the hockey house." I said.

            "You must be pretty good then to be here on scholarship, division 1 team and all." Cassie said.

            "I can handle my own. If my friend Travis was here he would go on and on about my high school stats." I said thinking of all the times Travis has done the very same in the past.

            "He play for the men's team?" Cassie asked.

            "Yea, he is going to be playing with your brother this year, but before that we played on our high school and travel team together." I said.

            "You played on the guys team?" Cassie asked.

            "Yup, there were never enough girls to make a league so I just played with the guys." I said.

            Cassie hummed in acknowledgement and we chatted a bit more about ourselves while the pizza cooked. I found out that Cassie is legal studies major and is taking a minor in criminal justice. After graduation she wants to go to law school. Even though I'm really here to play hockey I'm a business major. It is a backup plan if playing hockey professionally doesn't work out.