Page 6 of Nothing to Lose: Lost Trilogy: Part 1
I start laughing. “I thought they called them puck bunnies, not ice bunnies.”
“Either way,” he shrugs, “bunnies.”
I smile big when I look at the puck he gave me.
“Bran,” I call to him. “If you’re the next Wayne Gretzky, I’m gonna put this on eBay. Sign it for me,” I think on second thought.
He takes me seriously and starts digging through his backpack until he comes up with a silver marker that would show on the black puck.
“How convenient,” I smirk at him.
“You’re not my first puck,” he shrugs like the giant goofball that he is.
“That’s just great,” I mutter. “That means the value just decreased by about fifteen percent if you got all these signed pucks around.”
“Nah,” he waves me off. “I’ll make this one special,” he promises, tongue sticking out in the corner of his mouth as he writes something. “Here,” he finally gives it back to me.
“This is your lucky puck from Brandon Karlsberg,” I read out loud and start laughing. “This is great, dude, thanks.”
We give each other a very manly bro hug and pat on the back, then split. He wants to go looking for pussy, and I want to go call this one lawyer I found who said he could help me with the paperwork tomorrow. The dude is some second cousin of this girl I dated for two days or so, and he has recently graduated law school. So, I can afford him.
I glance down again and smile at the puck Brandon gave me. Getting it in my backpack feels like a chore right now, so I just decide to stick it in the large chest pocket of my long sleeved polo shirt.
The campus is eerily quiet right now, the gaggles of girls following me around having left.
The walk to the lot where I parked is a little ways away from the hockey arena, so I take my time as I stroll through the soft and inviting looking grass.
The quietness of the normally busy campus is giving me the creeps, and I almost jump out of my skin when a small rabbit pops out of nowhere. It seems as if I startled him, too, and I trip over my own feet when I try to step sideways.
Just as I think I’m safe, a silent whooshing sound breezes my way, and, as if in slow motion, I feel something hitting my chest. The pain is almost unbearable, and the element of surprise throws me to the ground.
Before I know it, I am lying on my back on the soft grass I was admiring only seconds ago. I stare at the blue sky, wondering why I am not dead.
I have no idea how long I just lie here for. My cell phone starts ringing at some point, but I don’t have the energy or state of mind to reach into the pocket of my dress pants to grab it.
“Fuck,” I grunt when I am finally able to form words. I lift my head a little and look around. I am surprised when I lock eyes with the captain of the lacrosse team. He is just shaking his head at me in disappointment.
“You need to lay off the hard stuff, man,” he tells me. “Look what it’s doing to your body.”
I don’t even understand what he’s telling me, so I just drop my head back on the grass.
A few minutes later, or maybe hours, who knows, my cell phone is vibrating with a message.
I bring my hands to my chest and start patting around, making sure that I am indeed alright.
“What the fuck was that?” I talk to myself like a lunatic, but seriously, it’s like I got hit by an invisible train. No one is going to believe this shit when I tell them.
I frown in confusion when I feel a small tear in the chest pocket of my shirt. I glance down to take a look. I know it wasn’t there before…
“Holy fuck,” I murmur again when I pull out the puck Bran gave me only minutes ago. Now, it feels like a lifetime.
This is your lucky puck… I see the words written on the puck, but I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it. It seems as if there’s a deep indentation in the middle of theOinyour.
It’s as if…
I take a moment to regroup, scared to death to look around me, worried about what I might find.
This was no invisible train. Invisible trains wouldn’t leave a perfectly rounded hole that went almost through the puck and into my chest.
