Ela

𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒚 doesn’t party. she doesn’t drink and definitely doesn’t smoke. she’s an athlete, so she’s always scared that there might be a random drug test and she’ll get her scholarship taken away. okay, scratch that. she used to not party. until you dragged her to one, claiming that it would be good for her to socialize instead of only practicing and sticking her nose in books.

she was hesitant at first, but because it was you dragging her out, she couldn’t exactly say no. & now, with being slightly drunk and buzzed off of weed, she was definitely leaning into whatever thoughts she had been having about you for the past couple months. abby had been lying to herself—saying these weird feelings and needs were just her being confused. nah, it wasn’t confusion. it was straight yearning—not straight, gay yearning.

𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒚 who makes any excuse to see you during the day. you two don’t share the same classes because of her soccer scholarship, but whenever she’s in the same corridor as you, she tries ( and fails miserably ) to start conversations with you. she’ll trip over her words and make random comments, to which her best friend, ellie, teases her about it non stop. you, of course, don’t mind and even giggle a bit at her attempt to talk to you.

𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒚 who noticed you had a bit of a habit with twirling your hair when you’re nervous. after keeping her hair relatively short because of soccer, she opted into growing it out a bit; offering to let you braid her hair or do random hairstyles when she notices you getting anxious during studying.

𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒚 who blushes every time you give her a compliment. she’s not used to being girly or anything because of being a jock, but whenever you give her small compliments about how beautiful she is or how well she did her makeup, she can’t help but flush completely. her entire face will go red, making you laugh. she knows you’re not making fun of her because you’ll end up cupping her cheeks and squishing them between your palms, morning about how cute she is.

𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒚 came to terms with her sexuality after following you to a party. she didn’t want to get high, but with the whole atmosphere being lose, she couldn’t help but follow the motion of the crowd. with the haze and daze of weed, abby’s eyes stayed on you the entire night. she admired your curves in your dress and the way your lips curled when you smiled. what really brought out the yearning for you was when she saw the way you kissed another girl drunkenly.

she knew you had a habit of one night stands. abby wasn’t too particularly fond of the idea of you sleeping with random girls, but when she saw your hands cascade into the other girl’s hair.. yeah, she knew she was in to you in a completely different way than just friends.

𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒚 invites you to all of her soccer game and of course you come! you even sport her jersey, painting black lines beneath your eyes and shouting her name in the stands. she absolutely adores it. it’s like having a personal fan girl, and she can’t help but look at you between goals. ellie, on the other hand, teases her about it non stop. you three had gotten close recently, and ellie always tells you about how abby can’t stop talking about you to her.

𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒚 gets desperately shy when you flirt with her. she knows your gay, so she also knows that you mean everything you say. you’ll call her pretty, beautiful, gorgeous, and even let a ‘babe’ slip out here and there when asking her to do something. it makes her heart race. like you’re talking to her as if she’s your girlfriend. she had never gotten so excited about the word before, but when thinking of you, it makes her jittery.

𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒚 finally confesses to you at the end of the semester before summer break. she doesn’t do it in this whole dramatic way like she intended. instead, she does it quietly. when the two of you are binging a show and suddenly your bodies are closer than before. she knows that she won’t see you for two months and you might not even dorm together next year. she couldn’t let the opportunity pass by her.

“y/n.” she murmurs your name beneath her breath, making you turn your face to her. her blue hues admire your own; taking in the way they sparkle from the movie in the background. you look beautiful like this—all cozied up beside her with messy makeup and pajamas. “can i kiss you?”

her question doesn’t catch you off guard. no, you’ve been waiting for this the entire year. “thought you’d never ask..”

You would’ve never thought running into the star hockey player on your first day of college would lead you to this moment: her on her knees in front of you on her bed.

It’s been a month of late nights spent in Abby’s room giggling incessantly over stupid Instagram reels, walking to classes with your hand brushing hers, doodling on each other’s paper as you studied in the library. And every second you feel like you’re getting hockey shoved down your throat. 

She started slowly, mentioning practice whenever you’d meet up or text; exaggerating how tired she was or how some of the freshmen were acting as if they were better than the rest of them. Then it turned to her sending you her practice schedule so you knew when and when not to call her, not because she wanted you to be aware of the event that was happening on September 24.

Only after you got the calendar invite did she start dropping hints as to when the Wolves' first game was. She’d say how hard coach was grilling them because, in his eyes, the first game set the tone for their entire season; she’d ask if you had any white because they had announced earlier that the student section theme was white-out; she’d mention how a few of the team’s girlfriends were coming to support her teammates. 

However, you seemed to be oblivious to her insinuations, always simply nodding along whenever she would bring up hockey. So, Abby thought it was finally time to ask you point blank the Sunday before the game. 

The two of you had set up camp in the library; you had a quiz tomorrow, and Abby had a mound of homework she had been procrastinating until the very last second, like she usually did. You weren’t paying too much attention to her rambling, focused on the words in the textbook in front of you.

It was only when she nudged you that you finally looked up for the first time since sitting down. “What?”

“Did you hear me at all?”

“Uhhh no.”

She sighed, closing her notebook and placing her hands on the table, “I asked you if you were busy Friday night.”

“Don’t think so, why?” 

“You wanna come to the game?”

“What game?”

“The game that I’ve been talking about for like a month now.”

You blinked at her, “Oh. Right. Uh, I dunno, Abs. I’m not a huge hockey person.”

“You don’t have to be! I can give you a crash course or I’ll have Dina sit next to you and she can explain everything.”

“Abs…” She pouted at your hesitant tone, that cute, adorable pout you had grown to love and typically succumb to, but your uneasiness outweighed it this time. “I’ll think about it, but do not get your hopes up.”

For the next three days, you’d get a text, or she’d show up to hang out and would always start by asking if you would come to the game. You were lucky if that was the only time you’d get the question that day.

And that’s what led you here, to the night before game day with Abby kneeling in front of you, hands pressed against your thighs as she all but begged you to come to the game. “Please please please please please. I’ll even give you my jersey! We can match.”

You stared down at her. “What do I get if I go?”

Abby froze, mind racing a million miles an hour at the possibilities of the things she could get or give you for coming to her game, “Ice cream?”

“You’ll need to do better than that, Abs.”

“I- I’ll buy your textbooks next semester!”

“No way. I don’t even know if I’ll need textbooks next semester.”

Her lip jutted out, her list of ideas now running out. She waited a few seconds before she spoke again, eyes lighting up with a new suggestion, “I’ll let you take that hoodie you always ask me for and two more.”

“I get to pick the other two?”

“Yep.”

“Free range?”

“Yeah.”

You paused, “Fine.”

Abby jumped up from her knees, letting out an excited yell, “Yes! I knew I would get you to come to the game. Ellie owes me twenty bucks.”

“You bet on whether you could get me to come to a game?”

“Well… yes, but I did genuinely want you to go.”

You glared at her before relenting, flopping backwards on her bed. She lay down beside you, poking your nose, “You’ll wear my jersey right?”

“Do I have to?”

“No… but I’d like you to.”

You stared at her for a second. “I suppose I will. It doesn’t smell gross, does it?”

“No! I washed it.”

“Unlike some other things you wear.”

“Hey!” 

You giggled at the offended look on her face, blocking your stomach as her hands came up to tickle you, “Abby! Stop stop! I’ll wear it.”

She grinned, “Good.”

You watched as she got up and walked to the closet, grabbing it off the hanger and handing it to you, “Here you are, your majesty.”

“Thank you, good sir.” 

“You’re welcome, m’lady.”

“You do remember I said I know nothing about this sport, right? The best I can give you is a go team.”

“Go team?”

“Yeah, at least I’m being supportive of everyone.”

“How about you just cheer me on?”

“You think so highly of yourself don’t you?”

“Yep.”

𓍼

You were not prepared for the number of eyes you were going to have on you walking into the arena. Sophie and Dina flanked your sides, talking back and forth as you self-consciously glanced around you at everyone staring at the name across your back.

“Dina?”

“What’s up? You okay?”

“Why is half the campus population looking at me like I just committed a crime?”

She smirked at your question, “You’re wearing Abby Anderson’s jersey; surely you didn’t expect people not to look at you.”

“I mean, I guess I thought about it, but I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.”

The three of you settled into your seats, shivers running through you as you tried to grow aclimatized to the colder temperature in the arena. You weren’t really paying attention to warm ups, going through your text messages, swiping away notifications you couldn’t care less about. Though, when the girls behind you filed in, you overheard their conversation, plucking away your focus.

“She’s one of those girls isn’t she?”

“Who?”

The girl sat directly behind you gestured in your direction, “Paid an obscene amount of money to get Abby’s name plastered on her jersey.”

You tensed at the mention of Abby, glancing between your roommate and Dina, who had seemed to aslo be eavesdropping on the conversation. You weren’t going to say anything, it didn’t mean anything to you. You weren’t dating Abby, you didn’t even like her, at least that was something you were telling yourself as the days went on.

So when you saw Dina turned around, a fake smile on her lips, you stiffened even more. 

“You know, it isn’t a good habit to make assumptions.”

The girl only rolled her eyes, “It’s obvious, Abby never gives her jersey out to anyone, you know how many people in this arena alone have tried to get it from her?”

“I’m sure lots, but this lucky lady did it in the matter of four weeks, didn’t you, y/n?”

You looked up, looking over your shoulder, “I guess?”

“Ellie told me she had to practically beg you to wear it.”

That seemed to make the girls eyes widen. Everyone knew Dina and Ellie were dating, it was as much common sense as the sky being blue. “There’s no way.” One of them murmured.

“It’s true. So stop saying things when you don’t know the truth.” Dina turned back around without another word.

“What did they mean?” You whispered, confused.

Your newfound friend deflated like she had never wanted to tell you what she was about to say, “Abby was a huge player last year, don’t ask me how many people she slept with, but. Anyway, a lot of girls tried getting her jersey to wear to games but she never let them… some of them resorted to ordering a customer jersey with her name on it so people would think they finally got it.”

“Oh.”

You didn’t say anything else, shifting your gaze to the ice where the girls were still warming up. Your eyes found Abby immediately, standing near center ice as she talked to one of the members on the opposing team. 

Once she skated away, she scanned the crowd and found you almost immediately. When your eyes locked, you felt a sudden warmth flow through you, a tiny, shy smile making it’s way onto your face. She smirked back at you, waving, which caught the attention of several teammates and people in the crowd.

It was then that you heard a snicker from behind you again, “Can’t believe Abby gave her jersey to her. I could name a hundred other people who should’ve gotten that jersey instead.”

𓍼

Everything Dina explained to you about hockey went right over your head. She tried explaining offsides and icing, tried to explain the penalties, tried explaining what players were doing at certain times, but you were retaining no information other than Abby was a defenseman and Ellie was a center. 

Throughout the game, you could hear snide comments from everywhere around you; the girls behind you making it their personal mission to antagonize you, people surrounding you as you waited in line for the bathroom or to get food, etc. 

You tried not to pay attention to it, you did, focusing on Abby when she was on the ice and trying to understand the logistics of the sport, cheering whenever the team did something good and booing whenever they did something bad. 

So when there was three minutes left to go in the third and the Wolves holding a comfortable lead over their opponents, you sighed in relief as Dina nudged you and grabbed hold of your elbow, “C’mon, we can meet them in the tunnel.”

The three of you pushed through the crowd of students and Bridgehaven fans, you and Sophie trailing after Dina as you attempted to calm your nerves; something about meeting Abby after the multiple side-eyes and comments were thrown at you all night made your stomach flutter with butterflies.

Your hands fidgeted with your rings, twisting them back and forth, focusing on the faint sounds from the rink as the game continued. It wasn’t until you heard skates tapping across the floor of the arena that you looked up, seeing Abby’s wide grin.

You squealed softly as she wrapped you in a hug and picked you up, twirling you around slightly before setting you down. “You came!”

“I told you I would, you doof.”

“And you're sporting the best jersey in the world, I see. Wonder where you got it from.”

By that time, Dina had left once she laid eyes on her girlfriend, and Sophie moved away from the two of you to give some sense of space. 

“I think I remember someone threatening me to wear it.”

“I did not threaten you.” She glared, “I asked nicely.”

“You were being a pest.”

You jumped when multiple members of her team clapped her on the back, walking towards the locker room, each shouting their own form of congratulations or good job with the occasional whistle or teasing remark about how they had never seen her smile that much since they met her. 

“What’s all that about?”

You watched as she flushed a deep shade of red, but chalked it up to how hard she had been working throughout the game, and it was only now catching up to her. She shook her head, “Nothing, they’re just being assholes. You okay?”

Abby must’ve noticed the uncomfortable look on your face, tilting her head as if trying to figure out what had happened to cause you to feel that way.

“I’m fine.” You gave her a weak smile in return.

“Lies. C’mon, tell me.”

“I just- people were making comments.”

Her face hardened. “What kind of comments?”

“Nothing big!” You tried to reassure her, “They were surprised I was wearing your jersey, that’s all. I promise.”

“You swear that was it?”

“Yeah.”

She took a deep breath before nodding and moving on, “You comin to the after party, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I’m kind of tired, Abs. Plus, I used all my energy trying to muster up the courage to come to the game.”

She pouted but nodded anyway, “Fine. But tomorrow I definitely expect you to be at the party.”

“That I will agree to.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.” You smiled before kissing her cheek and walking off, linking arms with Sophie as you headed back to your dorm.

Abby went the whole way back to the locker room with a stupidly love-sick smile on her face, plopping down on the bench next to one of her teammates and untying her skates. Her teammate nudged her, “What’s with that look? Has Anderson finally found someone to obsess over?”

“What! No! I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Bullshit!” Ellie called from across the room.”

“Ellie.” Abby scolded, her voice firm enough that it should’ve deterred anyone from continuing the conversation. However, her teammates were not just anyone.

“You’ve gone soft.”

She rolled her eyes, “I have not gone soft. You’re imagining things.”

Her captain finally but in, eyes narrowed, “They’re not lying, Abby. You’ve been… different.”

What Abby failed to notice was the quiet fondness her captain held in her voice, like her personality change was for the better and not for the worse. But Abby was always one to jump to conclusions, and if her teammates thought she was going soft and it was affecting her game? Then she was going to fix it.

She made quick work of changing out of her uniform and taking a shower, throwing on the clothes she had stashed away. Once freshly clean and changed, she sat down on the bench, phone in hand, fingers flying over the keyboard before finally shutting it off and throwing it in bag.

ⓘ BRIDGEHAVEN UNIVERSITY NOTICEBOARD UPDATE ˎˊ˗

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