#early practice

The final bell for the school day rang which sent a wave of relief through the student body; most of them anyways. For the others, the day was far from over. Wednesday was a rather busy in terms of activities for the student body who participated in after-school clubs. Ranging from curricular activities to the athletic department, Wednesdays were lively around the school and Grace loved them for that reason. Between looking after the newspaper and stopping by the yearbook club for the weekly meeting, Grace had a short window to go socialize with her fellow peers who were around the school. Wednesday was also the only day that she had the chance to catch a certain someone after their ice hockey practice. That was the only motivation she had to get her through her repetitive tasks. Grace found her eyes constantly glancing over at the clock in the newspaper room, hoping that if she rushed everyone fast enough that she could catch Noah before practice ended. If she got lucky, she could at least talk to him for a few minutes before her headed home. Grace aided the club members who needed her to double check their writings and tried her best to listen to their pitches about other stories they wanted to do. Surprisingly, rather than it be one of those stressful days, Grace was being very lenient with what she read and the pitches she heard. All she wanted was to end their meeting early so she could speak with Noah for a few moments.

But enough was enough. Grace was being generous with the ridiculous story ideas that the students suggested and some of the grammar in the rough drafts made her skin crawl. Her eyes took note of the time and there was only five minute left until ice hockey practice would end and there was still twenty more minute left in this meeting. It pained her to do this but she forced a smile onto her face and spoke anyways. “Great. Great! All of those pitches… Wonderful. You know what? You all have been working so incredibly hard these past few weeks so this is what’s going to happen. This meeting is done. I’ll get the paper printed for Monday on my own, and all of your work will be in this edition.” The group of students were ecstatic and Grace kept that smile on her face; forcefully. It was hard not to speak over enthusiastically and coat her words with sarcasm but the students some-how bought it. Grace painfully held the smile as her peers shuffled happily outside of the club room and the moment they were all gone, Grace sighed loudly and shook her head. That meant fixing all the grammatical errors, submitting every story no matter how boring it was but it was going to be worth it. After a few moments of possibly regretting what she just did, she realized that standing around in the room and overthinking it would ruin why she took it all upon herself in the first place. Grace picked up her black coat and slipped it over her small white dress before quickly collecting her bag and stepping out of the room. She tried to walk quickly as she could in her heeled shoes, not wanting to miss Noah before he would get back inside to change or home after his practice.

The moment she stepped outside of the school, the cold air hit and she realized she wasn’t entirely dressed to stay outside for far too long but it didn’t stop her. She carefully walked towards the outdoor rink, trying to avoid snow when she could and the ice on the ground. From a distance, she could see that the practice hadn’t ended and that gave her some relief. Despite the sun setting, Grace could still make out a few of the students on the team; particularly Noah who towered over the majority of them.  She smiled as she could see him standing around while the rest of the team was doing drills. She assumed as captain, Noah could lazily watch and stand around while everyone else practiced, although she could have easily just caught him taking a break. Grace obviously went with the idea that Noah Lockwood was being slothful. Grace managed to reach the outside of the rink just as practice ended and the boys were heading out. She kept her head down a little, acknowledging any of the students who greeted her first. Most of them knew why Grace was there and it wasn’t really a secret that Noah and her were more than just friends. Grace laughed under her breath bashfully (which was rare) when one of the ice hockey players teasingly asked what she was doing there. After letting them all step out of the rink, Grace could see Noah skating over towards her to step out as well.